Another Firewood Processor

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

Here are the updated renderings


Saw and saw clamp are in place with cylinders at correct locations.


Motors still float, we will address that later...


Now using sprockets on the shafts to drive the log down the infeed.


Adjustable pitch on the infeed table with adjustable length legs. Hydraulically actuated stop at the end of the infeed table.


The stop rocks back the other way to assist with loading the log into the infeed trough. It can also be used as a stop in this manor as well.


We boxed in the wedge and did away with the option to split logs 2 ways.


Splitter extended. Note the plate above the ram, this allows a log that is cut while splitting to rest on the plate until the splitter fully retracts.


24" log with the 8-way


12" log with the wedge lifted 6" to allow use of 4-way wedge


Infeed table lifted for transport


My visualization of the hydraulic system

Ordered most of the hydraulic components today. All except for the hydraulic tank, oil cooler and all the lines pretty much.
Thanks for all the help with the hydraulics!!! I'll still have some questions about tank size vs the oil cooler down the road.

 

[kiotiken]

Your wedge, the way it's illustrated, won't work. I just built virtually the same thing and can say this from experience. The wood will be deflected right and left of the centre knife. In order to have the wood pass through the middle portion of your boxed wedge, you need to sharpen the edges of the cross blades so the wood isn't deflected up or down but allowed to pass straight through. It will still be deflecting to the right or left though, so you need to allow space so it doesn't jam into the side. Unfortunately, sharpening the edge like this means the deflection will be be much greater downward and upward. In your design, you don't have any room to allow the wood to deflect downward, you need to drop the back wood tray down and get rid of the bottom of the splitter head frame. Upward is your bigger problem since you have another blade. That's going to jam big time, especially if that blade is deflecting up and down, or just down.

You have one big advantage, your splitter head is supported by the I beam and doesn't need the surrounding frame. Get rid of the frame around the splitter head, widen the frame that supports the cylinder to adjust the cutting height and redesign the wedge. If you look at the commercial units, the blades are welded at an angle and when rounds go through, they start at 20" and end up being 25" by the time they're split.

Here's a picture of how I had to drop the back of my processor.


I also had to cut out the bottom of the splitter head frame. (It's upside down in the pic)

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

I think I know what your getting at.
Do you think this makes any difference?


This is a top view of the wedge with the top plate of the box removed. The multi-way wedges are angled. Within a half inch of a 24" log hitting the center wedge the log will hit on the multi-wedges on the outside perimeter. This hopefully keeps the block from expanding outwards too much.


I currently have the bevel on all of the wedges (except for the center) going one direction. There is the one section that has the log feeding both up and down into it. That one concerns me a little bit.


Right now the inside of the box is 30" wide. That leaves 3" clearance per side for deflection. The top has 2-1/2" of clearance.
One thing I forgot to do is to lower the log rack to clear the chunks coming down off the 4-way. I'll do that tonight.

Thoughts?

 

[Wild Bill the 2nd]

We were a bit concerned with only having the beam support the wedge. That is why we went for the box that can also be supported on the sides.
If 33 tons of force were exerted into the wedge at a point 24 inches from the beam it would be exerting 165 tons of force at the point where the beam and the wedge meet.
Not saying that would happen but it makes me scared.

 

[glastron23]

we found the same problem with the 6 way, we were jamming all the time, we removed it all together. The other problem came to light is when a piece is going through the 4 way the bottom was lifting the knife, the upper mount for the cylinder broke, we had to modify it to allow about 3 inches of upward movement of the cylinder when a piece split and pushed up the knife.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

I don't think 3" of clearance is enough at the sides of wedge frame. If you were to sharpen at 10 deg, that's 2.75" of deflection on a 16" block. 10 deg sharpen for a wedge is very sharp, that would require a taper nearly 3" long per half inch of wedge thickness. By comparison, my Wallenstein splitter has a 3/4" thick wedge sharpened back 1.125" which works out to about 18 deg. 18 deg on a 16" block is over 5" of deflection -- per side. Now, it may not be that much deflection in actuality, but just extending the lines and angles makes it sound tight to me. The one section where you have the tapers facing each other will compound the horizontal deflection. The top and bottom splits will also be compoundly (is that even a word?) affected -- horizontal off the center wedge and vertical from the side wedges. I think Ken's 20 vs 25 is actually underestimated but certainly on the right path. While I can understand the point of the fully boxed wedge for superior strength, I'm personally not a fan. To me, they have to be built so much wider than the intended max log to account for the deflection that it's benefits are being lost.

