Anyone know anything about (electric) log splitters?

[Chris Green]

We have a load of newly felled logs to split - strangely enough nothing to do with the recent Eunice gale.

We have a proper log splitting maul (i.e. a big axe with a fat blade) and a manual, hydraulic log splitter.

However, looking at the quantity involved, we're thinking that an electric powered log splitter will make sense, especially as I'm definitely not getting younger every day.

The logs to be split are up to 500mm long and 400mm diameter, or thereabouts anyway. Anything too long I can cut with my chainsaw but obviously the less I have to do that the better.

The choice is difficult as there are several basic options and then one has to decide how powerful it needs to be. So if anyone has any experience or knowledge it would be very welcome, I have done lots of searching and reading of websites so I know the basics.

Choice of type:- Kinetic - energy stored in flywheel, faster than hydraulic but fairly new technology and ones in my price range don't seem to be very well thought of.

Hydraulic horizontal - the cheapest, huge range from 4 tonne up to 8 tonne, many manufacturers.

Hydraulic vertical - tend to be bigger/heavier than the horizontal ones. In my price range I don't really see what advantages they offer over horizontal (though I'm happy to hear otherwise).

Tractor mount - I'd love one as I have a 'proper' tractor with all the hydraulics required but I think they're out of my price range.

I want to keep the cost below £500 or so though for something really good we can stretch a bit further. Currently I'm tending towards the

Forest Master FM16D which is a horizontal 8 tonne splitter with two speeds so is reasonably fast for small logs. It's can be found for just under £500.

Any advice would be most welcome. E.g. do I really need 8 tonnes or would a 5 or 6 tonne splitter be OK (significantly cheaper). Should I look harder at vertical splitters like the Ama 92302 (£550 including delivery here) from Italy?

[Tim Lamb]

In message [e-mail]>, Chris Green [e-mail] writes

I use a Hycrack screw splitter. 25hp should be ample. You can alter the working height with your 3 point linkage if your tree rings are too big to lift. Ideal log length not more than 450mm

Yours are a bit long for an enclosed log burner!

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[Chris Green]

Trouble is no one seems to actually sell them!

There is this (similar?) on eBay:-

I'd seen this but rejected it but if it works well then it's well within my price bracket. I looked at a youtube video about it and it seemed rather danerous to me, having to push the logs onto the cone by hand. Is that what you do?

My tractor is 36hp so should be ample.

Yes, I'd be shortening the longer ones after splitting. I have a sliding chop saw which is excellent for such jobs but the maximum it can take is around 10-15cm so they have to be split first.

[nothanks]

I bought a "Scheppach HL520 Horizontal Log Splitter 5 Ton 240V" back in

2017 and it has handled quite a lot of oak, cherry, pine, etcetera since then, up to 18-20" diameter. Sometimes it hasn't been man-enough (do the thought police still allow us to use terms like that?) for some older gnarled wood, but generally it's been great. Splitting seems to be much easier when the tree has just been felled, rather than waiting a year or so.

[Chris Green]

Thanks, useful 'grist to the mill'. Toolstation have a 6.5 tonne Sheppach for £344.98 so that's well within budget.

Presumably you used it without the guard to split logs that big?

[Tim Lamb]

The e-bay version has a cranked lever to engage the log with the screw. Nothing so fancy on the Hycrack:-) Usually just pushing the log into contact will engage the screw. One thing YOU DO NOT DO is leave your right hand anywhere near the work. My Hycrack has a rudimentary safety device consisting of a tubular frame loosely coupled to the table. On my tractor, this can be attached to the PTO lever such that pulling the frame disengages the drive. It would also prevent you tripping and falling on to the screw.

Hmm. Fine for knot free wood. Thin stuff more likely to rotate.

You could bring some samples and do a working test:-) On the tractor for the next few weeks West Herts.

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[Tim+]

Sounds like you (or someone else) has made a lot of work for you! I?m always careful to chainsaw my logs to ?log burner door width?.

Regarding splitters I must admit one of my big concerns about them is the cycle time. Some seem to be awfully slow to retract the blade for the next split. It would drive me crazy.

Tim

[ajh]

Hycrack stopped selling them several years ago, I have one somewhere but it keeps trying to rip my arm off.

[ajh]

They are fast and easily cope with anything an axe will manage,

Ideal for longer stuff that you cross cut after seasoning as billets

I've not any experience but highest productivity for awkward arb waste

I thought this was a cheaper option

If you have cut to length gnarly stuff the screw splitter is best until it actually gets stuck, no good on holly though for some strange reason also only for the wary,

[ajh]

Yes especially eucalyptus

[Chris Green]

Yes, I do, but the tree surgeons who produced the recent big pile of logs would have charged a lot more to cut everything short enough.

That's part of the reason for my questions.

[Chris Green]

Yes, that's what my worry was, it seemed so 'basic' if you like with the user's hands very close to where it was happening.

[Chris Green]

Strangely that conflicts totally with all the information one finds on the web about log splitting. Most log splitters say that 'green' wood is harder to split.

[Tim+]

I *think* that?s bollocks. In saturated wood the shock wave from an axe impact doesn?t get absorbed by air filled xylem/phloem/whatever air spaces their are in dry wood.

Certainly in my experience green/wet wood ?bursts? apart much more readily.

Tim

[John Rumm]

I have a horizontal electric hydraulic one - only an ebay cheapie, but it is "ok". It has quite a long length of travel, but there is a return stop you can use to stop it retracting all the way. So when doing similar length logs, you can restrict it from returning far from the end of the next log. That helps the speed quite a bit.

[Charles F]

[Chris Green]

Thank you, that's really useful information.

[nothanks]

FWIW I got mine in 2017 for £280 (from Toolstop)

Mine didn't have a guard ... just looked at pictures of new ones and that guard would make the thing very difficult to use. Perhaps the next stage in product development is to make it totally safe by shipping an empty box! In fact, moving it around is more dangerous than using it because the legs are spindly and the wheels are a bit on the small side. Logs do sometimes go with a bit of a bang, and I've had a few fire off in strange directions, but used with a modicum of common sense they're perfectly safe.

[Chris Green]

Yes, it does seem that the recent requirement for splitters to have a guard has made them a bit silly to use. There's also lots of review complaints about the guards being very difficult to assemble.

Strangely all the hire company videos of splitters in use show them without guards! You'd have thought that hire companies would be 'safer than safe'.

There doesn't seem to be a requirement for vertical splitters to have guards either, all very strange and illogical.

[Andrew]

I spent much of my after-school and weekend time on the adjacent farm. Splitting logs with a hefty axe was always easier on newly felled logs especially if the log being spit was placed on top of another log of a harder,dryer wood. This stops the impact energy being absorbed by the ground (if working on soil/turf) and protects the axe (if splitting on concrete).

I seem to remember it was the way you hit the tree slice and not the amount of physical impact that mattered.

Splitting long logs into posts needs a different technique, i.e. let the log dry until splits appear on the cut end, then hammer an axe into the split and keep hammering wedges along the log to tear it apart lengthways.