70 ton wood splitter

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I can see the video. Big machine!

I like building stuff like that, just in the last 5-6 years have shelved most projects to process firewood and log.
Cheers choppy im hoping time 1 day will be spent on prossing the wood.. i like projects but the amount of time this thing has taken to build is alot. I can see why prosessors r so expensive
 
Nice muddstopper. Yea my blades are 20mm thick. I agree with you. If i do have to make another box cutter there will be a bit of design that takes it out the back floating past the hbeam to get more staggered lenght. I planed to have more stagger once i got the cutting blades they were over 150 kgs i thought **** i need to cut the width down to loose weight. I lost some stager to try loose weight on the cutting box and its still over 200kgs... think i should of gone 15mm cutting blades.
nothing wrong with 20mm thick. I make all my blades out of 3/4 plate. mostly because I had a bunch of it. What I was talking about is the width of the blade, not the thickness. Another thing I dont like about your box is the slide the box goes into. I know you have already addressed the issue of the splits sticking inside the hbeam flanges. I built my slide out of old fork lift booms. The channel was 3/4 thick. I simply used on piece each side on the back edge to push against and used 2x4 box tubing for the front of the slide. I tied it together using 1in plate at the bottom welded under the beam and extending far enough off the beam for the box and slide to set on and tied the top of the slide together with another piece of 1in plate. I will add bracing to keep the cyl from pushing the box off the beam. I am sure my set up is a lot lighter than yours. One thng to consider is if the box is supported well at the bottom and top, which yours looks to be, 70 tons isnt that hard to control. I think in your case, as choppychoppy would say, where you need 1/4 in plate, use 1/2 plate and make it logger tough, yours I think exceeds even choppy's specifications.
 
I agree on the blade setback. Can you add this depth up front on the center of the wedge? With four of the center blades protruding, most of your split stresses will at least be halved or quartered.
 
I agree on the blade setback. Can you add this depth up front on the center of the wedge? With four of the center blades protruding, most of your split stresses will at least be halved or quartered.
Theres no more room to out the front to extend the blade. Iv found some bindng areas. Currently the wood is binding 50mm-2" back from the cutting edge. I will keep grinding it out till im happy and retest. Iv tidyed up alot of the internal welds. We have fitted under a rear axle to see how it sits- im happy with it for now. Axle will come back out now and more welding...20181221_205733.jpg
 
Hello.. heres a bit of an up date.

I noticed the H beam flange had moved a few mm from the pressure of the knife box pushing against it, - We fixed this issue with the extra gussets on the sides and front of the H beam and boxing the top of the H-beams together.

The main H beam had some flex when under pressure which made the top rhs move under pressure also when a full size dry gum ring wouldn't go threw- I had a piece of heavy channel sitting in the hedge, it fitted perfect over the top rhs and welded it up. I added some extra rhs supports from the top rhs to the 2 H beams the cutting box sits in. - Their is now no flex any where when the dry gum wont push threw. - nothing is flexing or moving when under 3000psi/ 53.7 ton of pressure..

we finished off the tow hitch, and had a re test with some cedar i picked up.

The cedar sliced to pieces but i had to re try the gum. The dry gum binded up on the sides- when its binded up i can easy unblock it by placing a smaller piece where its binded and push that threw..... with our cutter box design the wood on the side don't fall out, the next piece twist them and they jam up :/
The cedar ended up being to dry and against the gum it just crumbled....

After a while the gum where it gets jammed pushed threw the 200 mm by 250 mm by 5mm thick steel plate and wood started to add pressure to the inside of the h beam......not good. it was fully welded around the plate with good
penetration.

I want to redesign the cutting box google "pezzolato genius wedge" all our teething difficulties are coming down to our wedge design, and i recon that the pezzolato genius wedge will fix our issues. I can cut out the pizza on our first box so its just the cross for the first cut for the pezzolato genius wedge, weld that box in place and add an extra box to the outside of the h beams and weld in place. That will fix the sides jamming up and less tonnage with adding the bigger stept gaps between each cut.

I just had elbow surgery so I was trying to get it complete be for the surgery. I could be out of action for quite a while. Iv rang a local engineer to come have see if he can price finishing the knife box. iv spent over 40 hours making and welding and grinding the first 1. but i don't really want to put me arm threw lifting the heavy stuff n stuffing my arm again.. will see his pricing may be ill have to.

**** video but how it looked before we strengthen it in the above pics. i recon the pezzolato genius wedge will fix it.. But re designed to 6x6=24 pieces

What u guys recon 4" square pieces or 5" square pieces. 4" looks small and 5 looks big may be 4"x5" or any other ideas on designs, pezzolato genius wedge is on the top of the list. All the pizza box cutters I see working, the quarter blades are all cut out so the wood falls NOT JAM UP WHERE OURS IS JAMMING, I just cant cut the strength out of that design iv currently got.IMG_9722.JPG
IMG_9721.JPG IMG_9723.JPG
 
Yes, the splits fall out due to the available space in the secondary wedge once the split is opened by the 4 way. The sled design ensures that all forces have been neutralized, and cleared from the first wedge, essentially resetting the cycle. One can see where the forces build up and the system builds pressure. I wonder how longer rounds might react? That is a nice design.

 
How much surface area do you have with your wedge? Is 54 tons enough?
we are about to put a power pack together and stop using the skid steer, im working on 3500 psi at this stage which will take it up to 62 ton if we need it.. More tonnage isn't going to fix our problem written above but it will help push threw the wood if we need it on the next design cutting box
 
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