The Lockdown Firewood Splitter

[billhook]

Needed a project during Uk lockdown.  Confined to the farm yard so any scrap lying around was all I had.
AIM was to take logs from a wind blown Ash in the woods to my wood burner with no lifting
My wrists are osteoarthritic and starting a chainsaw or heavy lifting is out so I had bought a Stihl 220 electric saw before lockdown which is just adequate for the two foot diameter logs
I find I can use this saw without pain as it is really the sharp movements of starting a petrol or manoeuvring a heavy log that really hurt.
I have a Palax Combi which is great but will only deal with 10 inch
I found a remote control winch device from eBay which are now about £11, the seller saw me coming and I paid £30 but it was still cheap compared to all the pipe work and valves
My other big advantage was the old Matbro 270 teleported which I bought in 2010 for £7000 with 11000 hours on the clock which was broken  so goodness knows how many hours it has done now
It has the luxury of Danfoss electro hydraulics so I could make full use of the power and lifting capacity (2.7 tons) as well as the Teleboom.
I cut the blade out of 30mm plate and pointed it to give maximum penetration to difficult logs like knotty Elm
The blade is adjustable for height in one inch increments but I have it set at 4 inches
I need to fit a processor saw at some point but this will have to do

https://youtu.be/jccwWiVY4C4

[thecfarm]

Good ideas you have there. That saw seems to work good.

[Crusarius]

That is sweet. I love the auto reload on the splitter. Wonder if an inverted V would work better to keep the log centered?

[jerry sundberg]

I would have bought a Stihl but they are way too pricey here so I bought a Greenworks instead. Nice operation you have there.

[hedgerow]

That is one slick set up you have. Thanks for posting. 

[barbender]

I like it!

[mike_belben]

Very clever how you did that auto clamping dragback.  Nice work.

[billhook]

Thank you all for your kind words.  It was all a bit difficult as I only had the scrap in the yard and some things would have been done differently.
The knife seems to push the log up too much and maybe I should have the blade sharpened evenly on both sides, not just one side.  Perhaps 30mm plate is a bit too thick for a blade and it needs much more taper.
I need to have a little ram to clamp the log at the top to save me running around and looping a chain around the log.  But alas there were no scrap rams in the yard
I have a Lucas Mill with a slabbing attachment.  I am almost slabbed out after being very enthusiastic and have a large stack to move before I do any more.
The Lucas slabber has a long chainsaw blade, five or six feet long, which I could remove and build another frame for with oilers and a proper processor chain to be driven by a high speed hydraulic motor
Having said that I am very impressed with the Stihl.  Quite expensive yes, but it does enable me to continue working in the woods which I love and which is hard to put a price on.  Still a lot cheaper than buying all the bits to make up a processor saw!

[hedgerow]

billhook  When I built my firewood processor five years ago I built a hyd driven chainsaw. It works great but I sure have a lot of money in it even doing the work myself. I had never seen a big electric chain saw until two summers ago I had a long time customer of mine { I do HVAC work on the side} call I think I have put around a dozen systems in for him over the years. He had a buddy that lived in the middle of no were and his 35 year ago central AC quit and he couldn't find any one that would come fix it. I said sure I can go. 80 mile one way for me. So I called the guy set up a time and loaded up and went. It had several issues but I got it back up and running. As I am working on it I could see he burned wood as he had a OWB  in the back yard. He disappeared and came back with two OLEO-Mac model OM-E300 made in Italy 115 volt chain saws with three foot bars on them. They had came off a railroad service truck and looked brand new. He was a old retired railroader. He said I have had these for years and never used them. He gave them to me. They are one cutting monster. I sure wish I would have had them when I built my processor because one of them would be on it instead of the hyd saw.   

[billhook]

billhook  When I built my firewood processor five years ago I built a hyd driven chainsaw. It works great but I sure have a lot of money in it even doing the work myself. I had never seen a big electric chain saw until two summers ago I had a long time customer of mine { I do HVAC work on the side} call I think I have put around a dozen systems in for him over the years. He had a buddy that lived in the middle of no were and his 35 year ago central AC quit and he couldn't find any one that would come fix it. I said sure I can go. 80 mile one way for me. So I called the guy set up a time and loaded up and went. It had several issues but I got it back up and running. As I am working on it I could see he burned wood as he had a OWB  in the back yard. He disappeared and came back with two OLEO-Mac model OM-E300 made in Italy 115 volt chain saws with three foot bars on them. They had came off a railroad service truck and looked brand new. He was a old retired railroader. He said I have had these for years and never used them. He gave them to me. They are one cutting monster. I sure wish I would have had them when I built my processor because one of them would be on it instead of the hyd saw.  

Thank you for that information, very interesting.  I have the luxury of living on a farm and the furthest bit of woodland is less than a mile away, so I bring all the timber back to the yard which I mainly process on the Palax Combi which only deals with 10 inch logs that I can manhandle with a log deck
For the larger stuff I did try an experiment with the old 1956 Cat D7 which worked for a bit but then was too powerful for my concrete mix and pushed the knife out of the ground.  My welding stood up to the force though!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1AEV5fHMGIQ
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UHrO93pc4ws
So I have three phase power at the yard, but also hydraulic power from the Matbro Teleporter.  The Matbro hydraulics may be too stretched to operate everything so electric may be best. Trouble is most 3 phase motors run at 1500 rpm so it is either expensive gearing or special motor
What rpm does a processor saw nee to run at and what is the best chain for it?
I hope to use the blade from my Lucasmill slabber, but obviously the skip chain on it is no good.

[hedgerow]

Bill The hyd motor I am using Is a bent axis fixed displacement piston motor the specs on it says it run's around 3800 RPM. I am putting around 20 GPM threw it. I am using a 404 chain with a 17 tooth sprocket. If you look up 6K products they sell the drive sprockets and complete hyd saws too. That hyd pump is run by a 40 HP motor and it makes that motor get down and pull when your a sawing. 

[billhook]

Bill The hyd motor I am using Is a bent axis fixed displacement piston motor the specs on it says it run's around 3800 RPM. I am putting around 20 GPM threw it. I am using a 404 chain with a 17 tooth sprocket. If you look up 6K products they sell the drive sprockets and complete hyd saws too. That hyd pump is run by a 40 HP motor and it makes that motor get down and pull when your a sawing.

I understand that the RPM ideally needs to be a bit higher, about double your 3800 rpm and maybe a full chisel 404 chain.  As I said I already have the long bar on the Lucas Slabber that is idle at the moment and I think I will build a frame for it with an oiler at either end and fit a three phase motor with high rpm as I will do the processing back at the yard every time.
I found an old one ton slew crane that was mounted on the back of a Land Rover which I could fit on the splitter to perhaps make the 2 foot logs easier to handle and move along and would support extra wide rounds 3-4 foot which at the moment is a two man job to stop them falling backwards.
I can see another video coming on!