My home made firewood processor

[Lea]

Wild Bill
I agree with you on the stroke of 24", I will likely get rid of it in few years since I'm not getting any younger and I'm sure that at some point in time I will have to move into the holding bin, at that point I'll get rid of it.

 

[Lea]

Oldnslow correct me if I'm wrong but if the travel motor is run off of a spool valve wouldn't the retract just reverse the motor?

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

Yes it would. If you plan on using a standard spool valve instead of a motor spool valve you will want to add a cushion valve to allow the fluid to cross ports if/when the spool valve is abruptly shut. The momentum of the machine will require at some movement of the fluid to prevent pressure spikes and possible damage to your components.

 

[oldnslo]

Oldnslow correct me if I'm wrong but if the travel motor is run off of a spool valve wouldn't the retract just reverse the motor?

Yes but how would you safely drive it down the hill? Feather the spool valve trying to use it as a brake?

 

[muddstopper]

The species of wood you plan on splitting doesnt sound to be anything really hard. A 4in bore should do alright and the small dia round you are shooting for a 6way wedge will probably work. Looking at your pump, I am guessing you should have plenty of flow to run about any size cyl you choose. With the beef factor of your beam, I think I would go for at least a 5in bore cyl just because I hate to think after all that work i would run into something the machine couldnt split. Thats just me. On length of cyl, I am using 32in stroke cyl, even tho I like to cut my wood 20in long. Around here you have a lot of folks with outdoor burners and they like their wood long. Being able to process longer wood just sort of opens up a side market to recoup some of the expense of building the processor. While a longer cyl will slow down the cycle times, I wager that your pump will make the cycle yime plenty fast enough anyways.

I second the counter balance valve or maybe a brake valve to control stopping the machine. Trying to feather flow and control travel speed I have had my share of and I dont like it.

 

[Lea]

Haven't much to report, still looking for a larger hydraulic cylinder. Can't do much without knowing the size of it, but I did make the wedge ,made it out of three pieces of half inch plate laminated together, here is a couple of pics.
What do you think?
It is 18" wide and 21" tall, it should work for anything I will ever have to split
Lea

 

[muddstopper]

I think you will have binding of your splits. My wedge is very similar to yours. To prevent any binding, I only sharpened one side of each wedge. The bottom wedge is sharpened on the bottom side and the top wedge on the top side. I also made the opening between the wedges wider in the back than the leading edges of the front. If the wedges are sharpened on both side, the wood is forced to go between a narrower space after it contacts the cutting edge. Even after fixing my wedge the ay I did, I still see some binding and plan on cutting my top wing off and not only angleing it up at the back, but putting a little Vee angle on the outer ends.

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

I 100% agree with Muddstopper. I would not want to have to pound those chunks back out of that wedge.
You only want to have a single bevel and then even still you want to have some relief where the back of the top horizontal wedge is higher than the front.

That is the way ours is designed and we still have some issues at times. It's amazing how wood compresses in strange ways when you get knots running through.

I know you hate to hear it but I wouldn't even try to use that wedge. It will not be fun.

 

[arrow]

Haven't much to report, still looking for a larger hydraulic cylinder. Can't do much without knowing the size of it, but I did make the wedge ,made it out of three pieces of half inch plate laminated together, here is a couple of pics.
What do you think?
It is 18" wide and 21" tall, it should work for anything I will ever have to split
Lea

You need only go to a larger cylinder with multiway wedges if you have a constant diet of hard woods or fat round softwoods. A 4" cylinder with a 2" ram should be sufficient for pine and aspen. As you go up in width without changing pump output, you begin to lose speed. I once used a 37 ton Husky that I could take naps with between rounds. Made me nuts. Much preferred my 4" when I got back home. I have a 4way on mine that easily splits 18" oak. As a matter of fact, I once tore off the wedge right off the beam with this 16 ton splitter.
How'd you sharpen the 1/2" plate?

I equate tall splitter wedges with fat rounds. Are you going to hydraulically control the wedge height?

 

[arrow]

I 100% agree with Muddstopper. I would not want to have to pound those chunks back out of that wedge.
You only want to have a single bevel and then even still you want to have some relief where the back of the top horizontal wedge is higher than the front.

That is the way ours is designed and we still have some issues at times. It's amazing how wood compresses in strange ways when you get knots running through.

I know you hate to hear it but I wouldn't even try to use that wedge. It will not be fun.

We had a 6way and an 8 way on the processor at work. I hated those wedges. They might work for some especially on those fancy european models but I found them more cantankerous than anything else. I'd take the 4 way any day especially with a mismatched output our processor seemed to have. As the processor was "rustled up" by the owners son, I also hated the processor. Thankfully it was more at the end of my career so i did not have to deal with it for long.