How to split big wood efficiently?

[Sandhill Crane]

Ordered logs for next year. Big price increase, plus not available till June. That does not work very well.
I can get big logs from a tree service but I'm not set up for that, but if I was, then getting wood just got easier, and cheaper. Question is... how to deal with big wood efficiently? 24"-30"
I am a one man operation. TW's seem like two man machines with a log lift. Could quarter stuff then resplit off the out feed table.
I looked at Tempest Splitters on line. Anyone have one, or use one?

 

[sunfish]

 

[blades]

One person here , I routinely deal with stuff over 25". Using my tractor I can set those on the splitter and go from there or noodlem down to manageable size then split. Then there are those that say split vertical - tried that don't like groveling on my knees trying to motivate a 20"x 30" piece of locust or other dense hardwood into position hand tools not withstanding. Takes me a lot less effort to saw down and the split or lift with tractor. You could rig a small lifting device easy enough -even a hydro car jack with a bigger top plate fabbed on it would work to lift- or roll up a ramp, ( not all of them are all that round though) Lot of ways to skin a cat . Sat & Sun we ( 2 of us)were loading 48"dia x 14-24" rounds( were anything but round) of Ash into a dump trailer (a little over a 36" rise) with a come-a-long and straps and ramp- weren't allowed to bring in power tools other than truck and trailer. A little jib hoist would have been nice but expediency was the name of the game so no time to slap something together, soft ground so a jack even with a larger ground plate under it would have been dicey, not many jacks with that kind of travel either.

 

[Butch(OH)]

Best thing to do with huge wood is put it out by the road for other fools to deal with,,,

I have both a horizontal/vertical splitter and another splitter with log lift and neither is good for production work in huge wood, ya they will get you by for the occasional big piece but all day long, day after day, nothing but big stuff? no way, they are just a crutch and will wear you out. We also run a splitter on the skidsteer and that gets us by pretty well. We clamp the big ones with it and carry them to the splitter and bust them down to sizes we can lift by hand, works best for us.

 

[lindnova]

I noodle very large rounds and split vertical to size, then finish splits horizontal. If you have a big enough saw noodling is the way to go. With the big rounds you end up with nice clean wood. Seems like a lot of work, but you end up with a lot of nice wood per round.

I always take the big pieces at clearing sites. Other guys think I am nuts, but noodling the pieces to manageable sizes is fine on my back.

 

[Whitespider]

Don't be afraid 0f BIG wood.
Heck, I'm a one-man show and I work a lot of big wood... makes a bunch of firewood, most of it bark-free, without moving tools and equipment from site-to-site. I do it all with a 50cc saw (026), 16 and 20 inch bars, horizontal splitter, maul and wedges. It don't take special equipment... just a work plan that maximizes time efficiency using the equipment you have.
*

 

[Kevin in Ohio]

Whitespider has it right. We did it for years without even having a hydraulic splitter or noodling. Slowly worked our way up over time equipment wise and PLANNED on what would best suit our process. That is the decision only you can make. I justify the cost of equipment based on money made from selling or the savings you have had from using wood as a heatsource. Your savings = better tools to make the process easier on yourself. I look forward to big ones now.

 

[Ironworker]

I noodle, good excuse to get bigger toys, and like Whitespider sez, you get better splits out of it, plenty of nice overnighters.

 

[jrider]

It's not a matter of being afraid, it's a matter of getting the most wood split in the least amount of time. For a home owner, processing speed isn't crucial. If you are selling wood though it is. The OP is getting wood delivered to his site either in log form, which by the sounds of it, hasn't been huge stuff or by possibly tree guys which will at some points drop off monster sized logs. In this situation, large logs will slow him down. Splitting is by far the slowest part of processing logs which have already been cut and dropped at a site. If the ram on the splitter isn't moving, you aren't making as much money per hour. And for me, the ram is running a lot more on the smaller stuff than it is with the bigger stuff. So in this application, bigger wood will slow you down.

Sandhill, is it possible to hire someone with a strong back and plan on stock piling the big stuff for when you can both work? For me, that has been the fastest method for dealing with big wood and I've tried noodling, sledge and wedge, picking up big ones with the forks on the JD, rolling them up a 2x8 to the beam, etc.

 

[Zeus103363]

I love it all big and small!

Thanks

 

[svk]

Not as much time working with big stuff around here. 18" aspen is normally the max for me and they are still small/light enough to roll into a vertical splitter or heave onto a standard splitter if there are only a few of them. But when I come across bigger stuff I quarter them, either with a sledge and wedge or by noodling. Once quartered you can lift onto a splitter or attack with most splitting tools. My saw doesn't like to noodle all that much due to clogging so I'd make a modified "noodling" clutch cover if I did a lot of it.

