need fast splitters too keep up with saw (with pics)

[twobears]

 LMAO!! 

 delbert

[letsgetitracing]

I am going to pick up saw with my semi tommorrow I will have pics (not in action) posted hopefully thursday in action hopefully friday i have a job to cut a semi load of logs into firewood i told the guy 20 bucks a face cord he said bring it over ( he asked me how many days will it take me) I laughed i just said not long I wanted to be nice  hee hee  ;Di  I will let you people know how long it took

My splitter I am just bout done with will weigh in excess of 15 ton so far

Stats:

single cylinder side will have a adjustable 23 way head
double side will adjustable 30 way head kinda like pushing logs through a tick tac toe pattern or a cheese grater these are made out of motor scraper cutting edges 2 inch thick ar 420 plate

2 splitters side by side  3 cylinders total  for splitting  one more 4 inch 18 inch stroke  took off farm discs out back to transfer logs from right to left side once right side is full of logs


200 ton @ 2500 psi  with 4   1 1/2 inch feed lines 2 12 inch bore with 5 inch rams 5'  stroke
150 ton @ 2500 psi  with 2   2 inch feed lines 14 inch bore with 6 inch ram 38 inch stroke

Hydraulic 120 gpm cap 130 gal tank 150  gal total
Hydraulic cooler and a 105 water tank with separate radiator and pump fully adustable to run in winter  or summer keep oil at optimal temp i can shut off the cooler so that oil warms up faster in the winter and can open up when ready to cool just like a thermostat but I used 5  1/2 inch ball valves instead

powered by a cummins 5.9 liter  out of a 90 dodge pickup i put intercooler on it
I also took off power steering unit and transmission off no need to waste power i made a coupler that bolted to crank and coupled to pump which is a vickers vane pump with a 3 inch suction 1 1/2 pressure line

it's all  built on a 4 inch by 6 inch 1/4 inch thick frame with it started out with three single 10,000 lbs axles i have to remove them and put semi running gear under or load it on my low boy to get it to jobs little light in the pants to handle the weight i found some dexter hubs off car carriers they have no axle to attach to side to side they are also air ride they will handle it no prob. tires will 11 r 22.5 hub pilot

I started with a 44 foot 1 1/4 inch thick I beam 30 inch tall 15 inch wide which I cut in half length wise then one side I cut in half the long ways which took a long time turned it so the face of the beams where at a V shape and then welded them together now that took a long time to do about 200 lbs of 1/2 inch  7018 hr4   d c  reverse polarity rods  at 350 amps  with a 3 phase welder the other side has the two cylinders side by side laying down in between top and bottom

I used the frame to be the fuel tank I ran out of room to mount one on top I was going to use frame to hold water for cooling but I needed more then it could hold I used a 105 gal fuel tank that is supossed to be in back of pick up truck

I started with a big block chevy with a allision 5 speed out of  a dump truck to power it but i figured the fuel consumption would break me so i took it off replaced it with 180 hp cummings diesel.

[stonebroke]

Sounds neat .  What are you going to do for an encore?

Stonebroke

[letsgetitracing]

make money with both of them hopefully??? 

[WH_Conley]

Excuse me for being a little leary of this amount of production. But, if it works, I may have a few days work for ya.

[letsgetitracing]

If you guys ever saw the difference between a chain saw firewood processor and a slasher type (buzz saw style) this is what i use to cut the wood with slasher type look it up before you doubt how much this style will cut

[Furby]

double side will adjustable 30 way head kinda like pushing logs through a tick tac toe pattern or a cheese grater these are made out of motor scraper cutting edges 2 inch thick ar 420 plate

Didn't know wood could be squeezed that much, guess ya gotta get some pics if it in action as I'm doubting you A LOT!

[letsgetitracing]

why would you doubt it alot what have you built?

[Jeff]

Come on fellas, We gotta lot of ingenious people in this state. Morbark, total chip, bandit, and others were born here.  Let the fellow prove himself. You guys have a chance of looking silly if you dont ease up a bit.

letsgetitracing, furby or I either one can help you with posting photos when you get them.

[letsgetitracing]

i will have some tommorrow i can grab a few trees and cut a few but it's like 15 degrees outside

[Furby]

Letsgetitracing,
I'm doubting the fact that you can compress a block of wood by 2" in each direction at the same time across the grain and still have a block of wood afterwards.
All I'm asking for is to see it in action.
If you can do it in a practical application such as a splitter.... GREAT, I'll pat you on the back and offer my hand.
I'm not trying to attack you or your ideas, please don't take it that way, I just want to see it.
You better belive I'm more then willing to help you post pics here!


WH_Conley,
I'm still waiting for that farm info, it's something I need to get moving on ASAP, I'm getting cabin fever!

[letsgetitracing]

i would like to see a block of wood compress in both directions also the side with my 2 cylinders has one splitter head i think you read it wrong or i wrote it wrong dunno

[Furby]

Maybe that's what's happening here, we are thinking two different things, no biggie happens all the time.

