I've got a little more to get from the pile that my buddy brought over to his house, but there's more than 2 trailer loads worth. Elm. American elm. It was noodled, which helped. First load from last week .6 of a cord Then I got another load today. Plus my buddy's dad's tiller so I can till my garden. I split each load up before filling the trailer. If I did not have a push through splitter, I probably might pass on elm. I broke 2 push plate bolts today on the splitter, despite being super careful. Not a big deal, but elm being elm. I replaced them and kept pushing the splits through. I then stacked the wood down below. You can see the elm right in the middle. There was split ash from last spring and Fall under the second row back. Anyway, it's over another cord for next year. When I return the tiller, I'll grab the load of sugar maple, ash, some cherry, and I a think a few rounds of basswood that I cut and split over the winter.
Here's the stack I need to get the splitter here so I can split the ash rounds I just dropped in March on the left, and the fir I cut up in November ( hiding behind on the right), along with the silver maple( right front), more ash from fall from a scrounge up the road( under the fir in back) and honey locust fat cookies from a scrounge ( right front) on the other end of town. Those are big splits too, a lot of them at least.
Yes, those ash rounds are pretty decently sized. Around 2' in diameter. There's a lot of limb wood in that pile behind the bigguns. I hauled the big stuff last so I could just roll them off the trailer and let them sit. This was the last one the trailer is 4' wide. I'm so happy I got all that branch mess cleaned up. It's pretty much all nice green grass now. A couple spots I need to plant some grass seed. After tonight we shouldn't have any more freezing weather so I can get that going.
buZZsaw BRAD while splitting this, I kept thinking about you all hand splitting with axe/maul. Then when those bolts sheared on the ram, I was like oh hell no!! There's a few big nasties that will be brought over to my buddy's house for Friday night campfires once he starts having those again. His patio fire pit is like 3' diameter. I've got some ash stump uglies from last spring that will be arriving at his house once I noodle them once or twice more. One of those ash stumpuglies broke like 3 of those ram bolts. So I gave up on splitting them with hydros.
elm is not for me. I did some restacking and found the red elm i scored last June. I had split it the next day...11-12" rounds biggest. Had one 4-5" elm round i bucked the other day. Didnt try to split it. I know my limits and have a noodle pile. Ease of splitting is my main MO when i score wood. Educate me on hydros. Are the bolts a safety feature?
That is why I noodle elm. I used a lot this year in the wood stove and for me it is worth noodling it up.
Not really a safety feature. These bolts I'm talking about keep the ram on the beam. Here's a closer shot. You can see the 2 shiny bolts that hold on the ram plate on the end of the cylinder. There's 2 on reach side 3/8" bolts. We use grade 3 or grade 5, but typically grade 3 because if/ when they snap, they are easier to get out of the ram and replace them. They are a sacrificial element. Also note that hydraulics have more power/ pressure if the cylinder is not extended. The further the cylinder is extended, there less power it has. Another win for a push through the splitter. Just retract the cylinder, and put another log on and it will push the unsplittable piece though, splitting it. That's what I'm showing on the pic. The knotty ash is stuck on the stationary wedge. The half round split ash piece is being used to wedge the ash knot up and off the wedge, or to simply push it through and split it.
What bolts are breaking? Something doesn't sound right here...splitters don't normally have "shear" bolts...
See above Now the way to mitigate the bolts shearing is to put some pressure on it, then back off and reapply pressure if there's twists/ knots making the ram want to go off course from the beam. Sometimes though those bolts just get too much abuse after a couple while and just give up.
Is there something specific to the Dirdier splitter that makes this so? That would not typical of a normal hydraulic cylinder, as I'm sure you are aware.
That's what my buddy said, and he works for a decent sized hydro shop. He said it's because there's more fluid to push when it's retracted. IDK, It works on this model. The way I see it though, yeah, as long as there's still fluid in the reservoir, the cylinder at near full extension should have the same amount of force as from full retraction. I'm not a hydraulic engineer, and he isn't either. I do actually know hydraulic engineers, from my former job. I should probably ask them to clarify/ confirm.
I CSS tons of elm and you are correct...."elm being elm" takes a pass through splitter. That being the case, it also takes a good size splitter to bust up the big rounds. I think you have a couple things working against you. "Elm being elm" and a splitter that probably requires noodled rounds. Just my opinion, but to me it seems like a lot to ask from just two bolts. However, you know your splitter better than any of us and a bag of bolts is cheap if you're only running an occasional elm. Split on, but please be safe.
There's 4 of these bolts. I don't think this was the factory ram on the Didier. It's literally a piece of angle iron. It's been like this since before we bought it and has processed hundreds of cords, maybe thousands? That said, my buddy is going to make it sturdier at some point. If the Kawasaki ATV didn't need fixing that's probably what would be happening now.
Didier. But lol. It's rusty, and crusty, but it's 40+ years old and aside from a new chonda a couple years ago and a few bolts and some hydraulic fluid, it just keeps chugging along. It's only about 14-15 ton, and slow too. But, it's built pretty darn beefily.
