wood splitter 4 way head.

[namesray]

looking to modify a mtd wood splitter to a 4 way splitting head. i have some ideas in my head, but looking for others with experience and input. pictures are gladly welcome. some of my first ideas are to switch the head from the ram to the end of the i beam and make the ram the pusher. also have the 4 way head on a slide up/down to allow for centering it on the block. and also allowing the 4 way head to set down on the "cross" split on the i beam to allow for single split still or raise it up to center it within the block to split 4 way. this will be an ongoing project for over the winter and i very much apreciate any help.

 

[muddstopper]

What you are proposeing to do is exactly the way I built my splitter. I am not at my home computer so I dont have any pic to post. One thing to consider before doing your modifications is if your splitter is capable to split vertically as well as horizonally, a wedge on the end of the Hbeam will prevent vertical use. If you are comfortable with loseing this feature then the fab work shouldnt be that difficult. Besides, you can always build a log lift to raise the log into splitting position for horizonal splitting.

 

[namesray]

What you are proposeing to do is exactly the way I built my splitter. I am not at my home computer so I dont have any pic to post. One thing to consider before doing your modifications is if your splitter is capable to split vertically as well as horizonally, a wedge on the end of the Hbeam will prevent vertical use. If you are comfortable with loseing this feature then the fab work shouldnt be that difficult. Besides, you can always build a log lift to raise the log into splitting position for horizonal splitting.

excellent. can't wait to see some pictures. mine is a horz-vert but i don't like the vert position any way, so don't mind losing that feature. one of the first problems/obstacles i am having is how to allow the 4 way head to sink down through the i beam to lower the center of the head for smaller diameter blocks. i am thinking of after i cut the old stopper off the back, to add a plate off the back, kinda like a table with a slot cut in it for the head to go down through. this might throw the balance of the splitter off though with too much weight in the back, but i could always counter weight. in want the height adjustment of the 4 way head to be simple and quick. i thought about just having it slide on grooves on a bracket below the 4 way head that could be raised up to desired height by hand and held there until block contacted it holding it in place, but might not be the best idea. thinking of also like a jack stand crank for quick adj that would hold itself in place. it would be quick, but don't know how to place it conviently on the splitter. when i get this built, i will be able to split 90% of the wood i do with 1 split, just seperating the larger sizes a bit. i do just under 100 cord a year.

 

[jimmysisson]

I wonder if you could, instead of fabbing something off the end, just make a couple of wedges to weld onto the surface of the beam. Say the last 6" before the splitting wedge, and high enough to raise the log over the horizontal wing splitting wedges. Simple enough to try, and to grind off if it's not successful. You'd have to allow your 4-way to raise a bit higher to get the same capacity.
There are lots of ways people design the moving 4-way: pushing up, pulling up, hid behind the main wedge, sitting over the main wedge. Many have appeared on TBN.
Jim

 

[muddstopper]

Here is a pic of my wedge

 

[muddstopper]

With side wedges and boom. I over loaded the boom and broke it off at the bottom. I'll eventually get around to putting it back on

 

[namesray]

thanks for replys guys. jim i must not have my brain turned on today, as i am having a hard time trying to picture exactly what you told me. "high enough to raise log over wing splitting wedges." how i take it is instead of having the 4 way move, if i wanted to just split 1 way keep the block elevated and split above the wings instead of lowering the wedge down and to center smaller blocks, just elevate/suspend them instead of the wedge? in quick words, move the block of wood to center it on the fixed/welded wedge instead of the other way around? sorry, some times i just don't read/understand things right. maybe a picture if you have one. like you said, just a welded wedge=simple and simple is what i am after, so long as it works easily.

muddstopper, that is a serious looking splitter. you did alot of fab word on that as seen in the pictures. great job. i appreciated the close up or the hyd/lift mechinism to raise lower the wedge. i don't think i will go with hydraulic, but maybe something else to substitute, but keep the cam idea. as for the "c" channel that the 4 way is guided in at the rear of the splitter, that is sorta how i pictured it in my head. i am leaning towards just a hand/mechanical raise/ lower of the 4 way and after seeing your pic of the rear "c" channel/slide i am now thinking having a series of holes drilled in both the wedge and "c" channel sides that line up and just using a pin/bolt to go through the set of holes to lock at desired height. not as good as your hyd raise/lower, but simpler for me.

