Catasplitter

[sneno77]

The "Lets see your splitter" post inspired me to take some shots a new splitter my Father in Law put together for a friend/customer recently. He wanted to make sure everything ran correctly, and since we had already worked up all of his wood, he brought it across the road to my place and let me demo it for a few days.
It is a 50ton splitter powered by a 13.5hp Honda, if memory serves me correctly. Here's a few shots of it's "run-in" before it gets final touch up paint and cleaning.

First lever is to run the splitter back and forth. The other one is to flip the splitter to vertical if desired.

I've never had a splitter, and am not that familiar w/ them, so I'm not sure if this is common place or not, but it sure is nice. It allows you to set the lenght you want to ram to return to if you're cutting wood shorter than the full stroke. The guy he built it for wanted to be able to cut 4' lengths for his fire pit (he doesn't heat w/ wood), so the extra ram travel can waist a lot of time unless you're constantly on the controls. This little feature eliminates that.

Busting through a 20" Doug Fir round.

The "woods boss" sitting on the deck waiting for me to get back to work. For reference, that's a 32" bar on the 7900.

Another shot of the "boss" checking my stack. Notice the Fiskars handle in the pic. It's responsible for most of the splitting in this stack, but it sure went a lot quicker w/ hydraulic help. On a side note, you might notice the tape on the inside of the "finger catch". The Fiskars seems to bite my fingers right there w/o it, and it helps out a ton.

Biggest round of the day. 30" of Doug Fir goodness didn't even slow it down.

Like I said earlier, most of this was hand split w/ the Fiskars, but the Catasplitter sure made life easier for the last few cords.

 

[Haywire Haywood]

what size pump does it have? Judging by the engine size, I am going to guess 21gpm.

Nice splitter.

Ian

 

[Nosmo]

Going Your Way

Looks like you have several things going your way. Good location, good source for wood, very good splitter, OWB in working order, know what your are doing and best of all a good boss.

Nosmo

 

[4seasons]

Looks like a nice splitter, my grandfather has a hard time getting his into vertical mode, been thinking about putting a lift like that on his. I don't see anything in the pics of how that is set up though. Is it really 50 ton? by my calculations that would mean a 7 in bore cylinder. It doesn't look that big or does it run a lot more pressure than the normal 2500-3000 psi.

 

[sneno77]

Thanks for the replies.

Like I said, I'm a complete "splitter noob". I'm also not very mechanical, and gallons/min and tons of pressure are new terms in my splitting vocab. I'll ask the FIL both your questions this afternoon and get back. I'm pretty sure he said 50tons, but I very well could be wrong. Maybe I'll pay better attention to his explanation this time
Sadly, I'm the type of guy that does basic maintenance, keeps a sharp chain, but is lost if it comes to doing much more than that.

 

[sneno77]

Looks like a nice splitter, my grandfather has a hard time getting his into vertical mode, been thinking about putting a lift like that on his. I don't see anything in the pics of how that is set up though.

Not a close up, but you can kind of see how he set up the vertical flip. The extra cylinder pushes it up and the extra leg under the beam flips out to add extra stability.

 

[4seasons]

Not a close up, but you can kind of see how he set up the vertical flip. The extra cylinder pushes it up and the extra leg under the beam flips out to add extra stability.

Thanks, that is the photo I was looking for. Looks like its set up for a real short stroke for horz/vert but I guess you don't need a lot of leverage for hydraulics to lift a few hundred pounds. Not sure I could make a setup like that work on my grandfathers due to ground clearance issues.

 

[sneno77]

"I stand corrected Wyatt, you are an oak"

Asked my FIL some of the questions today, and found out how little I really listen..(= He said 50,000lbs...so about 25ton..makes more sense now. Also, the pump is a 22gpm two stage. I'm guessing you guys will know what that means. All I know is when you pull the lever, the wood comes apart..:biggrinbounce2:

 

[4seasons]

Asked my FIL some of the questions today, and found out how little I really listen..(= He said 50,000lbs...so about 25ton..makes more sense now. Also, the pump is a 22gpm two stage. I'm guessing you guys will know what that means. All I know is when you pull the lever, the wood comes apart..:biggrinbounce2:

22 gpm is about twice as fast as the cheap bottom end splitters that you can buy at big box stores. None of those have a 4' stroke though. So that splitter can make a 4' split in the amount of time a base level splitter can make a 2' split. A 2 stage pump means that it will "shift to a lower gear" when loaded up so it slows down on something tough to pop. 25 ton is more than enough to split almost anything. You'll have a hard time finding a piece of wood that needs a bigger splitter. Looks to be a nice unit there although I prefer a horizontal only with a log lift to one that can go vertical. Still beats the old sledge and wedge method that I use. Your making me want to go split some wood now, but I guess I need to cut some first. I'm 3 years ahead on wood so I guess it's time to start cutting the 4th year.

 

[o8f150]

FREAKING SWEET!!!!!!!!!!!! the only thing i don't like about splitters like that is you have to lift the log up on the splitter,,or did i miss something about it and it will split up and down,,the splitter that dhibbs75 has that we both use can split either way

 

[sneno77]

,or did i miss something about it and it will split up and down,

It will go vertical. The second lever for the hydraulics pushes the unit straight up and down if you're in wood that's too heavy to lift on the splitter. I didn't bother engaging it, as I had the tractor right there to lift the heavy ones this time.