Built me a log splitter.

[ovrszd]

I plan to move to North Georgia in a couple years and build a house there. I have lots of white and red oak on the >7 acres i purchased. I have been wondering what size splitter that I would need to split that. I have never operated one before. Most trees are in the 12 - 18 inch range with a few up to 28 inch. I see from 15 ton to 37 ton advertized, but just wondering for now.

Boy, that's a hard question to answer. Varieties of wood split differently. In Missouri, oak with no forks, splits easily. 12" blocks only need to be split in half. 28" blocks need to be split twice at least. All of this depends on your stove and it's door capacity.

For clarity, once you have a fire going, the larger split you can put in the stove, the better. Small splits are only useful to get the fire going.

 

[/pine]

I plan to move to North Georgia in a couple years and build a house there. I have lots of white and red oak on the >7 acres i purchased. I have been wondering what size splitter that I would need to split that. I have never operated one before. Most trees are in the 12 - 18 inch range with a few up to 28 inch. I see from 15 ton to 37 ton advertized, but just wondering for now.

I'm in N.E. GA and split a lot of white oak (red oak splits as easy as any hardwood there is...) White oak and chestnut oak are very tough...I have never figured the tonnage of my splitter...I think it's a 4" or 4.5" cylinder...I normally run it off a Ditch Witch that runs at 2500 PSI...the splitter has never failed to split anything I've loaded...including 36" rounds of both white oak and chestnut oak...
I would mostly look at the overall ruggedness etc...

 

[Oldpath05]

I push a flat plate. Wedge is at the beam end. Split the wood away from the cylinder. In my simple world that just makes sense. My wedge is a 2-way, 4way hydraulically raised/lowered.

I concur, I have a 30 year old vertical/horizontal splitter, I only use it horizontal now and dont care for the wedge on the ram setup. There is one big unforeseen disadvantage of wedge on ram setup that I've noticed. That's when the wedge is on the ram it has to be wider and that creates more force to split which is usually ok unless your in frozen country splittin frozen seasoned wood.

I did this a few years ago, it was one big ash tree, been cut down for over a year, cut up in next fall. I wanted to get that nice wood in before more crappy weather shows up. January, it was COLD for a week, then on Sat. 20s and clear, I go to split it up and OMG, BANG BANG BANG...........every stick BANG, couple got me in the stomach hard, I mean it was BANG everytime when that wood split, I always wondered if a thinner wedge was at the end if it would've split easier, anyways I got about 14' of really nice split wood, and that was after a big 16' log.

 

[Oldpath05]

Got her painted all pretty!

That paint really does make it look better. If you find that blocks slip off the heavy plate when splitting just add a couple 1/2" C rings on or something similar, nice build.

 

[JPRambo]

Not sure what will happen in a couple years when we retire and need to start splitting wood. Maybe a couple neighbors will suggest something. Or i may rent whatever is available a time or two. again I have no idea of the tonnage needed to split this wood. trial and error I guess.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

Not sure what will happen in a couple years when we retire and need to start splitting wood. Maybe a couple neighbors will suggest something. Or i may rent whatever is available a time or two. again I have no idea of the tonnage needed to split this wood. trial and error I guess.

I'll bet you, any of the full size better splitters will split it, no problem...

SR

 

[motownbrowne]

Not sure what will happen in a couple years when we retire and need to start splitting wood. Maybe a couple neighbors will suggest something. Or i may rent whatever is available a time or two. again I have no idea of the tonnage needed to split this wood. trial and error I guess.

A lot of wood gets split every year with the standard 22 tin splitters. If you buy a new $900-1100 basic splitter, you might encounter an occasional piece that you can't simply, or something that needs to be split in a particularl way, but I would very strongly suspect that you'll be able to handle the VAST majority of wood you'll encounter. The main reason I see to go to a higher tonnage rating is to use a four way wedge. Also, many of the box store splitters use the same pump for their 22, 27, and sometimes higher rated splitters. So all they do is give you a bigger cylinder. Yes, you get more tonnage, but at the expense of a longer cycle time. Nothing worse than waiting around for your cylinder to retract.

 

[4570Man]

Unless you want to split stuff like this 4 headed stump than tonnage isn't very important. Almost any splitter can split pretty decent wood with a single way wedge.

 

[4570Man]

I disagree if you're burning in a tight stove. Small pieces dry better and you can fit more wood in the stove because they stack tighter. My stove will damper down enough to kill flames so I can make the burn time last as long as big wood.

 

[ovrszd]

I disagree if you're burning in a tight stove. Small pieces dry better and you can fit more wood in the stove because they stack tighter. My stove will damper down enough to kill flames so I can make the burn time last as long as big wood.

My shop stove is that tight too. I'll take big wood anyday.