another question. is there any issue with the 2 lower pieces of splitting wood getting jammed against the i beam as it is splitting/spreading apart downward off the horizontal split? maybe that could be advoided by not having much flat surface under the 4 way wings?

another question. how much support might be needed to brace the "c" channel at the rear? i see in the picture it looks like the entire height of "c" channel and about 5-8" in the back? probably i should go over kill on it as i am sure it will take quite a bit of stress/strain.

yet another question. if i did go with a hydraulic raise lower, would it be able to be incorporated on the splitter with the existing valve. just run flow through first valve (ram) and then through another oc valve that run the raise lower? would this slow cycle time or decrease splitting force? and i was told hyd valves are expensive= close to $1000. wow!!! plus hoses, fittings, and such. special valve i would need?

 

[sal64]

hello i made a 2way wedge for my spliter it droped over the excisting wedge ,i used it once or twice and didnt like it it makes the spliter more dangerous and puts more stress on my spliter.

 

[muddstopper]

muddstopper, that is a serious looking splitter. you did alot of fab word on that as seen in the pictures. great job. i appreciated the close up or the hyd/lift mechinism to raise lower the wedge. i don't think i will go with hydraulic, but maybe something else to substitute, but keep the cam idea. as for the "c" channel that the 4 way is guided in at the rear of the splitter, that is sorta how i pictured it in my head. i am leaning towards just a hand/mechanical raise/ lower of the 4 way and after seeing your pic of the rear "c" channel/slide i am now thinking having a series of holes drilled in both the wedge and "c" channel sides that line up and just using a pin/bolt to go through the set of holes to lock at desired height. not as good as your hyd raise/lower, but simpler for me.

As for lifting the wedge, You can always substitude a mechanical lever setup in place of the hydraulic cylinder, but I think you would really get tired of that methoid in a very short time. My wedge is pretty heavy and lifting with a lever would mean a pretty long lever to make lifting easy. Probably take two hands and a lot of grunt work. Hydraulics are not that hard and parts can be found at the local scrap yard pretty cheap. You can use your current control valve like it is and plumb in a power beyond valve before the splitter valve. I got my lift valve off of a old scraped ditchwitch trencher for $10.

another question. is there any issue with the 2 lower pieces of splitting wood getting jammed against the i beam as it is splitting/spreading apart downward off the horizontal split? maybe that could be advoided by not having much flat surface under the 4 way wings?

If you look closely at my lift assembly, you will notice that the wedge just sits ontop of the lift arms. I used a sealed bearing at the bottom of the lift arms which allows the blade to just coast along the lift arms as it is raised. With this setup, any wood that wedges under the splitting wedge will just lift the blade since it sets freely inside the hbeam. You should also be able to notice that the wing wedges are only sharpen on the top side, this allows the bottom half of the split to just slide under the wedge instead of being forced downward as it is split. The bottom half of the split just slides along the top of the hbeam and so far hasnt caused me any issues with getting stuck or bound between the wedge or hbeam.

another question. how much support might be needed to brace the "c" channel at the rear? i see in the picture it looks like the entire height of "c" channel and about 5-8" in the back? probably i should go over kill on it as i am sure it will take quite a bit of stress/strain.

What I did, I did because my Hbeam wasnt long enought to start with so I had to extend it. I was able to cut the web out of the hbeam and slot the top and bottom to allow the blade to slide thru the beam, but there just wasnt enought hbeam to add a backbone to support the wedge. What I did was to add a peice of metal, I used 3/4in plate simply because thats what I had on hand. I used scrap metal to shim the extentions for the proper width of the blade and then welded it to the hbeam on each side. I placed the backbone inbetween the extentions and welded it in place. Because the top and bottom of the hbeam wanted to flex with out any support, I added a piece of 6in channel to the extentions and welded the hbeam flanges to it. All this added metal made the wedge super rigid and I dont see any flexing or twisting while splitting. I dont know if you can see it in the pics, but I had to add similar metal at the back to support the cylinder. If my hbeam had been longer, I would have probably built it different.

yet another question. if i did go with a hydraulic raise lower, would it be able to be incorporated on the splitter with the existing valve. just run flow through first valve (ram) and then through another oc valve that run the raise lower? would this slow cycle time or decrease splitting force? and i was told hyd valves are expensive= close to $1000. wow!!! plus hoses, fittings, and such. special valve i would need?

