Thread: Which Log Splitter to buy?

I guess I am going to be the odd one out again, but hey at least I am consistent. I would suggest you go to a scrap metal place and pick up a nice big I beam ($100), and some other metal to make a splitter. Stop by a tractor parts place and you should be able to pick up a 5 or 6 inch good non leaking cylinder for under $100. Find a design that you like and either build one yourself or have a welding shop fab you one up. You will be way under that $2500 budget, and will have a machine that will leave the super splits in the dust. Guess I don't understand why everyone is so dang in love with the kinetic splitters. They are fine in straight grained easy to split wood, however do not work well on stringy softwood, or hard to split wood which is what I though a splitter was for. They do have a fast cycle time, however with no log lift I will be dammed if I am going to carry piece after piece to the splitter unless you are splitting baby wood with it. You can also build your splitter with a 6 or 8 way split and do one piece every cycle, so one full round processed every 8-10 seconds, there is no way you can do that with the ss or dr or whatever kinetic splitter there is. Plus you only position the wood one time where on a kinetic you are constantly grabbing the wood and repositioning it, pain in the ass if you ask me. Just some ideas

Originally Posted by EXCALIBER

I guess I am going to be the odd one out again, but hey at least I am consistent. I would suggest you go to a scrap metal place and pick up a nice big I beam ($100), and some other metal to make a splitter. Stop by a tractor parts place and you should be able to pick up a 5 or 6 inch good non leaking cylinder for under $100. Find a design that you like and either build one yourself or have a welding shop fab you one up. You will be way under that $2500 budget, and will have a machine that will leave the super splits in the dust. Guess I don't understand why everyone is so dang in love with the kinetic splitters. They are fine in straight grained easy to split wood, however do not work well on stringy softwood, or hard to split wood which is what I though a splitter was for. They do have a fast cycle time, however with no log lift I will be dammed if I am going to carry piece after piece to the splitter unless you are splitting baby wood with it. You can also build your splitter with a 6 or 8 way split and do one piece every cycle, so one full round processed every 8-10 seconds, there is no way you can do that with the ss or dr or whatever kinetic splitter there is. Plus you only position the wood one time where on a kinetic you are constantly grabbing the wood and repositioning it, pain in the ass if you ask me. Just some ideas

Couple of questions so us Kinetic junkies can better understand your hydro crush...

have you ever tried to run a 6way on anything other then completely straight grained hardwood?
and what is a "stringy softwood" ...

oh and if you're into rollin yer own..you can build a flywheel splitter too and save all that money you're gonna waste on hydro fluid .... hehe.

I have a 22 ton Speeco from Tractor Supply that splits anything I throw at it.
It will split in vertical or horizontal, for $1000.00 you can't go wrong.
This is my 6th year with it, never any problems at all.
Unless your going to split wood for a living, it'll do you very well.

Originally Posted by angelo c

Couple of questions so us Kinetic junkies can better understand your hydro crush...

have you ever tried to run a 6way on anything other then completely straight grained hardwood?
and what is a "stringy softwood" ...

oh and if you're into rollin yer own..you can build a flywheel splitter too and save all that money you're gonna waste on hydro fluid .... hehe.

Ok lets just start with the basics. There is no log lift for the kinetics, hence you have to manually lift log after log onto the table to split. Like I said I don't know what size rounds you guys usually split but most of my stuff is 20" to 30" on average. I would say that is what most people I know have to work with. Now considering that we have only cottonwood, elm, and pine I will use the first two to demonstrate. I cut my wood to 16" pieces, now that would make a piece of cottonwood that is 20" in diameter 142.6 lbs to lift on the table all day long. Now a 30" dia piece would be 320 lbs, a 36" dia piece 461.3 lbs. Now a piece of elm 30" dia would be 353.3 lbs. Please by all means come lift all that onto your little kinetic table (if it doesn't break it or flip it over) and then have to reposition the pieces about 8 or 9 times on that table each, and you will understand why I prefer to steer clear of them. Like I said depending on what people split it may be ok. If all you split is straight grained hardwood that is a max dia of 16-18 inches you may get by with it. However I live in the real world and wood comes in all sizes not just straight little pieces. Actually last year I split a huge elm tree for a client with my vertical splitter that the trunk was over 4' dia for about 15 feet, good luck splitting that with a kinetic.

