Santa Came Early!

[Ashful]

So these logs are all red oak and will split very easily by hand. My wife is 5'4, 120 lbs soaking wet and she can split them without issue. We're going to be getting a splitter this year though as a family Christmas present. Eyeing the 25 ton Country Line at Tractor Supply.

You've been here long enough you've probably seen me mention it several times: speed is everything. Any splitter with a 4" cylinder and the obligatory/ubiquitous Briggs 6.75hp (e675) engine is going to split anything you'll want to throw at it, and those machines are variably rated 22 ± 2 tons. But speed... you'll start hating the thing really fast if it has a long cycle time.

I watch folks buy these 28 ton and 35 ton machines, with horrible cycle times, and wonder why they're spending more for less performance. The extra tonnage is useless, when 22 tons gets it done every time! The only merit of higher-force machines for the average firewood splitter, is if you're running diameters consistent enough to make a multi-wedge of practical value. Multi-wedges do require more force.

The other merit of the higher-force machines is that most of them come with a larger pump and motor (and lines and fittings...) meaning you can "downgrade" the cylinder from 5" or 6" to a more appropriate 4", and get some wicked cycle times. At some point, the available ports (1/2") on off-the-shelf 4" cylinders become the only bottleneck.

 

[Solarguy3500]

Making progress. I spent about 3 hours today and got the big logs on top done. Tomorrow I should be able to start flying through the more manageable sized stuff.

View attachment 320676View attachment 320677View attachment 320678

Oh sure, you didn't save any of the fun for me! Lol

Let me know if you want to borrow my splitter for a week or two. I have a Swisher 22 ton electric that I don't use much because I like hand splitting. It's a beast. I could drop it off on one of my trips out to my company's Eastern MA office.

 

[NHWS]

Agree with @Ashful that a faster 22 to 25 ton is better than a slower splitter with a higher nominal rating. Mine cost more than the Country Line or the common Champion, but I was willing to spend the extra to get a Honda GX engines instead of a Briggs, Kohler, or Honda GC. The "automatic return" feature is sometimes a time saver, too. And a splitter that can work both horizontally and vertically is almost essential. Mine says "25 tons" on the beam; it only hesitates for a moment to split a 36" diameter, 20" long fresh hemlock round.

And a Fiskars X27 (plus voltaren and a heating pad) for the rest of the time...

 

[peakbagger]

I split by hand for 20 years, it wasnt until I had to have a hernia repair that I slowed up on it and eventually got a 25 ton Countryline. To date I do not regret it. One of the things I do now is flat splitting where I take wide rounds and split them into 2" wide flat "boards", they get set aside and I use them to stack the ends of my log piles and then I fill in between the ends with regular splits. It makes a big difference in stack stability. Those flats also really pile up well inside the boiler once I have a bed of coals. One thing that I have not done yet, but I plan to is rig up a swivel wheel to mount on the end of the splitter beam, moving the splitter by hand is major PITA as all the weight is on the front leg. Tip up the splitter 45 degrees with it locked in vertical and the center of balance shifts onto the axle and makes it lot easier to move but it can occasionally catch the tip of the beam on the ground. If I put a swivel wheel at that point it will be lot easier to move around.

I have never used mine vertically as I am usually offloading rounds off the back of the Unimog directly to the splitter and then into the bucket of the 419 SEE. I drop my trees at my wood lot in winter and buck them on top of the snow, than wait until spring to move them, so I move them as rounds, not tree length unless I want a bit of exercise and hand split out in the woods. Using the set up in the picture I can process a lot of wood solo in a day as I am not bending over very often.

I do store the splitter vertical in my garage in the winter as it takes up a bit less room

 

[Caw]

I split by hand for 20 years, it wasnt until I had to have a hernia repair that I slowed up on it and eventually got a 25 ton Countryline. To date I do not regret it. One of the things I do now is flat splitting where I take wide rounds and split them into 2" wide flat "boards", they get set aside and I use them to stack the ends of my log piles and then I fill in between the ends with regular splits. It makes a big difference in stack stability.

This largely sums up why I'm going to purchase it. I've always split by hand and can still do it halfway decently but a major injury and surgery later my shoulder just isn't the same. I can do things in front of and below me normally but anything above my head is a challenge. I need to be careful with it. I have a lot of years left hopefully and want it to stay healthy.

I also like splitting into slabs. It's doable with the axe but much easier with the splitter. My stove is a little on the smaller side and having nice rectangular/square splits allows me to stuff if more efficiently for longer burns.

@Ashful @NHWS I think we're all on the same page about the splitter. No need to go oversized and something that goes vertical is essential. I think the Country Line meets those expectations. It goes vertical and I'm not terribly concerned about the 11 second cycle time. Splitting mostly oak and maple the wood pops apart 1/4 way thru the cycle anyways. Cycle speed rarely slows me down since I very rarely need it to fully cycle.

One last key factor is it's available locally at a reasonable price. Considering everything above and the fact that I'm probably only going to use it 4 or 5 days a year I think it's a decent purchase.

Now if I can just get my ass out of bed I'm getting back out there. I am so sore!