I think I already answerd this, but I cant see anywhere you would have to spend $1000 for a hydraulic valve. Go to the scrap yard and look for any piece of hydraulic equipment and get the valves off of it. You do need to make sure the valve is compatable for power beyond and large enought to support the flow of your hydraulic pump. Most likely, you current splitting valve is not power beyond capable but you would add the new valve before the splitter valve in your hydraulic circuit. While robbing the scrap valve, also get the fittings and hoses. If the hoses are to long, you can always cut one end off and have a new fitting crimped on. This will be a lot cheaper than having all new hoses made up. How much you invest on this project will depend on how resourcefull you are at scaveging parts at the scrap yard and by how much of the fab work you can do yourself. And dont forget to look for a hydraulic cylinder to use for your wedge lift while at the scrap yard, I am using a steering cylinder off a small backhoe. My cylinder is only about a 1 1/2in bore with a 6in stroke. It is low pressure so make sure if you go that route that you lower the pressure settings to less than 1000psi. You would do this at the control valve and it wont effect the splitting pressure of your splitting ram.

 

[namesray]

you say a power beyond capable valve. i am unclear of pb full function/purpose. two open center valves would not work? obviously not as you specified pb cap valve, but is that why i would need pb because of now having 2 valves on same circut and does pb reroute flow to second valve when one valve is in operation? i have never understood pb.

good point about the weight of the wedge being heavy and becoming a pain real quick if raised lowered by hand and not hyds or another mechanical assist. but any type of height adj of wedge is better then none right? i even thought about using my old 3000lb electric winch on a high point or lower point/cam to pull raise and gravity down the wedge, but that would require battery. any good quick way to hook up battery/charging sys. to a briggs/stratton engine or have i finally gone off the deep end with my engineering ideas? since my kubota rtv will be on scene most of time, i could just run wiring/clamps to rtv battery and run winch for raising/lowering wedge and also have the winch cable detach and just use the holes in "c" channel and pin/bolt as a back up way to raise lower if a battery is not available. in my own mind, that would work, but if i understood hydrualics better, i may see better how crazy my electric winch idea is. ha. ha. ha. i know good for a laugh right. keep the ideas comming please.

 

[muddstopper]

To keep your current splitter valve that came on the machine, you would need another valve to run the wedge lift. Since i doubt that you current splitter valve is pb capable you need to plumb a valve that is pb capable before the splitter valve. With power beyond, the hydraulic return can be plumbed to another valve instead of returning straight to the tank. If the valve isnot power beyond, plumbing the return to another valve could result in the first valve cracking under pressure since the return side of the valve is not rated for high pressure. If you find a two spool valve, where both valves are contained in one valve assembly, you can use it to operate both the ram and the wedge lift, but such a valve may or maynot have a detent for the return stoke of the ram. Another option would be to use a selector valve plumbed in after your ram valve. With this type of valve, you simply pull/push the valve to select the hydraulic circuit you wish to operate and then use the one ram valve you already have to operate either the wedge, or the ram, but not both at the same time. I suspect this would make the wedge cylinder lift way to fast and you wouldnt have anyway to reduce the pressure to the lift cylinder. Not anyway unless you also bought a flow control and a pressure relief valve to plumb into the circuit, but then you could have already just bought the pb valve you really needed in the first place. I dont know the flow rating on a mtd splitter but here is a valve that will work up to 8gpm for $95. Surplus Center - 1 SPOOL 8 GPM PRINCE MB11B5C1 DA VALVE
They have larger valves for not much more money.
You can save a lot of money if you go to your local scrap yard and rob a valve, or whole valve bank, off a scraped piece of equipment

There is nothing wrong with using a electric winch to lift the wedge, power up and gravity down, pretty simple. I dont know about hooking a battery to the BS engine. If it doent already have electric start, it could get expensive. I think the rtv would be your best source for electric current.

 

[namesray]

so i take it that power beyond is kinda like a second place for the hyd fluid to return or continuation for that hyd fluid so it doesn't over pressurize? kinda like a form of relief? i think i get it. pb is only needed when there is 2 or more functions capable of happening? i think i will lean towards the electric winch idea as i like simple and i can actually handle fabricating that together, the hyds would be difficult for me at this time with my experience.

muddstopper, do you think that the weight of the 4 way head and the way it moves in the "c" channel bracket would allow it to "gravity" down on its own when i activate the winch? i plan on making the head 16" high and each wing extending 8" out, so 16" by 16" so to say. i feel that would be heavy enough, but would it bind or would wood chips,bark,gunk jam the "slide" action in the "c" channel? any advice there? i also like the electric winch idea because it would allow for the head to raise itself up with the pieces of wood being split if they started to jam as it would just lift the cable up a bit more (only if i mount the winch on a high point). not the best way, but simple for me i think. instead of having a tall rod/platform to get in the way at the back of the splitter, i would like to try to incorporate the winch in place of where you have the hyd raise/lower cylinder. just have the cable pull the cam and gravity take care of the other direction instead of the hyd cylinder push and pulling. you think that could work?