I do like the idea of kinetic splitters as far as the cycle time, less gas used, ect, however for it to be the only splitter someone has and not be able to split most any wood that comes there way, I don't understand why you would have one. Second you can buy a swisher like mine for about $1000 and split everything. So why would you pay $2500 for a kinetic? Now you could also put a slip on 4 way wedge on mine and split that straight grained stuff faster than you can with a kinetic. If a kinetic has a 2 second cycle time and say 1 second to reposition the wood, then 3 seconds per split, if you split a piece 4 times (into quarters) you will spend 12 seconds splitting at best with a kinetic. You can do those same 4 spits with a hydraulic 4 way wedge in 7-10 seconds depending on the splitter cycle time. That's faster and $1500 cheaper. Now imagine a six or eight way split on a hydro, one 20"-30" round processed every 7-10 seconds. Compare that to 24 seconds it would take you to do it on a kinetic.

Now for your second question what is stringy softwood, that would be cottonwood. You must not have ever split any of it or you would understand. It can swallow that little 6" wedge on a kinetic and never even split the grains, rather just absorb the wedge inside the round because the wood is so soft and stringy. Then you would have to fight the round off the wedge to try it from the other side that didn't split. We do not have hardwoods around here, but after watching videos of people splitting oak, which is what everyone wants to show getting split on there splitters as if it were a challenge, I would say cottonwood is about 10 times harder to split than oak is.

Like I said they are a good idea but not for a person's only splitter unless you get little easy to split wood. The idea is good just needs to be finished and the price to drop by about $1500 bucks to compete. JMHO

I really like my wallenstein

Flywheel splitters:

Log lift: it just takes some lateral thinking - look at what the Logrite guys have done with a capstan winch.
Big rounds: someone is going to come out with a 'don't mess with me' vertical flywheel splitter with a rotatable star wedge built into and under the table so the ram drives that round down through the table where the splits drop onto a conveyor. Someone, somewhere, has hoarded and balanced some super heavy flywheels in a workshop full of creative inventiveness and is cooking that up. I can feel it in my bones.

Originally Posted by EXCALIBER

I guess I am going to be the odd one out again, but hey at least I am consistent. I would suggest you go to a scrap metal place and pick up a nice big I beam ($100), and some other metal to make a splitter. Stop by a tractor parts place and you should be able to pick up a 5 or 6 inch good non leaking cylinder for under $100. Find a design that you like and either build one yourself or have a welding shop fab you one up. You will be way under that $2500 budget, and will have a machine that will leave the super splits in the dust. Guess I don't understand why everyone is so dang in love with the kinetic splitters. They are fine in straight grained easy to split wood, however do not work well on stringy softwood, or hard to split wood which is what I though a splitter was for. They do have a fast cycle time, however with no log lift I will be dammed if I am going to carry piece after piece to the splitter unless you are splitting baby wood with it. You can also build your splitter with a 6 or 8 way split and do one piece every cycle, so one full round processed every 8-10 seconds, there is no way you can do that with the ss or dr or whatever kinetic splitter there is. Plus you only position the wood one time where on a kinetic you are constantly grabbing the wood and repositioning it, pain in the ass if you ask me. Just some ideas

Here's a little straight grained soft wood called Hedge for ya...

Originally Posted by EXCALIBER

Ok lets just start with the basics. There is no log lift for the kinetics, hence you have to manually lift log after log onto the table to split. Like I said I don't know what size rounds you guys usually split but most of my stuff is 20" to 30" on average. I would say that is what most people I know have to work with. Now considering that we have only cottonwood, elm, and pine I will use the first two to demonstrate. I cut my wood to 16" pieces, now that would make a piece of cottonwood that is 20" in diameter 142.6 lbs to lift on the table all day long. Now a 30" dia piece would be 320 lbs, a 36" dia piece 461.3 lbs. Now a piece of elm 30" dia would be 353.3 lbs. Please by all means come lift all that onto your little kinetic table (if it doesn't break it or flip it over) and then have to reposition the pieces about 8 or 9 times on that table each, and you will understand why I prefer to steer clear of them. Like I said depending on what people split it may be ok. If all you split is straight grained hardwood that is a max dia of 16-18 inches you may get by with it. However I live in the real world and wood comes in all sizes not just straight little pieces. Actually last year I split a huge elm tree for a client with my vertical splitter that the trunk was over 4' dia for about 15 feet, good luck splitting that with a kinetic.