As for the forces on the wedge itself, you are missing a few factors in your calculation. Assuming the 33 tons is the max push of your cyl, that force is only available directly in line with the cyl. As you move away from the center line of the cyl, the force will diminish (possibly inversely proportional to the mechanical advantage of the lever off-set???). Double check your math on this, I don't think you will be anywhere near 165 ton at the base of the wedge.

There are options to back brace an open wedge by having the beam extend well past the wedge and have an additional backer behind the wedge to take the force. When I build mine (hopefully this summer) I'll be going this route. One of several I'll be taking ideas from: http://www.tractorbynet.com/forums/welding/305677-attaching-wedge-beam-best-method-3.html#post3702113 We all have our different ideas as to what will best suit us.

Your design looks really nice and will hopefully turn out well for you. The parts list and hyd layout page are a very nice addition to the thread and VERY helpful to those of us still in the planning stages. Keep up the good work, the drawings are an awesome touch.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

View attachment 408888 we found the same problem with the 6 way, we were jamming all the time, we removed it all together. The other problem came to light is when a piece is going through the 4 way the bottom was lifting the knife, the upper mount for the cylinder broke, we had to modify it to allow about 3 inches of upward movement of the cylinder when a piece split and pushed up the knife.

And a great example of a back brace on a wedge!

 

[kiotiken]

I think I know what your getting at.
Do you think this makes any difference?

I don't think that will make a measurable difference as far as jamming goes. I do like the idea though.

I currently have the bevel on all of the wedges (except for the center) going one direction. There is the one section that has the log feeding both up and down into it. That one concerns me a little bit.

It's the centre section I'm concerned about, the triangular section. Mine is built to deflect up and down, yours will be much more prone to jamming since one edge is deflecting up, the other down. I haven't been able to test mine properly yet, I broke the processor on the first trial and I'm in the process of redesigning it. As part of that re-design, I was originally going to have those blades cut off, flipped over and new edges put on to allow the wood to pass through the triangle part of the wedge without any deflection. I may still end up doing it, but since mine is 1" thick steel, it's beyond my ability to cut/weld so I had a welding shop fab it up for me. I'll try it as is before paying them more to re work it. I originally built my processor to handle 22" diameter rounds. With the wedge as it is, I'm thinking it will only do about 18" without jamming but if I have the edges changed it may be around 20". How thick are your blades going to be? I really like mine at 1", but 1/2" might have worked much better.

Sorry I can't give you a straight answer but I do know from my limited testing before my processor broke, it deflects and jams much worse than I would ever have guessed. I REALLY think you're going to jam in the middle triangle of that wedge and at the bottom if you don't move or remove the 4 way blade.

I don't think 3" of clearance is enough at the sides of wedge frame. If you were to sharpen at 10 deg, that's 2.75" of deflection on a 16" block. 10 deg sharpen for a wedge is very sharp, that would require a taper nearly 3" long per half inch of wedge thickness.

The one thing you're not taking into account is most wood will pop long before being split the full 16". I've had charlie horses and had to turn to protect the jewels (hence the charlie horses) from rounds exploding from off my splitter. So, you'll get a lot of deflection in the first couple inches of the cut, but soon the wood will open up, even if it doesn't fully split. That will lessen the amount of spread by the time you've split the round. Some wood, like hard maple, will do this much more than something like elm, but even elm will open up a little. A lot of the wood I split, I only have to move the splitter cylinder 6" - 8" to fully split rounds.

 

[SpringHollow]

View attachment 408888 we found the same problem with the 6 way, we were jamming all the time, we removed it all together.

Do you think it would have worked if you removed the 4 way part and kept the 6 way?

Ken

 

[kiotiken]

View attachment 408888 we found the same problem with the 6 way, we were jamming all the time, we removed it all together. The other problem came to light is when a piece is going through the 4 way the bottom was lifting the knife, the upper mount for the cylinder broke, we had to modify it to allow about 3 inches of upward movement of the cylinder when a piece split and pushed up the knife.

I think if you dropped the wood tray down 3" behind the processor, you'd eliminate the lift on the 4 way.