 

[muddstopper]

Sometimes I do get a splinter stuck between the wedge and the guides i have welded on the backbone. I usually just push the wedge to the top of its stroke and it will free up. My cylinder is not pulling the wedge back down, it only pushes it up, I let gravity pull it back down. I see no reason why hooking your winch cable in place of the hydraulic cylinder would cause any problems lifting the wedge.

I know this is something that you want to do using the splitter that you already own, and there is nothing wrong with that, but I am going to make a suggestion.

The splitter you have is currently working as it was intended to work. Instead of modifying it, why not just build what you want and sell the one you have. Everybody seems to want things right now, but with just a little patience and looking around, you can probably source the materials needed to build a really nice splitter that will do what you want it to do. I think you said your wood for this year was already split, that gives you a whole year to locate parts and build a splitter. My biggest expense in building my splitter was buying the hydraulic hoses, about $300. I found the hbeam, and all the wedge and slide materials in the scrap yard for $0.10lb. I gave $10 for the valve bank, the hydraulic pump I picked up out of the dirt at the scrap yard and they gave it to me. I did have to buy the pump mount and coupling, about $100. The trailer was a old boat trailer, free and the 25hp engine I salvaged from a old hydroseeder. The ram cylinder came off a old dump trailer. I didnt keep exact records, but I know I have less than $1000 in the whole setup. I built it in my shop in about a wk last winter, working just a few hrs a day. My shop isnt heated so I mostly worked from about 11am to about 3pm. I did spend several wks scrongeing parts, but once i had everything gathered, it didnt take anytime to put it together. I guess it all depends on what you want and how long you are willing to wait for it, but once you get your new splitter built, you can probably sell the mtd and get most, if not all, of your money back for the new splitter build. If you can fab the new wedge for the mtd, you can fab the splitter you really want. I dont mine offering suggestions or helping, which ever direction you choose to go, but I have found that sometimes its easier to start all over than to try redesigning someone elses work.

Your profile says you are located in NC Pa, is that North Central Pa or NC and Pa. If in NC, what part.

 

[namesray]

Your profile says you are located in NC Pa, is that North Central Pa or NC and Pa. If in NC, what part.

durham! no just kidding. i am however a big Duke Blue Devils fan in the college sports world. always have been since 1991. i have lived in north central pennsylvania all my life.

point well made about just building one from scratch. i have thought along the way that maybe the mtd is not up to the task, but here is my thoughts on that. i have a split fire 3ph splitter that splits in both directions. i like that. quicker and easier then the mtd. the split fire is a 13 ton and has split everything i need it to. the mtd is a 25 ton and i believe 2 stager. i do fire wood as a side business and sell it, so i don't do the knots and crotches and burley stuff much at all, so i figure the mtd would better serve me as a 4 way splitter. i have never tried a 4 way before and actually had the mtd half sold, but the buyer wasn't paying it off, so i got it back as it is worth more to me to keep and modify and use then to go through the monkey business i was going through selling it. i figure if i like it, i keep it. it is handy to me to have 2 splitters at times. if i didn't like it, i could sell it for a bit more as a 4 way then a single and i would have the learning experience to boot. i enjoy learning when i have the time. i learn best hands on, so i have it set in my mind to do this, with a friends help and your help too. i am going to start the modifications here in a bit (neighbor still needs to borrow it soon) then we will get at it. i will start pictures too, before and after. i am a bit excited at this and think i am going to really enjoy it. it is just a simple thing for the most part, but to me i am learning and enjoying it.

you are right though about just building one from scratch. i would like that too, but want to start small for now. if i did go from scratch, it would have a super fast cycle time, hyd adj 4 way like yours, log lift/table, and full detent valves in both directions, and auto return if there is such a thing. and i would build it higher off the ground. that is a reason i like the 3ph split fire, as i can put it at any height i want. really saves the back.