I do like the idea of kinetic splitters as far as the cycle time, less gas used, ect, however for it to be the only splitter someone has and not be able to split most any wood that comes there way, I don't understand why you would have one. Second you can buy a swisher like mine for about $1000 and split everything. So why would you pay $2500 for a kinetic? Now you could also put a slip on 4 way wedge on mine and split that straight grained stuff faster than you can with a kinetic. If a kinetic has a 2 second cycle time and say 1 second to reposition the wood, then 3 seconds per split, if you split a piece 4 times (into quarters) you will spend 12 seconds splitting at best with a kinetic. You can do those same 4 spits with a hydraulic 4 way wedge in 7-10 seconds depending on the splitter cycle time. That's faster and $1500 cheaper. Now imagine a six or eight way split on a hydro, one 20"-30" round processed every 7-10 seconds. Compare that to 24 seconds it would take you to do it on a kinetic.

Now for your second question what is stringy softwood, that would be cottonwood. You must not have ever split any of it or you would understand. It can swallow that little 6" wedge on a kinetic and never even split the grains, rather just absorb the wedge inside the round because the wood is so soft and stringy. Then you would have to fight the round off the wedge to try it from the other side that didn't split. We do not have hardwoods around here, but after watching videos of people splitting oak, which is what everyone wants to show getting split on there splitters as if it were a challenge, I would say cottonwood is about 10 times harder to split than oak is.

Like I said they are a good idea but not for a person's only splitter unless you get little easy to split wood. The idea is good just needs to be finished and the price to drop by about $1500 bucks to compete. JMHO

Good grief, you got a 7900!!! Noodle those 30" rounds!

Originally Posted by Hedgerow

Here's a little straight grained soft wood called Hedge for ya...

I can vouch for the Super Split, I was there. Man that was some nasty wood!

Originally Posted by Hedgerow

Good grief, you got a 7900!!! Noodle those 30" rounds!

Right on man! I noodle what I can't lift. Used to use a maul...

Oh I forgot... Here's some Elm...
Just sayin...

Originally Posted by EXCALIBER

Ok lets just start with the basics. There is no log lift for the kinetics, hence you have to manually lift log after log onto the table to split.

I usually split right from the back of my truck or load the rounds from my bed to my equiptment trailer and split from there. Also there is no lift on the "average" hydro. I think a reasonable splitter with a lift would be a Tw 2 at around 2500 er so.



Actually last year I split a huge elm tree for a client with my vertical splitter that the trunk was over 4' dia for about 15 feet, good luck splitting that with a kinetic.

Ill noodle the rounds in 1/2 and easily split elm at 24" have done so several times


Now for your second question what is stringy softwood, that would be cottonwood. You must not have ever split any of it or you would understand. It can swallow that little 6" wedge on a kinetic and never even split the grains, rather just absorb the wedge inside the round because the wood is so soft and stringy. Then you would have to fight the round off the wedge to try it from the other side that didn't split. We do not have hardwoods around here, but after watching videos of people splitting oak, which is what everyone wants to show getting split on there splitters as if it were a challenge, I would say cottonwood is about 10 times harder to split than oak is.

Like I said they are a good idea but not for a person's only splitter unless you get little easy to split wood. The idea is good just needs to be finished and the price to drop by about $1500 bucks to compete. JMHO

I got no idea what cottonwood is...we got plenty of crap poplar around here thats soft, and useless in a fire so I'll call that our "softwood" and have split plenty of 24-30" rounds with no thoughts of absorbing a wedge or witches flying out of my butt.

