Log splitter

[bunyip]

Not up for swinging a lump of metal around any more so went and bought a 30 ton hydraulic petrol unit, had a look at a few at one of our reputable dealers and found it all a bit of a mystery, the platform looks identical for most of them but they come with a B&S, Chinese or HOnda engine, a few hundred dollars difference too but the B&S or Chinese bear the name Millers Falls and the Honda powered unit Black Diamond, as I wanted something reliable I opted for the Honda which cost me AU$1830.00 less 10% as he has an online ebay store and they offer a code for a 10% discount.
Get it home and fire up and stick in a big narly lump of twisted redgum that had been defying me for about 5 years, pressure on then a bit of a stall then it just exploded into two pieces.
The dealer said he refuses to sell four way splitters as our eucalypts are just too grainy and tough and they don't work, ordinary hardwoods are OK but once you get into the box timbers they resemble grainy cast iron (red box, yellow box and grey box is what we have), nice timber, very heavy and dense and burns hot and forever.
So all is good in the land of the wild bunyip and the wood pile doesn't look quite as intimidating anymore and the Honda starts first time when you follow the instructions
I have seen US prices and I am surprised that we got a good price as generally we pay a lot more here, it cost about $500 more than the Chinese motor and was assembled before the discount, and ebay pay the discount as the dealer told me he gets the listed price paid to him not the discounted price.

 

[oosik]

Yes - for God's sake Bunyip - you may be an old and mythical animal - but be careful. I had a 28 ton hydraulic splitter - and learned in a real big hurry - watch out for the big old tough knotty chunks. When encountering a big old tough knotty chunk - my spitter "shifted down" to a slower but much more powerful mode. It was away possible that the chunk would split most violently and I could easily be hit by a half split. The half chunks would come off the splitter with extreme momentum, speed and force.

 

[bunyip]

I have spent some considerable time with tablesaws and lathes and learned a long time ago to keep out of the line of fire, it frightens me to watch youtube videos of people literally embrace a huge log to hold it on the base in vertical mode while the wedge is happily pushing through, I had a kickback on my tablesaw that propelled an 8' 2"x2" piece of timber 30' down the shed and through the wall, I was standing to the side but it certainly cured constipation.

 

[Jim Nelson]

I bought an old junker and replaced everything but the frame. I used a Yanmar clone Chinese single cylinder engine,Northern tool ram,2 stage pump, and control valve. This is a beast,I was splitting some euc. rounds and one exploded with a small chunk hitting me right in the family jewels' larger piece hit my trailer fender, about 10' away and bent it into the tire.The other half went down slope from where I was working and I just left it, great wood but not worth being hurt.
I've learned to stand away from the splitting action and stretch a little to reach the control lever.

 

[Diggin It]

it frightens me to watch ... of people literally embrace a huge log to hold it on the base in vertical mode while the wedge is happily pushing through,

Bleeped out the offensive YT reference, but I was doing just that a few hours ago. No other way to get the huge rounds in place. And they were far too heavy to fling anywhere.

 

[ericm979]

I have a bunch of Blue Gum (the most common Eucalyptus in California) to get rid of and recently bought a splitter to turn some into firewood. I ended up finding a decent used "28 ton" model with a Kohler engine. The ton rating is often inflated but since the splitters all run at about the same psi you can use the cylinder diameter as a proxy. This one's got a 4.5" cylinder. It'll split dried out blue gum rounds without much trouble. I've tried splitting that by hand and the splitting maul just bounces off.

 

[4570Man]

I’ve got a 4 way on my splitter and it saves a lot of time although it makes a bigger pile of splinters to throw away. The 4 way will take a lot of abuse with a 5” cylinder. Sometimes it’ll have to come off for a really nasty piece but it probably averages 2 pieces a cord it won’t split with the 4 way. I opted not to pay the $400 upgrade price to a Honda motor and so far the Honda knockoff has been flawless. I have two 13 hp Honda engines laying around so I planned on running the knockoff until it blew up which is going to take longer than expected and then put the Honda on.

 

[Diggin It]

I’ve got a 4 way on my splitter and it saves a lot of time although it makes a bigger pile of splinters to throw away.

Splinters make good kindling.

 

[4570Man]

My wood shop makes plenty of that. All the splinters off the splitter go to waste.

 

[deserteagle71]

Thirty some years ago I was living and working in a tiny mining town in the middle of Nevada. Very isolated - nearest town with a doctor or good grocery store or hardware store was 80 miles away. Consequently the residents learned to make do. Everyone burned wood for heat as there were huge forests nearby. And everyone built their own wood splitters out of scrounged parts - and of course, they had to brag about just how powerful their splitter was.

