Conical screw log splitters
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Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
There's one thing I'll never understand.... the tractor powered splitter.... my ancient Kohler K181 (I thought it was a tecumseh.... that was on a different piece of equipment) powered splitter uses less than 3/4 of a gallon an hour to run the 3000 psi barnes pump and 5" cylinder....(29 tons of force) if I hooked up the same ram to my JD1050.... not only would I be using about 2/gal an hour of diesel..... it's internal hydro pump only puts out 1800 psi...... and if I used a PTO driven pump... I'd still be using twice the fuel as the gasser...
I guess it doesn't make much sense to me..
I guess it doesn't make much sense to me..
I am not disagreeing with you, but if you actually do the math it doesn't end up being too much. If you run 2 or 3 gallons of splitter fuel to make your winters heat vs. 4 or 6 gallons of diesel would the extra 20 bucks in fuel warrant having another gas engine around? I prefer the engine on splitter, but there really isn't much wrong with using a tractor either if ya already have the power plant. Just different strokes.
Butcher
Minister of Fire
Actually if you dug around YT enough you might find that there are alot of those kinda splitters mfg and in use in Europe. No machine of any type can be saftly operated if the person using it is lacking in grey matter betwixt the ears. I do like this splitter though. I'm sure PETA dont but then, well, They can all freeze to death far as I'm concerned.
Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
well, in the case of my tractor.... I'd have to run a PTO pump... PTO pumps are more money than a 8hp gas engine. Besides... I've got so many gas engines around... what's one more.... including a 16hp kohler twin on a 40" buzz saw.... that thing hasn't been run in a long time... sad thing is I remember using it when I was 10... I can't imagine having my kids feed it like I did when I was their age...
Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
What is the splitting mechanism on that? That horse doesn't mind that at all... it's really no different than lunging them... You've got to exercise them in the winter.. otherwise they get cranky... I know the walking horse/ standardbred mare I used to have did...
Again - just different strokes. Nothing inherently wrong with using a tractor and some people report that they like the idea of the three point models for different height adjustment.
Butcher
Minister of Fire
Athens Enterprises, 3637 Chestnut Level Rd. , Liberty, Ky. 42539 - 606-787-0266
Machines like that have been around for hundreds of years in one form or another. That horse is probably happier than iffn it was just standing in a cold stall doing nothing. Kinda like owning a good hunting dog and locking it in a kennel in the back yard 24/7.
Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
That horse *is* a lot happier.. that's something that PETA will never understand about horses or working breed dogs.... the desire to "work" is bred into them... My hound mix, Brena (the one in my avatar next to me) just goes stir crazy if there is nothing for her to do.. the harder I work her, the happier she is. Another good example is my wife's best friend.... she is disabled and has a Weimaraner... she is not capable of properly exercising her dog (she also got that dog against my advise)... and her dog is a nightmare... until she is let out into my 1600ft dog pen with my 3 dogs... and then she is much calmer... it's still a waste of a good bird dog though...
Me, personally.... as people put generators into their houses with automatic transfer switches... I have moved in the opposite direction.. to make it so electricity is not required for my house to function... I would *LOVE* to have a wind driven pump filling a 1,000 gal or so tank in the 3rd mow of my barn... but plumbing codes no longer allow it...
Hmmm...they allow water storage for watering a garden (rain water). I think I could get creative enough to call it something legal.
Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
Hmmm...they allow water storage for watering a garden (rain water). I think I could get creative enough to call it something legal.
Being in construction, for the last 24 years, in this town... I have a good relationship with codes... from that... I know a 1,000 gal potable water cistern will not fly.... unless I want employ a full time water quality engineer...... which pretty much defeats the whole point of the endeavor....
scooby074
Feeling the Heat
Screw type splitters are still available and common in europe. Considering their strong safety laws, you have to wonder if the doom-sayers over here are wrong. 
