will my splitter handle a 4 way

[zsteinmetz]

Hi all I have a Northstar splitter i bought from northern tool with a five horse honda engine and 11 gpm pump. It is rated for 20 tons and im just wondering if it would have enough power to split if i added a four way? I split mostly oak and red elm. I would have to weld one on if i did it but would speed things up.

 

[Patrick62]

Short answer....

No.





Longer answer:
I have a 4way for my machine, I can shove Douglas fir thru, but it is a struggle.

15HP, 16gpm, 5 inch cylinder. No doubt about it, I can achieve 22 tons :jawdrop:

My beam bends down about 3/4 of a inch when I hit knots.

-Pat

 

[Rydaddy]

2 cents

I attempted that myself on a similar splitter. On straight grained pieces that aren't so large that you can't lift them by hand... It will split them. I found the biggest problem being getting the 4-way to be easily removable; yet, firmly on so that it doesn't snap a bolt/pin or something while splitting. I had my 4-way pop right off into the shiny blue sky on a tough piece of oak. Scared the ????e out of me... I am selling that splitter and buying one that is already set-up properly with a 4-way.

If you can figure out how to keep the darn thing on there, but be able to take it off easily... It will split a good majority of your wood. But what do I know???:hmm3grin2orange:

 

[zsteinmetz]

I found this one on northern tool. It slips on the existing wedge. what you think?

 

[drmiller100]

there is some magic in the 4 way that northern sells.

it splits the wood in half, then pushes it further and splits what is left in half again.

so, it doesn't try to split the whole thing all at once into 4 pieces.

my bet would be if it splits it 2 ways, it will split 4 ways with that splitter.

 

[CharlieG]

If you partially split your round, then back off and reset/rotate the round, then split it through,you get almost the same effect. My friends splitter has trouble with the 4 way alot so thats the way we split now. Less bending over to pick up a piece that needs to be split again. I split at my liesure, so heavy production is not one of my concerns.

 

[computeruser]

If it is a horizontal-only machine, I'd say that you should be OK with a 4-way. It works on my 20 ton, 5hp/11gpm machine:

Now common sense will tell you that there WILL be things that it won't split with a 4-way, but heck, there are things it won't split with a single wedge. But on reasonably-sized wood, it is nice to have.

If yours is a wedge-on-ram machine, then I'd say NO - you don't want to make the 4-way permanent, because there will be things that are best split with a single wedge like crotch pieces, multi-stem pieces with inclusions, and things of that sort.