A "temporary" wood splitter

[4570Man]

I got serious about building one so I started to put a shopping list together with prices and was quite surprised! It'll cost almost a much to build one as to buy a new one. So, I'll be watching Craig's list and the local ads for awhile, if nothing shows up I'll go buy a new one.

If you were buying everything I really doubt you could build it for less and that's assuming you donate the labor to the cause and can do the work yourself and don't have to hire out any of it.

 

[square1]

As others have said, ash almost splits itself.

Up until two years ago when my old aching joints finally convinced my wallet to buy a used hydraulic splitter, I manually split 12~13 full cord of ash a year for 5~6 years. There are ash trees that will make you and others eat those words.

I'm not talking a tough round or two, I'm talking every split of every round in the entire tree being a battle.

 

[muddstopper]

My area is blessed with plenty of oak, cant say I have ever cut and split any ash. If I run into one and its turns out to be hard to split, I'll just use the same saw I used to cut it down and buck it up, to noodle it into manageable sizes. I aint going to beat my brains out splitting wood when I can just crank up the saw and make small pieces out of big one