Check this out, a cordwood saw and a screw type splitter in one!! A double whammy of "dangerous" firewood making. Enough to cause the OSHA types to have a minor stroke
Check this out, a cordwood saw and a screw type splitter in one!! A double whammy of "dangerous" firewood making. Enough to cause the OSHA types to have a minor stroke
Bret Chase
Minister of Fire
Screw type splitters are still available and common in europe. Considering their strong safety laws, you have to wonder if the doom-sayers over here are wrong.
Check this out, a cordwood saw and a screw type splitter in one!! A double whammy of "dangerous" firewood making. Enough to cause the OSHA types to have a minor stroke
hey.... "my" buzzsaw... (i.e. it's on my property, it belongs to my uncle, and hasn't been started in decades) has a 40" completely exposed circular saw blade... the one in the video was an improvement...
I have a friend who has a couple of these splitters, one of which he runs direct drive off an old industrial engine of 50 HP or so. Works just great and he is still alive. with things that look dangerous, it is often hard to tell just how dangerous they really are. Lot of people badmouth these rigs whenever the subject comes up, but damnfew seem to have any firsthand experience. It is worth noting that Sticker continues to make the kind that bolt on a truck axle, which would seem to me to be by far the most dangerous. It's unlikely they could have stayed in biz if the things were a tenth as dangerous as they look. The banning of the Bark Buster is hard to explain - there were a dozen of so other, almost identical rigs that did not get banned. The major thing the BB was faulted for was not having any kind of cutoff switch; the current version of the Sticker has one, and one is easily added to any of the older machines. My idea is to put a "panic bar" across the top and sides that will kill the engine if it is pushed or pulled in any direction.
My motivation for looking in this direction is I want some thing small and simple, without bringing another nasty little E-10 swilling motor into my life. A 3 pt cone splitter is one of those machines like scraper blade or cordwood saw you can leave in the bushes for 5 years, then pull out and use again. Try that with a Home Depot hydraulic splitter! Sure a tractor is probably less fuel efficient than a GX or clone but for the amount of splitting I do who cares. And a 3 pt. mount makes a very handy package in the woods compared to dragging a trailer splitter. Plus I like the option of changing work height and being able to put the cone right down above the ground and spilt logs as they lie.
BTW anyone thinking of making one of these, or modifying a posthole digger in the manner of the Atom Splitter should be aware that they come with RH or LH threads - an RH thread will not work on a PTO of post hole digger without a very complicated reverser. The PTO versions like the Bark Buster used the LH thread. Stickler used to make a LH model apparently, but only makes RH now. I learned this the hard way, having bought an old cone only to realize when I got it home that it's the wrong direction. So anyone got a LH thread cone they want to part with, let me know!
My motivation for looking in this direction is I want some thing small and simple, without bringing another nasty little E-10 swilling motor into my life. A 3 pt cone splitter is one of those machines like scraper blade or cordwood saw you can leave in the bushes for 5 years, then pull out and use again. Try that with a Home Depot hydraulic splitter! Sure a tractor is probably less fuel efficient than a GX or clone but for the amount of splitting I do who cares. And a 3 pt. mount makes a very handy package in the woods compared to dragging a trailer splitter. Plus I like the option of changing work height and being able to put the cone right down above the ground and spilt logs as they lie.
BTW anyone thinking of making one of these, or modifying a posthole digger in the manner of the Atom Splitter should be aware that they come with RH or LH threads - an RH thread will not work on a PTO of post hole digger without a very complicated reverser. The PTO versions like the Bark Buster used the LH thread. Stickler used to make a LH model apparently, but only makes RH now. I learned this the hard way, having bought an old cone only to realize when I got it home that it's the wrong direction. So anyone got a LH thread cone they want to part with, let me know!
BillinTX
Member
The sticklers will work on a posthole digger but they wont work direct drive from a tractor PTO.
This is an early model stickler with a fixed bolt pattern.
I bought it at a garage sale many years ago.
It wouldn't fit any of the vehicles I had at the time.
I pulled a rear end from a junked car that it would fit on and adapted the drive shaft to fit my tractor PTO.
The tractor that I had at that time didn't have a 3pt hitch so I welded a tongue to the axle and pulled it to where I wanted to split wood.
I jacked up the right side removed the wheel and mounted the splitter.
