Flywheel logsplitter

[KiwiBro]

Many thousands of m3 split on my SS, which I had to ship from USA to the other side of the planet to own one. If it broke down or was stolen tomorrow, I'd import another. It struggles in very ugly wood, taking a few hits to get through, but almost always gets through if need be. It's not worth my time to be messing with such wood unless I'm getting paid by the hour for doing so. I chase production, mainly split alone, and would prefer to skip the uglies.

I work with farm woodlots and they are seldom straight grained timbers that fall apart at the mere sight of a splitting wedge. But I'd rather have a slighter bigger ugly pile than mess with seriously ugly wood.

 

[dbaer78]

Although I know this is an older thread I'm very interested in feed back from users of all makes of flywheel splitters. Deeply considering purchase of one for my firewood operation in the next year. Can't take the plunge for a processor yet but need to speed up production.

 

[Garandman]

I'll let you know in a few weeks - traveling until the 13th. Tons of Youtube reviews, including wood lots.

 

[Garandman]

So today I got to try out the DR Power Kinetic splitter. What an amazing tool!

I figured I'd load up the [66"] bucket to bring up by the house, as it gets more sun and breeze. Looked at my watch and started splitting. I used a mix of large and small pieces, and split them pretty fine. Almost exactly 10 minutes later, and without rushing or working up a sweat.

Most of the pieces split with one hit without any problem at all. After a while you figure out what is going to give you a problem. I picked this one to see what would happen as the grain was all over the place. The first split took a second hit but the rest were single strokes.

 

[dbaer78]

Glad you're liking it. Looks good behind the kubota. I like the price of the DR but I'm just worried about it's long term durability in a commercial application. I run through a bunch of wood in a season....

 

[Garandman]

One of the reasons I got this style is maintenance and durability. No hoses, pumps, fluid or valves, just two standard v-belts. Super-Split has built kinetic splitters for 30 years and most are still in use.

As far as commercial operators go, there are some larger kinetic machines from TimberWolf but here's a commercial DR operator. These guys run a good sized landscaping and firewood business and claim to have split over 7,000 cords. Kind of a "Charactor" his last line is great. Six month money back guarantee, I learned.

I have a few bigger pieces but this was the biggest piece I split yesterday. Misshapen grain too. No problem

 

[KiwiBro]

Garandman, to the best of my knowledge, Timberwolf have never done a kinetic and certainly never a "larger" one, but I'd be very grateful if you can link us to anything that details otherwise.

Can I ask why you chose DR and not SS?

 

[Garandman]

Can I ask why you chose DR and not SS?

Everyone I know who has a SuperSplit is happy. Although they are also in MA I wasn't in the area.

DR had more models to choose from, has some more modern design features, they had a retail store to look at them and free shipping if I wanted it delivered. I know some of the engineers there. i spoke to a guy in VT who had a DR like the one I bought and was very happy.

SuperSplit does have a model with two 100 lb flywheels, the largest DR is twin 74 lbs and mine is twin 55 lbs. Prices seem similar. There are at least two others, RapidSplit and Split Second, only seen their ads.

I wanted one that could split 24" logs but the K22 is Shorter, lighter, less expensive and will split 18" pieces.

 

[MossRoad]

Has anyone used this type of splitter on locust? I pretty much burn locust exclusively. I have a 20 ton splitter and it can struggle on some of the larger pieces. Thanks in advance.

 

[Garandman]

There are YouTube videos of people splitting locust. I've split Oak, Maple, Ash and Hemlock thus far, only had to double hit on a few pieces with crazy grain.

Found what might be the granddaddy of flywheel splitters.