Im not saying it will split everything but I don't think you have used one to have such a strong opinion against one.

A large amount of making a tool work best is knowing how to use the tool best. That means knowing what woods split at what MC and where to "place" the rounds when splitting them.
I look at using a SS as a alternative to a maul in that the shots must be "placed" or you are wasting energy, time and will. Of course that applies to a hydro as well. I've placed many rounds randomly on a TW6 with a 4 way and jammed it too. a knot is a knot is a knot no matter what the wood or splitter.

Thanks for the videos. So, was there a consensus on the best ways to 'work the wood' when you get into tough stuff?

Were there any other flywheel splitters there for direct comparison?

I'm not impressed with the 7900's clutch cover noodle clearing ability. It clogs much more often than my stihls. Sure, easy to shorten the noodles but that's not as much fun.

*Edit*
A log lift (and something more versatile in fact) is possible. Look at the Logrite capstan winch adaptation.

Originally Posted by KiwiBro

Thanks for the videos. So, was there a consensus on the best ways to 'work the wood' when you get into tough stuff?

Were there any other flywheel splitters there for direct comparison?

I'm not impressed with the 7900's clutch cover noodle clearing ability. It clogs much more often than my stihls. Sure, easy to shorten the noodles but that's not as much fun.

*Edit*
A log lift (and something more versatile in fact) is possible. Look at the Logrite capstan winch adaptation.

It seems that chipping away at the outside, and then working inwards, rather than going for center-mass and cleaning up afterwards is the way to go w/kinetics. After seeing Sunfish's in action confirmed that. I was truly impressed at how quickly and effectively it worked. It still cleared the log faster than my 35 ton Speeco. I will still keep my Speeco, as it's a solid unit, but there WILL be a S.S. in my future (thanks Sunfish, my Wife is Pissed now), lol. As far as comparisons, there were no other models there for representation or comparison, but I'd suspect that the D.R. would have had similar results. I like the Capstan winch idea in the Logrite design for various reasons, but there is more room for "lateral thinking". If one were to include a 3rd flywheel w/a gear reduction, it could be used as a power-source for an add-on belt-driven conveyor. The Capstan could be on the side w/a dog-leg log lift, loading deck. That would give you a loading feature and a potentially larger staging table for logs than TW or BR provides. If nothing else, the industrial age taught us how to make more efficient use of kinetic energy. It seems sad that it hasn't been tapped into yet. Nothing against Paul in the least as I have never met the man, and the S.S. is a darn solid machine. I just think it could be better. A different actuator handle and about an inch taller wedge would be nice as well. I have some other ideas for adjusting work height and improving mobility.

My $0.02

Originally Posted by KiwiBro

Thanks for the videos. So, was there a consensus on the best ways to 'work the wood' when you get into tough stuff?

Were there any other flywheel splitters there for direct comparison?

I'm not impressed with the 7900's clutch cover noodle clearing ability. It clogs much more often than my stihls. Sure, easy to shorten the noodles but that's not as much fun.

*Edit*
A log lift (and something more versatile in fact) is possible. Look at the Logrite capstan winch adaptation.

Hey now! Don't be dissin' my 7900!!! It's 79cc's of sheer awesomeness!!! Just ask ole Locust Cutter, he got to run it last weekend... Just sayin'...

Ok first I agree with the 7900 clogging when noodling. Have never run a stihl as I tend to break them must be jinxed or something. Second why would you buy a wood splitter if you had to turn around and noodle every dang round to bite sized pieces so your splitter could split it. Heck I will be there all dang day noodling, and I would just save the $2500 and just noodle them all, after all why buy a splitter when you can noodle right. I use noodling as a last ditch effort usually on pieces over 3ft diameter.

Yes did see the video of the logrite setup and looks like a nice one. However at 10K for a splitter it better split, stack, and load my stove plus clean the ashes out. Oh and I expect breakfast in bed and my pillow turned down every night. That is about 3 times what I would ever spend on a splitter, guess I am just cheap. Now since you guys like kinetics so much here is a video for ya and just think you could make one of these for a couple hundred bucks!