Basically the cylinder is inside a box beam with a slot cut in the top for the wedge to stick through. They use a smaller and shorter section of box beam that just fits inside the larger beam. The wedge and cylinder rod are hooked to it. It keeps the wedge somewhat straight as to not put a lot of bending load on the cylinder. Keeps it pushing more or less straight.
there are a couple of drawbacks to that design though.
1. More expensive to buy/make
2. Less force in return
3. As already mentioned, you need more people to operate it more efficently than a conventional, and thats ONLY if you are splitting some tough stuff. When splitting easier wood like red-oak, ash, cherry, etc, I rarley even have to extend the cylinder half way before the wood pops. Say I have a 24" cylinder. 10" of stroke will split most of the easier stuff. Now if you had a bi-directional splitter, would you just retract it back that 10", of extend it the remaining 14" just to split on the return?? And even the stringier stuff like elm that you have to go almost all the way, it is still usually retracted by the time I have the next peice ready.
I have tossed around the idea of building a splitter for myself for some time now. Since I already have the 27t with 4-1/2" cylinder, I would make one out of either 3-1/2 or a 4" cylinder. But I would like to find a cylinder like off of heavy equipment with a HUGE diameter rod. Something like a 3" rod and 4" cylinder would give VERY Quick retract times.
