Harbor freigth wood splitter arrives

[The Groove]

auto return

Does your log splitter valve have auto release on the return I'm thinking of getting one. HR said they won't ship it to one of their stores. Thanks

 

[dahmower]

whats your opinion now?

So after using this splitter for a while how is it? whats the cycle time on it? how does the 4 way handle the knottty and tough wood? and if you had it to do over would you still buy this one or choose another brand? thanks

 

[bluequill56]

How does that style of 4-way wedge work?

 

[johncinco]

splitter update

OK I'll update on the details and condition after using it for a bit.
Its Dog ##### Broke!
First the 4 way splitter came apart at the main welds. The vertical pieces were barely penetrated and simply came apart. I had it pressed back together and some excellent welds put in place. All ground back to a nice point and back to work.
Then the "shoe" or part that pushes the log into the wedge bent backwards. This is some of the thickest steel on the machine. It simply just bent back over time. While this would still work without issue, it caused a bunch of problems from there. Since the shoe leaned back, the forward pressue was not straight to the wedge, but tilted up. There are retaining blocks that hold the shoe even with the rail. These blocks bent and eventually snapped the bolts that hold them in place. These were replaced with longer pieces, and stronger bolts. Back to work.
Then major failure. The rail simply could not handle the work load. It bent the complete two top planges. The blocks and shoe can not follow the bends in the rail so its a big noisy paperweight. I have it at a good shop and he is going to press the rail back straight, the add steel between the top flanges and the lower flanges, and then blocks that slide under the bottom of the whole rail. If that does not work, I will get a whole new rail and mount the working parts of the splitter onto a good rail and go from there.
The Robin (subaru) engine performs flawlessly. The ram pushes like a beast. The hydraulics, lines, controls and tank all work great. They took some excellent parts from Northern Hydraulics and mounted them to a lot of cheap steel.
Did I overwork or abuse it? Maybe, it says right in the description "do not split anything over 12" " I figure it is rated at 30 tons, it should be able to handle that. I split a lot of elm I had around, some knots that I had around simply because I never wanted to tackle them with wedges and mauls. I still think it should have held up better.
If your gonna split 12" wood, or straight grained pine or maybe ash, it'll work for ya. if you run into some knarly stuff on a regular basis, you want to buy something else.

Some lessons are harder to learn than others. I'm betting I could still sell it for $1800 in a couple of hours. The aggravation is worse than a couple bucks.

 

[johncinco]

How does that style of 4-way wedge work?

Once I got it repaired, its a real jewel. The horizontal splits are not even with the vertical, maybe 2" behind. The vertical split starts, and gets the wood popped apart at least, then the horz starts, so you are not trying to split it 2 ways at once right from the start. Once it gets moving it just runs right through. The horz also has "wings" going vert on top and bottom, about 1/2 way back. This accelerates the spreading of the pieces, so the L/R and top/bottom all fall off the wedges at the same time.

 

[avalancher]

Do not split anything larger than 12"? Who are they kidding? If I had wood that was only 12 inches I wouldnt even bother with a splitter. Who would need 30 tons of force for a 12 inch round?
I guess this is their way of protecting their warranty. If it breaks, then it must be because of you abusing it. Coporate America for you! Anything to make a buck. Then people wonder why we are on the verge of a major depression.
Well,Im glad you got it beefed up and back to work. Hope it works out for you. It sure is a nice looking outfit though!

 

[AKKAMAAN]

To the manufacturers.....

Putting a 30 ton ram on a 15 ton fixture i WRONG!!!
Put the Piston in a more "balanced" position in the fixture so the main beam dont bend at high force......

 

[046]

yikes.... sure sorry to hear about all your problems

OK I'll update on the details and condition after using it for a bit.
Its Dog ##### Broke!
First the 4 way splitter came apart at the main welds. The vertical pieces were barely penetrated and simply came apart. I had it pressed back together and some excellent welds put in place. All ground back to a nice point and back to work.
Then the "shoe" or part that pushes the log into the wedge bent backwards. This is some of the thickest steel on the machine. It simply just bent back over time. While this would still work without issue, it caused a bunch of problems from there. Since the shoe leaned back, the forward pressue was not straight to the wedge, but tilted up. There are retaining blocks that hold the shoe even with the rail. These blocks bent and eventually snapped the bolts that hold them in place. These were replaced with longer pieces, and stronger bolts. Back to work.
Then major failure. The rail simply could not handle the work load. It bent the complete two top planges. The blocks and shoe can not follow the bends in the rail so its a big noisy paperweight. I have it at a good shop and he is going to press the rail back straight, the add steel between the top flanges and the lower flanges, and then blocks that slide under the bottom of the whole rail. If that does not work, I will get a whole new rail and mount the working parts of the splitter onto a good rail and go from there.
The Robin (subaru) engine performs flawlessly. The ram pushes like a beast. The hydraulics, lines, controls and tank all work great. They took some excellent parts from Northern Hydraulics and mounted them to a lot of cheap steel.
Did I overwork or abuse it? Maybe, it says right in the description "do not split anything over 12" " I figure it is rated at 30 tons, it should be able to handle that. I split a lot of elm I had around, some knots that I had around simply because I never wanted to tackle them with wedges and mauls. I still think it should have held up better.
If your gonna split 12" wood, or straight grained pine or maybe ash, it'll work for ya. if you run into some knarly stuff on a regular basis, you want to buy something else.

