Wallenstein 3pt wood splitter rebuild

[CDN Farm Boy]

Yikes - that might account for why things got torn up

Seems plausible but you would think Wallenstein would know what they are doing.

I'll set it to stop short. If I ever build a 4 way it will either bottom out and I'd have to be careful or I'll just weld side wings directly to the 2 way wedge.

Stopped at one of my local hardware suppliers for the fine thread 3/8" bolts for securing the wedge and got some more accurate numbers on them. 3/8" Grade 8 coarse thread has 15,800 lbs tensile strength and the fine thread is 21,600 (I think it was 600... mid 21k). That gives a 37% increase using the fine thread... Substantial I'd say.

I'm going to drop from 7 to 6 bolts which will still give about 130k of holding power. Even 5 would likely be plenty with 108k as its only a 4" ram

 

[2458n]

I would stop short,as most wood when dry pops before the wedge is buried all the way in. With real stringy elm I back the ram up and throw another log on and let it push the first piece thru.

 

[rswyan]

Seems plausible but you would think Wallenstein would know what they are doing.

You'd think ...

I'll set it to stop short. If I ever build a 4 way it will either bottom out and I'd have to be careful or I'll just weld side wings directly to the 2 way wedge.

Yikes ... that (clearance for a 4-way slip-on wedge) was something I don't think I'd actually considered or took into account when I built mine.

Although I did design it originally to be 2" or so short of the wedge, when the push block was fully extended ...

Stopped at one of my local hardware suppliers for the fine thread 3/8" bolts for securing the wedge and got some more accurate numbers on them. 3/8" Grade 8 coarse thread has 15,800 lbs tensile strength and the fine thread is 21,600 (I think it was 600... mid 21k). That gives a 37% increase using the fine thread... Substantial I'd say.

Great info to know - thanks for posting it :thumbsup:

 

[CalG]

Had some dinner and came back to the garage to scratch my head a bit more. Changed the orientation of the 3/4 x 4 piece which will now allow me to get 7 3/8" bolts in and make building it both easier and stronger. A belly full of pork chops can be a good thing apparently.

From some info in mikefromnh's splitter build thread, these 7 bolts should give me about 93,000 lbs of strength. That should be plenty. Could likely go with 6 bolts for about 80,000 and still not have to worry and save myself one hole to have to drill & tap

Although the simple math is correct, It does not completely describe the situation presented.

What "forces" will load all the bolts equally? In practice, the push block is going to want to tilt the blade fore to back (and side to side). That will put the loading at one end of the row or the other, depending.

Just a point of consideration, Could one count on a welded joint being much better? depends on how you were doing that day ;-)

I think you will be fine with your bolt up plan, and if not, The piece can be made over.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Made some progress today. Got the holes drilled and tapped to hold the bottom of the pusher to the center piece. Even though I had the piece clamped in the vice on the drill press they didn't end up in a perfectly straight line but still close enough to work. Used the first as template for the second to ensure that the holes lined up.

Tapping the blined holes was surprisingly easier than I'd expected. Perhaps another advantage of using fine thread.