With a tic tack toe pattern, just for example say you have 9 spaces as a tic tack toe board has, and you number each one with the middle square being #5.
As you press into the log, #5 has no place to expand to as it is split.
#5 is a closed box and you'll have something like half the thickness of each splitter blade/knife/wedge pushing inward towards the center of the block.
In this case you have stated 2" thick pieces, and if each one had a bevel on each side like a wedge, you'd have 1" worth of compression on each side or 2" in each direction.
Now, if you had a straight edge towards the middle square #5, it could/would work, but you'd be limited to a 9 piece splitter
as you need to give the surronding pieces some place to go.

The other side of things is ultra thin knives, they would pass through with less force and would apply much less compressive force, but not hold up as long or cycle as fast.

If I'm thinking along the same line as you, I'd be looking at a double star wedge of some sort.
With one star pattern surrounding but not overlapping the other, and you could possibly do a couple pieces of log at once depending on how big the splitter and logs are.
You just have to look at the way the force changes as it's applied.

[Gary_C]

Furby is right.

If you have a cheese grater type die with 30 openings and built with 2 inch thick knives, you would have an extruder head with somewhere between 25 and 50 per cent open area corresponding to 2 to 4 inch square openings. That means if you could actually push a 16 inch long round piece of log thru that die, the pieces will come out somewhere between 32 and 64 inches long. Plus the heat generated would would result in charcoal coming out the back end.

Next thing, I have seen both a slasher and a bar saw head work plus I run a harvester with a cut to length head. The slashers are NOT at all faster than bar saw heads. Most likely the other way around. 

So the only way remaining to process firewood at the speeds you are claiming is to speed up the cycle times on the splitting ram and that will be difficult to do with the massive cylinders you claim to have. But that would not do any good anyway when you still have to wait for the saw. 


So sorry, but you can count me as a disbeliever. Just too many things that do not make sense here and never have. So go ahead and make me look silly if you can. 

[dancan]

It doesn't matter if it works perfectly or not , i really want to see pictures of the beast's or videos , the construction and configuration may provide insight or spur on someone else's next project , so let's see what you built 'cause i feel a project coming up .

[stonebroke]

I think Cord King has the same configuration for one  of its optional splitter designs. No reason it shouldnot work with enough power. And I think he has enough power.

Stonebroke

[beenthere]

I'm anxious to see what it looks like, and how it produces the split pieces. Hopefully today we will see it in action.

Does remind me of a friend's friend, who built a splitter from a large (??) continental engine and the rams and hydraulics from a garbage/trash truck.  He came out to split wood on shares, and apparently had just built this monster splitter. It had two vertical wedges and only one horizontal wedge. What happened was as Furby and Gary_C are explaining...the wood was being extruded as it had nowhere to go when passing between the two wedges. The horizontal wing was welded in there to keep the two wedges from being pushed apart. The 6" ram had power but was verrrrrryyyyy slow, and wish I had some pics of the extruded wood that made it through the wedges before finally, the power of the ram just ripped the wedge from its mooring.

But so far, the descriptive explanation has been just vague enough (doens't take much for me sometimes) that I can't get a good mental picture of this new idea for fast splitting. I'm willing to wait, but it's like waiting to open a package....just "can't" wait...

So letsgetitracing,   lets get it racing !!    You've worked us up into a frenzy, anxious for you to show your success, and waiting to see the pics.   

[pineywoods]

I'm betting letsgetitracing gets this beast to work, but only after some modifications. I agree with the rest of you guys about the wood being compressed, BUT preconceived notions.. there's nothing that says all the wedges have to be in the wood at the same time. They will probably have to be staggered down the log, each log pushing the previous log through another wedge. I can see jamming problems, but that can be worked out. Big problem I see is the wedge itself. IF he's welded that up out of old grader blades, it will break very quickly. Grader blades are heat treated, you can't weld them worth a DanG. Been there, done that.
MY hat's off to him for being ambitious enough to even attempt such a project, even if it doesn't work out. 
I take a whole different approach. Where is it written in stone that firewood has to be cut to length, then split? throw a whole log on the woodmizer with the fork lift, two passes, rotate 90 deg, two more passes, THEN lift it off and cut to length. If I was going at this in a big way, I'd put a set of rollers off the end of the mill like bibby's crosstie setup.

[Furby]

That's the way some of the processors are set up, but with a couple of bands so as only one pass is needed.

[twobears]

 if your cutting several logs at the same time watch out that slasher blade can grab one of the blocks and toss it into orbit or jam  it between the blade and frame and it can knock the saw blade right off the shaft...trust me i know first hand.
 also whats been said about the type wedge your building is true..grader blades will bust because there way to hard and using a chesse grader type wedge will make crappy type firewood and end up busting because of the stress put on it.
 i know a guy that had a cordking processor he ended up selling it because of the messy firewood it made and the wedge busting all the time.

 delbert