As long as you aren't cutting a lot of big wood, most mid sized saws will work fine with a longer bar and add a skip chain if necessary. You can cut pretty big wood with an 18" bar....

 

[KiwiBro]

Everything I have seen or read about the horizontal Tempest or models like it (there are a few), has been quite positive, except for the price. Wouldn't be too hard to rig an auto-return to the rounds on the Tempest, if they haven't done that yet. If you do approach them, ask about their Vertical Sliver model also.

Sandhill Crane, how much wood are you splitting each year, how long have you got to split it, how much of what you are splitting are you selling, and how much do you want to spend?

 

[haveawoody]

For me just a H/V splitter.
Not to bad to split up big rounds into splits that can then be lifted easy for finish splitting.
A crowbar and a brick to leaver heavy splits up enough to slide the splitter base under will make Horizontal splitting pretty easy and very easy on the back.
Takes a bit more effort than just vertical splitting but little or no lifting splitting up the big stuff sort of evens that out.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

KiwiBro: Retired, so short on money long on time. But...
Processed two 20 cord loads each of the last three years.
Sold out six weeks ago, and still getting calls most days.
My equipment is a piggyback fork lift (Navigator 6500), old horizontal hydraulic splitter, a 28' built-rite conveyor, a SuperSplit HD, three saws (066, 357xp, 021), and a gmc 5500 w/12' flatbed.
And what I've learned is... I need to do more volume, at least a hundred cord a year to make money. And need more than one supplier for logs.
Tempest has a used Silver V (?), and I have yet to hear back on an email to them. The ef-4 is $13,200. No resplitting with either one, however, the Silver V would work with the conveyor better and although slower, less physical work to get the job done.
Sunfish's Vermeer and splitter look good too!

 

[blackdogon57]

Not sure why your area would be different but around here winter is busy for logging and demand for logs is usually low in the dead of winter. Best time to get better pricing. Maybe you should try and broaden your supply network. I keep my yard plowed all winter and allow heavy trucks to come in whenever they please. Having said that I found my self in a similar situation this spring and ended up up with a lot a big stuff like this. Not fun to work with and processing time
much slower.

 

[Sawyer Rob]

My splitter is on the 3 point of my tractor, I lower it all the way down for the BIG boys, rolling them on and then raising the beam to split them... OR I load them on my wagon with my loader tractor and then roll them straight onto my splitters beam...

Either way works really well for a one person job...
SR

 

[dancan]

Since you've got the Navigator and the old hydro unit it looks like you're set to me for the big rounds , build a platform level with the splitter beam , load it up with the Nav , bust it up with the hydro and then split it up with the SS .

 

[KiwiBro]

KiwiBro: Retired, so short on money long on time. But...
Processed two 20 cord loads each of the last three years.
Sold out six weeks ago, and still getting calls most days.
My equipment is a piggyback fork lift (Navigator 6500), old horizontal hydraulic splitter, a 28' built-rite conveyor, a SuperSplit HD, three saws (066, 357xp, 021), and a gmc 5500 w/12' flatbed.
And what I've learned is... I need to do more volume, at least a hundred cord a year to make money. And need more than one supplier for logs.
Tempest has a used Silver V (?), and I have yet to hear back on an email to them. The ef-4 is $13,200. No resplitting with either one, however, the Silver V would work with the conveyor better and although slower, less physical work to get the job done.
Sunfish's Vermeer and splitter look good too!

Hmmm, the Sliver V was originally a custom model for a customer. Would be interesting if they could give you the details of the previous owner so you could ask them a few questions. For splitting big rounds it looks productive, if you have the wood and the room to store all the splits.

Am not sure if 40 cords per year would be anywhere near enough to justify the price of the Sliver V. It could split that in the first week (or two, with 2 hr lunch breaks). But if you could get the bigger wood at a good price and plenty of it, could sell the firewood, and the Tempest isn't too crazy a price, it might be worth having a crack, even if it means flicking off the built-rite conveyor and SSHD to afford the tempest.

 

[zogger]

Since you've got the Navigator and the old hydro unit it looks like you're set to me for the big rounds , build a platform level with the splitter beam , load it up with the Nav , bust it up with the hydro and then split it up with the SS .

The platform idea is pretty good.

Old member Genesis had that with his indoor in the garage electric splitter operation, load up the platform level with the splitter. Just adjust to scale for huge stuff.

 

[stratton]

The platform idea is pretty good.

Old member Genesis had that with his indoor in the garage electric splitter operation, load up the platform level with the splitter. Just adjust to scale for huge stuff.

Tempest
I have a splitfire splitter for bobcat. I to split almost all wood myself.Im 53 so for me it is a no brainer to save the back. Just ask toms trees, We get gigantic oak in our neck of the woods Luke