Kind of a tool: log splitter

Time to split some of the big old elm, ash, and oak trees I have access to. All have been dead long enough they have blown over, some at the root balls and some snapped off at eye level. I can tell I don't have enough wood to keep the fireplace insert going all winter with the 6 to 8 inch round stuff I'm using right now.

The biggest is about 18 inch unless I cut the snapped off at ground level, which is about 22 inch.
I can't get away from work fast enough to buy a "bargain" good used three point mounted one. Found one 200 miles from home on Craigslist, 4x27 cylinder, 10 inch tall wedge. $300. Was sold very quickly, seller had bought it thinking it would work on his 8N ford.

Anyhow, is a 7 ton electric power splitter big enough? Harbor freight has them for $419, less 20 percent coupon = $335. It only has a 2 HP motor.

Have found an eBay seller that also has 7 ton splitters. The specs look better, it has a 3.5 HP motor. Powerhouse brand. BIN price is $399, free shipping. Bid price is $359, last two have sold at $359.

Are they any good? Specs call for Mobil 22 oil, or equal. In other words, not Hytran.

DOUG

expect like hf etc quality. I have made some of that type stuff last a good while

I would not buy an electric power wood splitter.

My Northern Tool sale flyer just came in today. They have a 20 ton 3 pt for $709 on sale, brand name POWERHORSE, not Powerhouse as the electric one.

This will split both directions, but needs hoses and is truck freight. Will be well over $800 before I can use it.

Does have two year consumer warranty, but is it overkill?

At most I will only split 3 or 4 cords a year unless I get an outdoor hot water furnace, which I hope to in the next couple years. DOUG

If you don"t have a constant need for one, gather all your wood cut to length and rent one for a day.

For a job like that - I would get a work party together and rent one for a Saturday. If you have the wood in one area you can split a lot in a day.

tsc if you have one nearby has a speeco 22 ton for a 1000. I have a 34 ton of same brand for a long time now and it is the only way I will deal with firewood.

Our local rental store is SKY HIGH on the rental rates. Last time I tried to rent something from them was a coil roofing nailer, 2 day rental was $125.00. I bought one cheaper.

They are the "rental" arm of a construction contractor.

The rental stuff is what is basically worn out, pulled off the construction side. Rates were actually cheap for about 18 months after another rental place opened up, but they were so cheap the new place had an auction and sold the new stuff at a loss.

Once the competitor was gone, everything is sky high again. DOUG

Gas engine? Or off tractor hydraulics? I can't afford much right now, but know it is cheaper to buy a good unit that will last than replace it every year or two. DOUG

Beware of trees with root balls on them.Boy was playing in the hole left by the roots.Grand dad cut the base log off, the root ball crushed the boy.We cut a large poplar that was rooted up by wind.The root ball did not drop down.They usually drop.

With a decent scrap metal pile, you can build one for the cost of a cylinder and the hoses.

Paul

I rented one from Home Depot a couple of years ago. Picked it up late Saturday and returned it early Monday morning. Only had to pay for 1 day rental. I don't remember what it cost, but it was cheap enough.

You can build one yourself. I used an old Tecumseh 10 hp off a Sears garden tractor. I bought the 2 stage pump and control valve from Northern Hydraulics. I used a steering cylinder off the Army's 8 ton Goer. It was sold at a government auction. They moved the auction down near DC. Use to get some good bargains at those sales. Hal

have heated my house with wood only for 30 years
agree with poster below, rent one from rental agency, saturday morning to monday morning , 1 day rental about $55.00
thought often about owning one, but figured it would just be one more gas engine that you had to fool with every few months when you wanted it to run
bob

Beware of the ash and elm. They are twisted and hard splitting. We use a homemade one that uses a cylinder from a dump wagon (?4"?) hooked upto a JD 520. If you take the wrong bite in an elm it will get stuck and the hydralics cant push it through. You will need a 10# sledge to beat if off the wedge and take a different bite. Even once you get it split to relatively smaller pieces those elms still make the tractor grunt. They don't start giving way until you have pushed it most of the way through the wedge. I don't think a lot of the retail ones would take the beating splitting twisted wood, unless it is rotten.

7 ton won't split stringy elm. You'll want about
12 ton, which is 2000 PSI on a 4 inch bore
cylinder. 3000 PSI on a 4 inch cylinder is 18
ton, and even better, but you'd better be a good
welder if you build it yourself!
4 inch bore is 12.56 square inchs area, times
2000PSi equal 12.56 tons. Times 3000PSI is
37680 pounds, divided by 2000 (pound per ton)
equals 18.8 ton. A cheap cylinder will be rated
for 2000PSI,(Pounds per square inch) or so. A
better cylinder will be rated for 3000 PSI. You
pay for quality.

A "12 ton" splitter will split almost everything, but not all.

A 3.5 horse splitter can do the work of an 8 horse splitter if set-up right with the proper 7 GPM two-stage hydraulic pump. Hooked to a 4.5" cylinder, that 3.5 horsepower can make 24 tons of force.

I've got three splitters. Two are three-point hitch and the other self-powered and home made.

My favorite setup is three-point with a PTO pump. My smallest has a 4" cylinder, and with hydraulics set at 2000 PSI, will split almost anything - but gets hung up on curly hard maple stumps. 4" cylinder at 2000 PSI is 12.6 tons.

The other three-point unit has a 5" cylinder and has never gotten stuck. At 2000 PSI, it is "19.6" tons.

My home made splitter has a Deere 4.5" cylinder, a 7 horse Wisconsin S-7D engine, and a two-state 13 GPM pump. Since the dual-pump spikes up to 3000 PSI, it makes this a "24 ton" splitter.

