How long is the sled on your splitter? How thick is the steel?

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NoPaint

Feeling the Heat
Hearth Supporter
Jan 2, 2009
269
USA
Roughly how long is the sled that slides across your splitters beam? How thick would you say the top and bottom plates are? I am rebuilding my new old splitter with a new cylinder - the previous design did not use a sled but instead held down the front of the ram. I would like a sled to slide across the beam and push the log into the fixed wedge.
 
The sled as you call it should be longer than it is wide. This helps prevent binding. Material thickness of 1/2" or greater is best with adequate gusseting.
 
triptester said:
The sled as you call it should be longer than it is wide. This helps prevent binding. Material thickness of 1/2" or greater is best with adequate gusseting.

What Triptester said. I would also add to "soften" (round) all edges that come in contact with the beam.
 
Thank you folks. The beam is 6" wide and so I just bought some 8.25"x10"x0.5" for the top plate of the sled! Now the next question is: how tight should it be against the top flange of the beam? As I have it now there is a little jiggle in there - will jiggle cause binding of the sled? If so I can make it tighter but getting thinner spacers strips cut.
 
NoPaint said:
As I have it now there is a little jiggle in there - will jiggle cause binding of the sled?

It won't bind UNLESS an edge of the sled grabs ahold of something. That is the reason for breaking the edge (rounding) of the metal that comes in contact with the beam.
 
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