Log splitter and a flying log - safety

[Code54]

That is what is odd; there were no knots, crooks, or anything like that. Just straight grain, and the machine never changed pitch or sounded like it was laboring at all. I have been splitting for about 40 years and never saw anything like it. I just think it was one of the freak accidents that I may never fully figure out....

I am just going to wear a hockey helmet from now on!

 

[check]

Wow. My gas 22 ton splitter is quite short, which can be hard on the back. So, if I have someone with me, I sit on a short stool to split. Maybe that’s not such a good idea, as it puts my head at the level of the log!

 

[cqaigy2]

Ok, harbour freight 25% off coupon and a gift card got me a 5 ton electric splitter. One knotty piece split and shot the pieces out the end, it would have hurt if someone had been standing there. One thing i really don't like is its a two handed operation that puts you pretty close to the action if it decides to throw something up or to the side.

 

[two_bit_score]

Wow. My gas 22 ton splitter is quite short, which can be hard on the back. So, if I have someone with me, I sit on a short stool to split. Maybe that’s not such a good idea, as it puts my head at the level of the log!

Reading this thread may have saved your life.

 

[Code54]

I started the thread to alert people to what can happen and hope it saves someone else from an accident. I never knew this could happen, and I appreciate all the input and ideas. It is way too easy to get hurt working, so if we can share incidents and solutions, we will all be better off and safer.

 

[ponytug]

Thank you!

All the best, Peter

 

[Fallon]

Mistakes

It could be that the purpose of your life is only to serve as a warning to others. Not every life can be a success, just like not every vessel can be seaworthy. But there’s no shame in being one spectacular shipwreck. (Actually, there is. But we’re not going to kick you while you’re down, Edmund...

despair.com

 

[OldMcDonald]

I hope you are still recovering well. After about 20 years of using a splitter (Super Axe, an Australian machine 40 ton force, with bench top height table and hydraulic lift running off a Honda petrol engine) I recently found by accident that splitting a round, even containing a fork or knot, that the jump or sudden pop is avoided (most of the time) if you split from the root side of the round, that is from the bottom side downwards with the wedge entering the root side or surface. Big rounds 3 foot across by 18 to 24 or more inches high respond just as well and produce nice clean splits. I am going to check with a local (world) champion arborist and log splitter to see if this is how they do it manually. I have tried manual splitting using this rule, since this finding, and it certainly seems to apply though at 80 I am not that keen on giving up the hydraulic splitter.
To a professional woodsman this may be old news/information known by everyone, but I retired from office type city work to this style of living in the bush so was never taught the old ways.
I have found that wearing the logging helmet with a clear polycarbonate face mask, and/or mesh and ear muffs have saved alot of damage over the years, but painful finger splitting happens if you forget to keep hands clear!

I retired from peasant style farming last year (and am 2 years younger than you) and thankfully no longer need firewood, but prior to that I split entirely by hand. I had 14 years in Australia so am familiar with your big old eucalypts and their "spiral" growth; also the last 18 years was in Portugal and used old olive trees - trunks and roots. I split trees into rounds with motorised saws all that time - big circular forestry type or chainsaws.

All my life I have "known" that you cut a tree down but split it up. That is, wedges or the axe enter from the root end of the log. All tree species I have ever come across (no USA experience) are easiest split that way, forks are just about impossible to split down with some species.

Yours is the only post in the whole thread that mentions splitting up. The pressure with a hydraulic splitter would have to be greater if splitting down. Something has to give if the log is too difficult to split cleanly. Do those of you with splitters put the log in either way so that sometimes you split up and other times down and could that be the reason why there are sometimes flyers?

 

[cqaigy2]

Hmm, that's an interesting thought, about splitting up vs down, producing flyers.

 

[CobyRupert]

That is what is odd; there were no knots, crooks, or anything like that. Just straight grain, and the machine never changed pitch or sounded like it was laboring at all. I have been splitting for about 40 years and never saw anything like it. I just think it was one of the freak accidents that I may never fully figure out....

I am just going to wear a hockey helmet from now on!

So….no rifle or shotgun shells buried in the tree?

It is strange how some tree species strips apart in stringy fibers like string cheese, while other species you just have to tap them and they pop open like a bolder.