Some lessons are harder to learn than others. I'm betting I could still sell it for $1800 in a couple of hours. The aggravation is worse than a couple bucks.

 

[johncinco]

Just an update. Yellow freight is schedule to come pick it back up. I am getting a full refund, including the shipping. Darn shame, I wish it woulda worked out better. I wanted to get a $500 refund, and pay the welding shop guy to mount it all to a better main rail. He was gonna add a work table at the same time. HF said they would do that, then came back and said no, they would just take it back completely.

Looks like a Timber Wolf is in my future.

 

[Wet1]

Well at least HF made good on it.

 

[avalancher]

Sorry to hear that it didnt work out for you. Nothing sucks more than a tool that doesnt work like it should. Guess it was for the better that it failed while it was still new though, it would have really sucked to have all that go wrong after the warranty was up!

 

[ghitch75]

i got a 30 ton....we have split 30 cords with it and haven't had a min's trouble from it...have split up to 42" rounds....and if it don't split it, it will crush it...best 1300 buc's i'v spent....sorry for your bad luck with yours...

 

[Dok]

Thanks for the updates- good to know!
Dok

 

[genovet]

What is the cycle time on the HF 30 ton?

Thanks.

Tim

 

[2smart4me]

I don’t see any posting of anyone who has had a HF 30 ton log splitter that is several years old.
I would like to know how it has held up and what if any problems they have had and would they recommend it?
Also talking to technical support the cycle time is 30 Seconds, is this splitter that slow? Most are about 15 seconds, also they say it has a 2.5 gallons of hydraulic oil, most splitters I researched have a lot more, so is this splitter hydraulic oil getting hot?
HF sent out a sale flier, 30 ton is now $1099 20% off coupon ( found in Sept. popular mechanics exp 11/14/09) puts it under $900 bucks.
PLEASE RESPOND BEFORE 11/14/09
THANKS

 

[ms310]

2.5 gallons

It has 2.5 gallons of hydraulic fluid, are you sure? My Iron and oak has 16 and i will tell you that the cylinder gets pretty hot with that much hydro fluid in it! 2.5 GALLONS take a turkey to the woods with you and deep fry it in they oil that is how hot i would think it could get, you could eat turkey while you wait for the oil to cool down!

 

[htpd43]

Swamp Yankee

Who made the pump and valves?

Last few times I looked at the HF flyers for the 30 ton splitter they advertise the pump as a 16 GPM 2 stage Haldex.
Lou

 

[garmar]

Those pics of the pallet condition is about what I've come to expect from HF. I made the mistake of ordering a box of one inch staples from them...it showed up in a box that ten boxes of staples coulda fit in without any packing material and they were broken into about ten thousand 'mini rows' of staples. I called them up and they said they would send out another box.

Guess how they showed up... opcorn:


You got it. :censored:

 

[kevin j]

overloading? no way an explantion for failure. They are bsing you.

One of the big advantages of hydraulics is ability to stall forever at a constant known force (pressure times areas).
So the engineers know exactly how much force to design into the structure. It does not matter at all on log size. 6 inch block of steel, 36 inch block of pine, still only 30 tons of force. Applying that force at the top corner of the wedge defines the bending forces on the beam.

Someone didn't do their design properly, or the welds properly.
Not anything the customer did.

glad you got a refund, minus all the time and aggravation.

When you add in the risk cost, modification, and aggravation to the initial cheap price, usually HF stuff ends up costing as much as quality in the first place.

 

[blades]

OK you asked for older hf splitter info. 30ton, vert/horz 2002 vintage 8hp Briggs no issue there, 11 gpm . About 150 cords through unit. First problem after assembly, filter blew off, figured I did not hand tighten enough, reinstalled promptly blew filter fixture in half, must have been installed backwards from factory. Do not remember any thing else for that season. 2nd season bent toe plate which is close to 2" thick and the beam slightly in the direction of ram travel, towards the middle of season cylinder mount ripped off (very exciting), upon examination weld failure was evident, typical robotic weld, lack of penetration. somewhere in between here the valve started to leak a tad. No other failures till this season, hose from pump to valve sprung a leak at crimp at top of pump ( Most likely due to being clobbered a few dozen times by various splits) Oh and I really twisted and bent the beam this year on a knarly piece of Elm. Beat it back into submission with a sledge hammer and the flame wrench.Have since split another 5 cord, with 2 or 3 more to go yet. No cylinder issues so far, hydro tank too small gets hot fast. Original cost $900 including shipping. Want to rebuild this winter with lift and larger tank going to use 2 I beams welded sxs with 3/8Top plate welded on to flanges, not sure if I will keep vertical mode yet. Oh, on this unit the wedge slopes back from bottom to top which I thought odd, so sometimes chunks come sliding up the wedge.