 

[brenndatomu]

meaning you can "downgrade" the cylinder from 5" or 6" to a more appropriate 4", and get some wicked cycle times. At some point, the available ports (1/2") on off-the-shelf 4" cylinders become the only bottleneck.

Rugged Made has a pretty darn good sale on splitter stuff right now...a 4" x 24" with 2.25" ram (read: fast return stroke speed) and 3/4" ports is only $192! (plus shipping...which was $75 for me) I just put one on the splitter I'm building...hope to fire it up soon (maybe today) and they also have a 16 GPM pump for $88! (among other things)
For that price I'm half tempted to buy a couple to have around to use on some splitters to flip!

No need to go oversized and something that goes vertical is essential. I think the Country Line meets those expectations. It goes vertical and I'm not terribly concerned about the 11 second cycle time.

That's not a bad cycle time at all...many of the 4" splitters are more like 13-15 seconds...some even more! (yuk!)

 

[bigealta]

What about renting one? might make more sense with such limited use.

 

[Caw]

What about renting one? might make more sense with such limited use.

Good idea but no, that's significantly worse. It's $75 for 4 hours or $110 for a day around here. It will pay for itself in 3 years and last forever. Also my dad will borrow it I'm sure for his cabin up in NH. He has a flatbed landscape trailer he'll throw it in.

 

[bigealta]

$110 a day? Wow that's way more than i imagined. I might buy some and rent them out.

 

[Caw]

$110 a day? Wow that's way more than i imagined. I might buy some and rent them out.

Yeah it's expensive. It's a decent Toro commercial model they rent out but it makes more sense to just buy my own. I actually asked if they'd be interested in selling it since it was fairly old but no dice.

 

[Ashful]

My first few years in the present house, I was splitting about 14 cords per year, trying to get ahead while burning about ten cords. I doing most of it by hand, and setting aside the gnarly bits for a once-per-year splitter rental, but started developing some pretty serious shoulder problems after all that wear and tear.

When I bought the current splitter, I thought I'd continue splitting most stuff by hand, saving the splitter just for more difficult woods, but that never happened. I have used the splitter for 100% of my splitting the last several years. It is just so much faster, now that I've got the cycle time down around 8 seconds, and have become very practiced at timing short cycles on the automatic return stroke.

 

[Ashful]

Rugged Made has a pretty darn good sale on splitter stuff right now...a 4" x 24" with 2.25" ram (read: fast return stroke speed) and 3/4" ports is only $192! (plus shipping...which was $75 for me) I just put one on the splitter I'm building...hope to fire it up soon (maybe today) and they also have a 16 GPM pump for $88! (among other things)
For that price I'm half tempted to buy a couple to have around to use on some splitters to flip!

That's not a bad cycle time at all...many of the 4" splitters are more like 13-15 seconds...some even more! (yuk!)

Will check it out! I have never seen a 4x24 cylinder with 3/4 inch ports configured for splitters, so that's exciting news.

You could easily do 23 gpm (even more) with 3/4" ports, if you have sufficient motor to turn the big pump at speed. The only reason my splitter is only running 18 gpm presently is my cylinder ports, I certainly have the horsepower to turn a bigger pump.

In my case, I will probably have to drill and weld a larger bung into my tank for the suction line, but that's do-able.

 

[Duds13]

I split by hand for 20 years, it wasnt until I had to have a hernia repair that I slowed up on it and eventually got a 25 ton Countryline. To date I do not regret it. One of the things I do now is flat splitting where I take wide rounds and split them into 2" wide flat "boards", they get set aside and I use them to stack the ends of my log piles and then I fill in between the ends with regular splits. It makes a big difference in stack stability. Those flats also really pile up well inside the boiler once I have a bed of coals. One thing that I have not done yet, but I plan to is rig up a swivel wheel to mount on the end of the splitter beam, moving the splitter by hand is major PITA as all the weight is on the front leg. Tip up the splitter 45 degrees with it locked in vertical and the center of balance shifts onto the axle and makes it lot easier to move but it can occasionally catch the tip of the beam on the ground. If I put a swivel wheel at that point it will be lot easier to move around.

I have never used mine vertically as I am usually offloading rounds off the back of the Unimog directly to the splitter and then into the bucket of the 419 SEE. I drop my trees at my wood lot in winter and buck them on top of the snow, than wait until spring to move them, so I move them as rounds, not tree length unless I want a bit of exercise and hand split out in the woods. Using the set up in the picture I can process a lot of wood solo in a day as I am not bending over very often.

I do store the splitter vertical in my garage in the winter as it takes up a bit less room View attachment 320707

I'm drooling over the Unimog and the 419!

 

[Caw]

My first few years in the present house, I was splitting about 14 cords per year, trying to get ahead while burning about ten cords. I doing most of it by hand, and setting aside the gnarly bits for a once-per-year splitter rental, but started developing some pretty serious shoulder problems after all that wear and tear.