My neighbor two doors down was a millwright at the mine, and he decided he would build a woodsplitter to top all the others in town. The ram was a bed dump cylinder off a giant Euclid haul truck, about 3 feet long - and a foot in diameter. The engine was a 302 Ford from a pickup that one of his sons had rolled. The hydraulic pump was also a huge unit from a haul truck, and he mounted all of this on an extremely massive 14" I-beam he'd scrounged somewhere. The wedge on that thing had to be a good 18" high. I always split my wood by hand (still do!) and one day when I was taking out my frustrations on my woodpile he told me to come down and watch how wood should be split. He fired the thing up and bragged that he could split any piece of wood with that V-8 engine just running at idle. Which it did. Then to demonstrate how just how powerful the unit really was, he put a round crossways on the beam of the splitter and sure enough, it just pinched the round in half. Then he grabbed a twisted, gnarled old stump and sat it on the beam and advanced the ram. The ram entered the stump and stopped - stalled the engine. So he fired up the engine again, backed up the ram, turned up that 302 to about 3,000 rpm, and sent that ram forward into the stump one more time. And bent the end of that massive I-beam down about 45 degrees.....I have never let him forget this.

 

[ning]

Splinters make good kindling.

I mostly split black oak and scrub oak; the "splinters" make fantastic wood for my grill, and kindling for the wood stove.

 

[Doofy]

I bought one of those $300 electric splitters and the Wife loves it. Quiet and no engine stink. She thoroughly enjoys splitting wood.

 

[oosik]

When I used wood for heat - I split the only wood I have here. Ancient, huge Ponderosa pine. Most were 32" to 36" on the butt. A REAL PITA to roll up onto a horizontal splitter.
I dug a trench with the bucket on the FEL and a much smaller horizontal side trench down at one end. Roll the splitter down into the trench and push the rear wheel on the one side into the smaller horizontal side trench.

AH - HA - - now the horizontal I-beam of the splitter is dead level with the surrounding ground AND up tight against the one side of the trench. Made an almost impossible job, at least, doable.

What, other than this, is REAL aggravation. The splitter pushes the wedge completely thru the giant chunk without anything splitting off. So, pull the chunk off - rotate 180 degrees - try again.

By the time I got down to 24", or so, in diameter - things would usually be going much better.

All the aggravation, sweat, sore back, neck, arm muscles and I still miss everything involved in burning fire wood.

Knowing that there was five well seasoned full chords of pine out in the woodshed had a very satisfying feeling as I would go into the fall season. AND off to the side, but still in the woodshed, a freshly cut, stacked five chords, waiting for fall - next year.

Ah - but that was near 40 years ago - I was a young fellow then and could withstand all the necessary effort. Now - I turn a dial on the wall, forget all those days, relish in the comfort & ease that all electric heat can provide.

 

[bunyip]

electricity is cost prohibitive and we don't have gas apart from big bottles and that is also cost probitive for heating.

 

[oosik]

Yes - I completely understand bunyip. When we lived in Anchorage - everything was natural gas - they almost gave it away. Electricity, on the other hand, was UBER expensive. 1982 in Anchorage - electricity was 26.5 cents per Kw hour. I think thats where I learned to live in a house with only one light on - in the room you were currently occupying - and NO more. It still carries over to this day and it drives my son bonkers.

Here in the Pacific NW - and especially with our local co-op electric utility - electricity is UBER cheap. Currently - 6.5 cents per Kw hour. Our local electric utility is one of the top four in all of the USA. AND they bust their hump to maintain that rating.

Thirty seven years out here and only one "extended" outage and it was only 28 hours. However -the utility does notify its customers - via personnel email - of planned, maintenance outages in the summer - usually two - each being two hours long.

I'm so spoiled at the connivence of a well run, maintained utility - I would be hard pressed to live where a standby generator system was considered required or normal.

 

[bunyip]

WE pay about 45c kwh some places are cheaper, we have solar 4.5kw and run a heat pump for hot water which is cheaper than off peak, our infeed is 11c kwh.
There is gas running past us now but we only use it for cooking so will stick with the bottles, a bottle lasts about 2 years, 90lb and costs about $120 plus 55 a year rental.
Supply charge for either is over $1 a day.

 

[MH8675309]

I still split with a hand maul and rarely find some thing I cant split but there is much to be said for knowing when its time to use it for "chainsaw bait"

 

[Doofy]

I still split with a hand maul and rarely find some thing I cant split but there is much to be said for knowing when its time to use it for "chainsaw bait"

Hahahaha Yes, anymore when I see those old splitting mauls and steel wedges lurking about the shed or barn, I just smile and am perfectly content that I don't need to use them anymore. The old back couldn't stand the shock.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

We heat with wood and LOVE the heat it produces!!

All the decent wood goes to my BSM, the rest is shoved through the 4-way on my splitter to be heat,

SR

 

[Oaktree]

Yes, anymore when I see those old splitting mauls and steel wedges lurking about the shed or barn, I just smile and am perfectly content that I don't need to use them anymore. The old back couldn't stand the shock.

I hear ya. Bought a (secondhand) splitter about 10 years ago, wonder how I ever did without it. As one of my neighbors says, the older I get the more I appreciate hydraulics.