I locked the brake on the other wheel.
I used it that way for many years.
Never had an injury.
Later I replaced the tractor with one with 3pt and hydraulics and bought a 3pt splitter.
I saw a video of one on a posthole digger on youtube so I adapted the stickler to mount on my digger.
I still use it occasionally to split larger logs.
Not for nothing but most of us buy powered log splitters to reduce the amount of work we have to do. I've seen plenty of these cone splitters in action first-hand and have a good amount of experience with farm equipment in general. Those type splitters, be they 3pt mounted, axle mounted, or digger mounted, are the most work I've ever seen from a powered splitter. Most of the videos that show off how great they are also seem to be limited to processing rounds that are pretty easily manipulated by hand.
If my situation was such that I only had a couple cords a year to process, the wood wasn't exceptionally large or diffficult to split, then I know of an even more economical way to get it done.
(broken image removed)
Never seen a 1HP powered splitter. Maybe that horse is 3 HP, because of his size and power?
That is one well-used cone - is that a piece of rebar in the center? Your axle mount version sounds really clever - got any pictures?
I think I had to direction of rotation for post hole diggers wrong, good news since it means I may be able to figure a way to use mine. Are the two (?) flat stock spreaders at the top the way the splitter came or did you add them? The current Stickler has a steeper angled cone there, to give the splits a finally kick to separate them, and my friend with a similar splitter has been thinking of adding something like you have on yours.
I think I had to direction of rotation for post hole diggers wrong, good news since it means I may be able to figure a way to use mine. Are the two (?) flat stock spreaders at the top the way the splitter came or did you add them? The current Stickler has a steeper angled cone there, to give the splits a finally kick to separate them, and my friend with a similar splitter has been thinking of adding something like you have on yours.
That's sort of the joke of it all. The splitting I need done would be easily done with a maul, but I had my shoulders done and can't use one. Hence my search for a simple alternative. It just isn't worth it for me to buy $1400 trailer splitter, or even $500 PTO pump, for what I need to do, but it's incredibly frustrating not to be able to split a bit of wood when we need to. And those hand powered HF ram splitters? Too horrible to contemplate.
Hey slindo, do you still have that "wrong threaded" cone? I'm looking for any (cheap) cone for my p.h.d. It's hyd there fore reversable. I just want to "pre split" the big ones for easier handling on the reg hyd splitter.
BillinTX
Member
That model didn't have a flare at the top of the cone so I welded 4 pieces of leaf spring to it.
After that picture was taken I broke a couple of them off on a stubborn log.
So I redid it and added more pieces to fill in the gaps.
Just line the logs up in the road and drive over them without rubber on the rims it's probably safer. Seriously my uncle got a broken jaw from a death spindle that snapped at the tip flew up in the air whacked him unconscious and left him in the snow for an hour before someone found him. Screw that !
Pete
Pete
Amen. Even better would be a kill bar like I mentioned earlier, which could also be triggered by a flying log or body, or you could hit with your shoulder or elbow, without the need for having a free hand to reach out and push the button with. The operator also doesn't seem to be taking advantage of the 3 pt to find good working height - bending over it like that is sort of scary.
When I was learning to hand start J3 Cubs we were taught to stand right up by the prop. Most people instinctively stand as far away as they can, and lean forward to grab the prop. But if you are doing that and slip, you fall into the prop - stand close to it and you fall away from it. It's a good example of how what seems safe may not necessarily be safe, and a useful principle to remember whenever working with machinery like this.
BTW the cradle feed on that mini-firewood-processor is worth a second look. Shows what can be done with a properly designed screw splitter.
When I was learning to hand start J3 Cubs we were taught to stand right up by the prop. Most people instinctively stand as far away as they can, and lean forward to grab the prop. But if you are doing that and slip, you fall into the prop - stand close to it and you fall away from it. It's a good example of how what seems safe may not necessarily be safe, and a useful principle to remember whenever working with machinery like this.
BTW the cradle feed on that mini-firewood-processor is worth a second look. Shows what can be done with a properly designed screw splitter.
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