Can anyone recommend a good quality (but reasonably priced) log splitter? I've been looking at the electric one of screwfix
Cheers
Don't know how good it is but Times Online supposedly has a £400 one at £200 in an end of season sale:
Being on the same quest the options I've identified are: ebay (£ 200 & £150) and M2006's link that carry the similar models Metabo (owners of the re badged Elektra Bekum brand) - I've been offered the
5000 at £225 + VAT = £264.37 by a local metabo dealer. There is a 6000 (vertical) that isn't on Metabo.co.uk but is a UK model and being sold by Machine Mart at £703.83. Metabo dealers can get it its just that they haven't been told about it. Scheppach I think the UK distributors areHas anyone ever tried to split logs with an SDS max chisel? I would think the elasticity in the wood would absorb the energy. ( I don't want to buy a splitter to find that any timber that isn't straight grained just laughs at the machine - I've got some timber from last year that has just resisted my second attack with the splitting maul - its becoming some fight but 10 months between rounds won't make good tv)
PeterK
Damn wrong button...
The electric one will probably be very slow, you could probably split 5 =
logs with a splitting axe in the time it takes to do one an reset...
How about the manual hydraulic one but add a powered pump? Ah, looking a= t the image not that easy. Our friendly log man built his own log spliter =
from a 9" RSJ and a second hand ram. Powered from his tractor hydraulics= though. Pity he bent 1/4" steel plate wedge first outing. It does split =
well and quick though, 5 to 10sec cycle...
Interesting question since it followed the thread on toilet plops.
Yeah a £6 sledge and a £5 wedge.
Wuss!
Thanks for all the info Peter. I'm going to have a look around locally and see what there is in farm supplies. If not the one at Times Online looks okay for a couple of hundred quid.
Cheers
'Real men don't use log splitters ?'
At this house we have run the heating on timber for the last 5 years. After year one, somebody showed me how to use a 'maul' (half sledgehammer, half axe) and that worked fine for nearly all of the logs that needed splitting.
For the odd 'reluctant' ones, either chainsaw them into thinner 'cakes' and then 'maul' them - or Screwfix do a special log-splitting wedge which is roughly conical in section. Belting it into the end of a log with a sledgehammer causes the log to literally split apart, into three to four sections. Very hard work - but produced results where the maul didn't....
I'd considered buying a powered log splitter - but didn't - partly on the grounds of the cost, partly due to reservations about 'cycle time' (a good whack with a maul can reduce a log into split sections faster than they can be picked up and loaded into the trailer) and partly because some of the stuff I'm splitting is up to 18" diameter - and I don't see how a little powered splitter would handle that, or how I'd lift them onto the the splitter bed.
Now a splitter that sits on the back of a tractor PTO might be a different thing altogether.....
Where we're going (Ireland) I think we'll be using less timber & more peat - but also thinking about geothermal - new adventures
HTH Adrian
Yep. Ive used both..had a nasty accident with a maul at the inlaws old place when I hit a washing line and it sprang back and split my forehead open. Lots pf blood, stitches and another scar to add to the collection.
I now used the wedge as its better, Sometimes it really needs to be hit very very hard, when knots are encountered.
But its really fast. An hour or so splits enough to fill the series III 'mobile woodstore' which is fires for 10 days or so.
Yup. Saw those at a country fair once. Not as fast as a maul/wedge still, but coped with up to 3ft diameter..
You could win competitions with a video of that.
The message from Adrian contains these words:
My son spent a very happy day splitting logs for his uncle. Amazing how much work an eight year old can do if it involves destruction.
I've found that the thing to do is to stop 'mauling' just before you get completely exhausted - as to carry on is to invite a chopped shin or worse !
And, on the odd 'bother' occasions, you end up with the wedge stuck inside a particularly stubborn log ...which you then can't use the maul on for fear of hitting the wedge.
Bought the Screwfix fiber-glass-handled maul - very strong...
Yes - we found that an hour's mauling is quite enough
but probably only useful if you've got lots & lots to do
The other 'cheat's way' is to find some timber that's already the right diameter - then you only have to use the chainsaw.
One local (Ipswich) supplier has a forest full of chestnut that fell back in the big blow - up to 6" diameter. Quick session with the chainsaw and tis all ready to burn....
New house has oil-fired CH system - which will do until we get the geothermal installed.
Odd thing - in Ireland they tend to install (should that be 'outstall') CH boilers outside the property - little tin shed on the back wall..... guess there's a good reason for it ??
Back to packing up - we leave on Tuesday & there's still the garage to pack........
Adrian
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