Building a wood splitter

[RomanC]

I am building a wood splitter directly on a john deere 3235b fairway mower with a 3cyl yanmar diesel its aux pump is good for 8gpm and 3000 psi what do u think for ram sizing I want to build a 4 and 6 way detachable head.

 

[muddstopper]

I am building a wood splitter directly on a john deere 3235b fairway mower with a 3cyl yanmar diesel its aux pump is good for 8gpm and 3000 psi what do u think for ram sizing I want to build a 4 and 6 way detachable head.

I built one once with a 3gpm pump using a 4in bore cyl. The machine would split about anything I put in it, but the speed was pretty slow. I also built one witha 4in cyl using a 12gpm pump. While the machine was faster, it still wasnt what I wanted. I suspect you will find your 8gpm pump to be slow also. To decrease cycle times you could opt for a 3 or 3 1/2 inch bore cyl and also look for a cylinder with the largest rod size you can find. You might find with the smaller cyl that 4 and 6 way splits might struggle. My current splitter has a 5in bore cyl and a 28gpm two stage pump. It will work me to death if I let it. 5 people can go thru a cord of splits in about 15 min. Thats with wood already bucked and ready to split and stacked as it comes off the splitter.

 

[Ted Jenkins]

Your plan would not work for me or most others but do as seems right for you. Question one how many cords do you plan to process during a year. Question two is how fast do you want your cycle times to be. Question three is what type and size of wood do you plan on processing. At eight gallons per minute your system will be beyond slow. Cylinders are between four and eight inches in diameter. Or in some cases two four inch rams or some other combination. I use a sixteen to twenty two HP motor to run a twenty two to twenty eight gallons per minute pump that creates about a six to eight second cycle time. Four to six inch ram is very common but that would be for a twenty inch log that does not have too many knots. The larger ram produces more force but equals slower speeds. As always every thing must be put into a balance. Thanks

 

[Big_Eddy]

Makes no sense to try torun your splitter cylinder using the existing 8gpm single stage six pump. Figure out how to connect a 2 stage 28gpm pump to the mower PTO and use the 8gpm aux pump for your log lift or hydraulic wedge lift.


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[Little Wood]

Fairway mower must have had a lot more hydraulic flow if it ran the mower decks with hydraulics.

Is this a permanent transition from mower to splitter? Or is this a seasonal switch?

Are you planning on driving the mower up to rounds and splitting from the seat, (as though it was a skid steer)? That makes sense using just the raise/lower deck function (that is the auxiliary pump and valve you are planning on using if I understand correctly)vs the full flow that runs the mower decks?

 

[CUCV]

I have an old fairway more as well that am planning to convert into a splitter as well. 8gpm is to slow IMO. I'm planning on a 5" piston with as large a rod as I can reasonably find.