Advice regarding 4 way wedges

[Yatt]

I recently got a Speeco 28 ton splitter, works great. 8)

It's easy on fuel and the 5 position choke on the B/S starts very easily.

Most of the wood I split is large, 16" - 30" rounds.

So is going to a 4 way wedge worth it?

The only beef I have about the splitter is the existing wedge should be taller. :'(

[CRThomas]

I recently got a Speeco 28 ton splitter, works great. 8)

It's easy on fuel and the 5 position choke on the B/S starts very easily.

Most of the wood I split is large, 16" - 30" rounds.

So is going to a 4 way wedge worth it?

The only beef I have about the splitter is the existing wedge should be taller. :'(

A four way is handy but not all the time. But if you have to split wood to burn in your burner the size of rail road ties a four way would work the area I live in if two men can pick a chunk of firewood its to small they burn batters and tires to something else here

[Yatt]

they burn batters and tires to something else here

Ahh.........Sorry you totally lost me there. ???

[thecfarm]

I may have burned a few porkypine and wood chucks in my OWB but not batteries or tires go in mine.
I added on to my wedge,about 6 inches,than I had to add on to the stop 6 inches in height. But I split ALOT of big stuff that is odd shaped too.

[thecfarm]

This is something that I had built. It just goes over the splitter.
This shows it by itself.



 

This one shows it over the splitter.




 

I have posted about this before. I have some more pictures in my gallery.
Now that I have added on,I can no longer use it. But I don't split much small stuff now. I use to use the splitter for an old cook stove. I did not like much bigger than a softball in size for that.

[Oliver1655]

Very nice fabrication job CFarm.  You might consider adding a 1/2" of flat vertically to the front edge.  i will explain why below.

Yatt,  I have a 4 way on my splitter & use it for 95% of my splitting. (Elm, hedge, oak, locust, ...) 

A couple of things I have learned by trial/error & from talking with other folks who have built their own splitters:
    1 - On the horizontal wings, only bevel/sharpen the upper edge.  If you sharpen the lower edge it will force the lower split downward causing it to want to wedge between the wedge & the beam/out-feed tables.  If you look at Cfarm's photo, he used 1/2" for his horizontal wings.  This is what I use.  However I would not sharpen it like he did for the above reason.  There are lots of wedged made like he did his. I am not saying it will not work, just that I feel the way I mentioned above will work better.
    2 - Have the vertical edge stick out around 2" in front of the horizontal wings.  This way the split occurs in 2 stages & is less stress on the splitter & decrease the risk of it not splitting.
     3 - Knife edges split better.  To clarify:  A - It takes less effort for it to enter the wood.  B - It can shear through gnarly pieces decreasing stress on splitter & less chance of it hanging up.

I don't have any pictures of my wedge system on this computer to post I will be making a thread about my splitter this weekend which will have photos.  If you look at images of the wood processor wedge systems you will notice they all use "knife" edges.

Is it worth having a 4 way wedge option, you bet!

[Yatt]

Great info Oliver 1655.

[thecfarm]

I should've said that I did not make that wedge. My fabrication skills are not that good. What you say does make sense about the vertical part on the front and the angles too.