Near-north Ontario, French River | So the winter project has been to build fire wood processor. We've come a long way, and today decided to try a test split... dropped a 23"x22"ish chunk of ash on the deck and gave it a go... Now keep in mind the main frame of the splitter is 10x10x1/2" wall tube.....started with the tractor at a low idle, and was suprised that instead of the wood chunk splitting the frame actually flexed and the tractor hydraulic relief kicked out LOL.. not exactly the result I was expecting. On closer inspection is seems like when I welded up the splitting wedge I got the geometry pretty much as wrong as was physically possible !.. It's supposed to split 8 ways, but instead the pieces in between the 'wings' of the wedge did nothing more than jam solid... solid enough to flex that tube and kick out the tractor hydraulics. Part of the problem was that the wedge edge wasn't sharp enough but even with a dull edge I expected the splitter to play with that chunk of wood. So its back the drawing board on the wedge. Anyone have any good ideas? Google brings up several options but looking for real world experience. FWIW, processor is designed to take up to 30" diameter logs, but 22-24 is going to be the practical limit for a variety of reasons. Would like to split the pieces into roughly 4x6x22"long pieces to make feeding a wood boiler easier. |
Wood splitter wedge design?
