Mother of all log splitters!!!

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sleprac

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Might not be the fastest, but seriously, though: this thing's huge.
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My neighborhood WoodGuru brought his home-made log splitter by today to help show me just how it's done. This thing splits like a maniac! For reference, the I beam is 1.5 inch steel, and 15" x 15" in cross section. The pusher-plate is also 1.5", and it's driven by a 7" piston with a 40" stroke. It runs on a diesel motor, and sports and electric chain winch with overhead boom and grappling tongs.
I wish I took more pictures, but I didn't want to seem ungrateful, walking off with a camera while my 74-year-old neighbor keeps on working. In these shots he was screwing around too though, so I thought I could get away with it!

He says to me: "Grab that log next."
It was one I'd already set aside, since it was about a foot longer than my firebox. "It's too big for my stove, Joe. I gotta cut it."
"Don't worry about it." he replied.
I shrugged. I kind of wanted to see a 3-footer get split, even though it would be a pain to cut the splits down later. I could always build a bucking-crib... So I drug the log over and we quartered it.
As I'm casting around for somewhere to put these enlongated splits, Joe just plops them on the beam cross-wise and cycles the piston, shearing through all but the last inch of wood. One nice big round following finished the cuts on its way to the four-way wedge.
"Will that fit in your stove?" he asks, holding up one of the sheared splits.

We probably went through a cord of assorted hardwood uglies in a little over an hour. The cycle time on this baby is very slow, but with a 18" tall four-way wedge and seemingly-unstoppable piston it just keeps spitting out wood, especially if you stack smaller chunks vertically in front of the wedge, or shorter rounds end to end.
I gotta build me one of these!
 
Are those standard pipe fittings on the pressure side? I see a gauge there, did you see what he is running it at? That's a lot of volume pressure there, that's for sure. I agree, more pics if you can.

I don't know about the fittings. This guy was a rock blaster/stone-quarry man most of his life, so he has connections with lots of good heavy hydraulic equipment guys. He did mention that it used to run up to 3000 psi, but he backed it off to about half that. That cross cut in the pic hit 1,400, but for the most part we only saw about 800. :hmm3grin2orange:
 
I don't know about the fittings. This guy was a rock blaster/stone-quarry man most of his life, so he has connections with lots of good heavy hydraulic equipment guys. He did mention that it used to run up to 3000 psi, but he backed it off to about half that. That cross cut in the pic hit 1,400, but for the most part we only saw about 800. :hmm3grin2orange:


If those are standard pipe fittings, I wouldn't want to be standing too close if he had 3000 psi behind it! That could get nasty but may just be the pic hides the size. Nice to see he is out of the way when shearing multibles. Those can be rockets. one of the worst things you can do is lay 2 shorts end to end trying to save time. I know of one guy who was killed by doing that this year.

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That's a nice one!

That thing looks strong enough, I bet with a custom box, you could press sawdust/noodle stuff into a perfect fit block for your stove.
 
I'd love to hand him some 24" dia. dry Elm rounds that I have and let it make four nice chunks. Then I could take it from there with my splitter.

Actually, if you think about it, you need two splitters: this monster for big rounds on the first pass and a typical one to finish the rest.
 
let's see. 7" piston.... and what....2500 psi give or take.

That works out to 96,000 lbs of splitting force......
 
Wow!!

I would like to build one like that BUT about one notch down. 5"-6" piston with a big rod about 30" stroke. i live in Ohio if anyone has a cylinder out there close to Ohio let me know. Dave
 
Cylinder looks real similar to my 7x28". Was it originally a dozer piece?

For another trick to impress the masses, slap a junk wheel and tire in there. Crush the rim in 2 places and the tire will lift right off.

Mine had a 6 way way back when, but it made too much of a mess if the pieces weren't just the right size, so they got cut off.

Impressive machine for sure. What's the power unit on it?
 

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