Complete Noob Builds a Splitter

[Pipe Man]

First of all I need to introduce myself. I'm a project manager for a medium sized industrial construction firm in Houston where I live. My interest here is purely for myself and family plus some Christmas money each year.

I currently have a tractor supply model 15 ton vertical splitter. I have the skills and ability to build my own plus I have tons of spare parts laying around. I've been lurking around the forum here for a while and have read and looked through several builds and I'm very impressed with the fabrication and design skills and knowledge that are housed here. I'm going to build a splitter around a used cylinder I have in my yard. It's a 10" cylinder with an 8" piston and a 96" stroke so I should be able to split anything I want.

I've been looking at several designs for the splitter blade, and I have come to the conclusion that I'll build a sliding square style box blade found on the Cord King or other processors. My question comes from the fact that I can't see the use in welding the blades in at multiple angles with a circle mixed in; when I could just weld the blades in a grid pattern. Is there a performance advantage for the angles with the circle or with a grid perform just as well?

I really appreciate all the help.

 

[buzz sawyer]

10" cyl. and 8" piston - so the cylinder walls are 1" thick? This cylinder will have a volume of 33.5 cu. ft. and need 234.5 gallons to fill it. WRONG - see below.
Are you sure your measurements are correct?
What are you going to use for a pump and motor?

 

[Pipe Man]

Your math is a little off on the cylinder. It will only take 20.877 gallons to fill it.

I have the pump and motor off a 30 Ton crane I haven't looked at the exact flow but it should be north of 100 GPM

 

[buzz sawyer]

Caught it - yep , my bad. Will be interesting to see it work. Good luck.

 

[cantoo]

I have a 36" splitter.
Why would you want a 96" stroke? What lengths will the rounds be? Do you realize how much walking back and forth this will be? Autocycle valve? What are you loading this machine with? I hope you plan on doing a lot of designing on paper before you turn on a welder. A project using this size of cylinder will get expensive quick, you don't want to have to do things twice.

 

[Pipe Man]

I figure i can split 4 22-24" rounds at the same time

 

[dwasifar]

I figure i can split 4 22-24" rounds at the same time

Hope you're kidding. If the ends on all four rounds are not perfectly square and flat, then sooner or later (probably sooner) you're going to have one buckle on you under pressure and go airborne at high velocity.

 

[muddstopper]

I have seen utube vids of splitters where they stack 3 or 4 rounds end to end, I am not a fan of that design. As already mentioned, if the stack bucks while spliting, your going to have a big stick of wood flying thru the air with some force behind it. I guess you could build a roller system to hold the rounds in the splitting trough. I will assume that big a cyl has a pretty big size rod, a 96" stoke is long enough that the cyl rod can bow and bend. I am also going to guess that a 1in thick barrel, the cyl is probably rated for around 5000psi, so you can make some serious splitting pressure.

The Sq box design wedge can create its own problems. As the wood passes thru the wedge, it expands and binds up. While you might have big pressure to push the splits thru the sq box, all the binding can cause some serious forces on weak places. Breakage is not uncommon with that style of wedge. Just how much binding you will have will just depend on how well you angle the cutting edges, how many splits you plan on processing per cycle and how big a piece of wood you intend to run thru the wedge.

The crane engine and pump, do you know what kind of pump you have. Is it a piston, vane, gear, positive displacment pump, or could it be a variable displacement. Do you plan on using the control valves off the old crane as well as the engine and pump. Does it have a open center or closed center hyd system. Lots of un-answered questions that need answers before attempting such a build.

 

[midwest_170]

I've been looking at several designs for the splitter blade, and I have come to the conclusion that I'll build a sliding square style box blade found on the Cord King or other processors. My question comes from the fact that I can't see the use in welding the blades in at multiple angles with a circle mixed in; when I could just weld the blades in a grid pattern. Is there a performance advantage for the angles with the circle or with a grid perform just as well?

I really appreciate all the help.

You need to have room for the wood to expand. Your splitting blades will need to have a single bevel and the wood being split for needs to have some where to go. This is why you see a 6-way wedge with the top cross split angled up.

 

[muddstopper]

You need to have room for the wood to expand. Your splitting blades will need to have a single bevel and the wood being split for needs to have some where to go. This is why you see a 6-way wedge with the top cross split angled up.

If you look at the pic of my 6way wedge, you should be able to see how the bottom wing is just sharpened on the bottom side. The top wing is sharpened on the top side and angled up in the rear. This gives the wood some room to expand as it passes thru the wedge. I still see some binding between the two wings. Also, my wedge is adjustable up and down and as the wood passes under the bottom wing, it will raise the wedge, which prevents any binding issues with the bottom splits. If you look at the beam, you can see where I drew out a tic tac toe that I thought about using as a wedge design. After testing the wedge without the extra vertical knifes, I decided adding the extra knifes would put to much stress on my beam, so I didnt try it.

 

[Charlie Pendleton]

Ummm, wow! And I thought I was nuts using a 7 inch ram. Your in a good place to get ideas. A lot of people on here willing to help. Though they may seem harsh with some of the statements and criticism, I believe they are looking out for the safety of others.

 

[cantoo]

My concern I have with using what you have on hand or have found cheap is what happens when a major component breaks and you have to replace it? Usually can't just run to the "Dealer" and find what you want, 1st you have to figure out what it is or what it came off. Then you have to pay big bucks for it. For instance you build this splitter around this huge cylinder that you have, something happens and you bend the rod or whatever and now you have to replace this big cylinder, ouch for price.. I build a ton of stuff and when it breaks I usually have to jury rig it to get it back working again. Sometimes it would be much nicer to just go to the dealer and get the part of the shelf. But I'm way too cheap for that. Get the torch and welder and fix it again.