That splitter of yours wont split the wood I do. We split all elm, and that stuff is stringy. My splitter is only a little bigger than yours ton wise, but takes a 50 hp tractor to run it. PTO driven pump with 10 gal resevoir. Even has an oil cooler off a semi to cool the oil down. My splitter is different than most because it doesnt move fast until it hits the wood and then slow down, it moves fast all the time.

I've split plenty of big elm, even bigger curly hard maple, pig-nut hickory,red oak stump wood, etc. My splitter does approx. 90% of it with no problems. I just got done splitting some red oak that is 9 feet around. I doubt you've got much wood that's worse.

I don't understand this statement by you . . .

"My splitter is different than most because it doesnt move fast until it hits the wood and then slow down, it moves fast all the time "

I can't figure exactly what it is you're saying. A two-stage pump moves fast under low pressure - and when the ram hits the wood -it shifts to slow speed and high pressure.

PTO pumps are usually single-stage and don't change speeds when pressure rises.

50 horsepower has nothing to do with any of this. A 3 horse engine hooked to a 5" cylinder can split anything a 100 horsepower splitter can - if hooked to the correct pump -it will just do it slower.

3000 PSI is pretty much the industry max for most pumps. 3000 PSI hooked to a 5" cylinder makes 58,800 pounds of pressure, i.e. 29.4 tons. Even 3 horse can do that, but more horse can make it happen much faster, that's all.

PTO single-stage pumps are usually rated a max. of 2250 PSI.
So, a 50 horse tractor hooked to a PTO pump set as high as it can go, and a 5" cylinder - would make 22 tons of force.

A 3 horse splitter with a two-stage pump and 5" cylinder will beat it with 29 tons.

I know most people will disagree with me,BUT I have a 5 ton electric that I bought 2 years ago(tired of chopping and couldn't aford anything better)I split 4-5 cords of oak a year,some of wich are 24 inch diameter.It is a little pain on the big ones as you have to split the edges off and work your way to the middle.Anything 12-14 and down splits very well.I will some day buy or make a bigger one but for now this works and I can aford it.

I mean mine never slows down. I have a 50 ton splitter. Yeah it will do it slower but this thing is faster than anything I have ever seen. It may split it but it will be slower than hell.

Doug,
Assuming you live in Illinois as your handle indicates, I would say that a small 7 ton splitter would be a waste of hard earned money assuming you use your wood to heat your house with.
On the other hand since I live in far South Texas near the Mexico border I opted for a small unit because I like to cook out with wood and we do have a functional fireplace in the house, but it's only used a few times a year usually more for romance more than truely heating the house.
TSC has an electric 5 ton from Speeco that sells for $300, but was on sale for $250. I almost bought it but waited to look around. I saw HF had one similar, but higher in price. I finally decided the next time TSC had it on sale I would buy one. The next time I was there I was looking at it again and the guy said they had one returned they would sell pretty cheap. It was returned because it was tripping the breaker and they offered it to me for $150, and said if I wasn't happy with it I could still return it. So I bought it and took it home, and I'm sure glad I did. I found nothing wrong with it, works great on a 50 foot 12 ga. cord so I can only assume the first owner either used to small or too long of a cord. I called Speeco and they said a maximum of 25 feet of 16 gauge.
Here is a picture of it when I brought it home, as you can see it had been used some already.

This will only split wood up to 20 inches in length, but since I use more wood for cooking than heat it's perfect for my use. Here is a picture of a log that I started with. According to the instructions, this log is extremly oversize but I didn't tell the splitter that!

As you can see, it seems to work just fine.

And here is a picture of that one log after splitting into multiple pieces.

So in one Sunday afternoon, I managed to take this trailer full of wood:

And turn it into this rack full of firewood:

So as you can see, this small of a unit works great (although folks will tell you don't buy an electric splitter)for my use. But, assuming you will be REALLY doing some serious wood splitting for home heat I would seriously suggest going with something much larger.....such as a 20 plus ton unit.
HTH

Yes. The magic of dual stage pumps is that they run fast on low pressure -which is fine most of the time, and then slow down when high pressure is needed. This allows the use of a much smaller engine and less horsepower.

We aren't using the wood as our main heat source yet. Just using it in our downstairs fireplace insert for now.

Plan to buy an outdoor hot water furnace in a year or two. One of my friends has one, and is very happy with it.

I can borrow his splitter once in a while, but don't like to borrow.

Rental rate is sky high here, $80 for 8 hours or $325 for a full weekend. That is a weekly rental rate for most places, but not here.

DOUG

Heres my monky wards splitter with a 20" ash log on it.

Today's paper had a Rural King ad in it. They have a 5 ton electric splitter for $199.99. It closely resembles the one in your pictures - different color. . .

Paul

I found a 10 ton used "Log Boss" brand I'm going to pick up tomorrow. It is one of the flat or tilt type, has nearly new 5HP Briggs and nearly new pump.

They are made in Marble Rock, IA. The seller was actually a partial partner in the business, but sold his Scavenger boat motors interest.

He just got a bigger one, this one only handles 19 x 19 logs. DOUG

Jay, Just wondering why they don't put the splitter on the bottom of the beam? Put a counter weight on the back end and then you could just pick up the splitter and set it on top of those big logs. No more lifting of logs.

Bought a Troybuilt wood splitter, 33 ton from Lowes, two years ago. Best splitter I have ever used, and I"ve used a few. Dick in Vermont.

Crack me up....I have the exact same splitter with the original old Gold Briggs on her. What a funny thought that someone else has one and using her. Thanks for the photo.