When I bought the current splitter, I thought I'd continue splitting most stuff by hand, saving the splitter just for more difficult woods, but that never happened. I have used the splitter for 100% of my splitting the last several years. It is just so much faster, now that I've got the cycle time down around 8 seconds, and have become very practiced at timing short cycles on the automatic return stroke.

Yeah I suspect with a 11 second full cycle time I'll be operating more in the 7-9 second range with good timing and that's plenty fast.

I was an invincible young buck until destroying my shoulder. Stuff like that humbles you very quickly and you learn to adapt and do things smarter even if it's not quite as fun.

 

[Caw]

Buck buck buck. Giant stuff is done. Just did 2 medium standing dead ash logs that absolutely dominated my chain. I'm going to split one for fun later to check the MC I suspect it's around 18%. Cutting dry wood sucks but it's still nice to get.

 

[Ashful]

Better get that stuff split soon, before your wife decides the driveway looks pretty with rounds bordering its perimeter.

 

[Caw]

Better get that stuff split soon, before your wife decides the driveway looks pretty with rounds bordering its perimeter.

Oh we definitely don't have to worry about that lol. "When do I get my driveway back" will be the first thing she says. But she will help split and stack so no complaints. Ok break time is over back to work!

 

[Caw]

Good progress today. Now I'm off to the dump to get rid of all this sawdust!

 

[Caw]

I also discovered this putting the saw away. Glad I noticed now so I can replace it before my next day off. Id be so pissed if I planned to work for a day and it snapped on me.

 

[Caw]

My 8 year old came him from school and walked by all the wood correctly identifying the species of each split. Proud dad moment!

 

[NHWS]

I also like splitting into slabs. It's doable with the axe but much easier with the splitter. My stove is a little on the smaller side and having nice rectangular/square splits allows me to stuff if more efficiently for longer burns.

Agree with this. I also split some of the larger rounds into rectangular(-ish) slabs.

...I'm not terribly concerned about the 11 second cycle time. Splitting mostly oak and maple the wood pops apart 1/4 way thru the cycle anyways. Cycle speed rarely slows me down since I very rarely need it to fully cycle.

Also agreed, and I also almost never fully cycle. Mine claims "8 seconds forward" and "5 seconds reverse", e.g., 13 second total. Seems like a good speed. Fast enough to not slow down the splitting effort, particularly with the common 1/4-forward-and-back movement. Slow enough to have time to react in the rare cases where there is a problem with a piece of wood. The automatic return is sometimes a noticeable time saver. When the current piece splits 1/4 of the way though and I see that the next round is going to be longer, I can auto return the ram while removing the just-split piece and fetching the next piece. Fetching rounds and removing splits takes most of the time, not the actual splitting. The arrangement of the processing area is much more important than the specifics of the splitter.

Making sure the wedge is reasonably sharp also matters. I used someone else's splitter for a couple of days and found that while the moving parts were fine, the dull wedge really slowed everything down.

One last key factor is it's available locally at a reasonable price. Considering everything above and the fact that I'm probably only going to use it 4 or 5 days a year I think it's a decent purchase.

Local availability and reasonable access to parts matters. I'm using mine a lot more than 5 days a year at the moment - more like two or three weekends a month. I'm trying to build up to the "3 years in storage" point, and have another 1.5 years worth to go.

 

[NHWS]

My 8 year old came him from school and walked by all the wood correctly identifying the species of each split. Proud dad moment!

Can I borrow him?

 

[NHWS]

$110 a day? Wow that's way more than i imagined. I might buy some and rent them out.

They seem to be even more expensive to rent (around $150/day) here.

 

[Caw]

Yeah I did the big catch up 2 years ago. I think I processed about 14 cords that year. My back hurts thinking about it but it's well worth the effort. We're in sustain mode now so I just process 2 x 2 cord log deliveries a year to stay 3 years ahead. Takes me about 1-2 weeks to buck between work and kids etc then 2 days or so to split with a splitter. Splitting by hand takes a few weeks.

The kids love planes so I'm sure he'd volunteer to come help. Just keep him dry and fed. He'll learn some responsibility! I can see my wife's face now. "hey honey sent the boy to Seattle to ID wood for a week with an internet stranger" 😬

 

[brenndatomu]

Will check it out! I have never seen a 4x24 cylinder with 3/4 inch ports configured for splitters, so that's exciting news.

Log Splitter Cylinder: 4" Bore, 24" Stroke, 2.25" Rod

This is the main hydraulic cylinder found on the RuggedSplit 500 series, 22-ton, log splitter. This cylinder can also be used as a replacement on other log splitters or machinery such as forge presses and industrial compactors. Check the specifications to determine compatibility. Tapered rod...

ruggedmade.com

You could easily do 23 gpm (even more) with 3/4" ports, if you have sufficient motor to turn the big pump at speed. The only reason my splitter is only running 18 gpm presently is my cylinder ports, I certainly have the horsepower to turn a bigger pump.

I've built a "hybrid" splitter, it can be powered by electric, or gas, with a simple/quick motor swap...16GPM is about the biggest pump I can pull with a single phase electric motor (without a bunch of work/money anyways) and that should get me well below 10 second cycle time on this machine, good enough for me.