Not to derail the other thread, jo191145 posted a picture of his splitter but what caught my eye was the no more handling, great drying method of his wood stack. See picture below: I was so taken with this design I had some questions and then he (jo191145 ) posted this next picture: Questions: 1. End poles are not buried in the ground? 2. By building the Vee at the ends and connecting to the vertical pole, is a horizontal cable attached keeping it from bulging out? 3. Or the Vees keep the bottom of the pole from kicking out due to the pull of the cable holding the tarp up. 4. Is the back rigged like the front or different? 5. Do you use or would a boat trailer type winch work for tightening and holding the top cable? Oh I see the horizontal boards keep the top pallets from tipping out, the bottom of them are attached to the top of the bottom pallet and assume the bottom of the bottom pallet is attached to the pallets laying as a floor. The ability to create a slanted stack, fill a crib like structure and be able to access it to unload it. Just amazing creation! Do you disassemble it as you empty it or are we seeing the building of the second crib? Thanks for any and all answers. I hope to have one structure in use and full by this time next year.
With the pallets stood up there’s no way to screw them to the bottom pallets so they get a crosstie too. The long horizontal pallets can be screwed right to the pallets. I toss in a bottom cross tie anyway for good measure. My thoughts with the long horizontal pallets is I can leave them all standing. To offload I intend to swap the conveyor around and push/pull it inside as I go offloading straight onto my dump trailer. There’s 18’ of horizontal pallets in my 2nd pen. Should be a breeze. Pens are roughly 28’ long to account for available tarp sizes (30’) Originally I wanted no screws into the pallets on the cross ties themselves. Just the cross piece holding all the pressure. Well it’s easier to screw them to the pallets also. One guy operation, take the easy route Originally I allowed the small crosspiece to sit inside the pallet slats on top of the crosstie. Found thats not best practice. The crosstie will bend down even if I chock them in the middle with splits. The crosspiece then absorbs all that extra pressure and #9 construction screws start snapping. So, crosspiece on bottom of crosstie and on the slats allowing it to sag slightly if needed. I’m allowing the crossties to extend 2’ on this pen to help with the tarp roof which will be better than the first attempt,,,,,I hope. My intent is the tarp be fully floating not touching any wood. We shall see. Just a pic of fourway junction of horizontal pallets. The cable you refer to is just a cheap Home Depot rope with heavy counter weight. The sag in the rope was worse than I imagined it would be. I let it go on the first pen. Thought maybe a bale of hay in the middle. So far I’m letting it go. brenndatomu suggested a prop of sorts. Must admit I poo pooed the idea. Thinking about it later I think it may be the solution. Slapped one in last minute. That’s a 1.5” pvc pipe sticking up. Screwed to a crosstie with wood dropped all around it. I’ll cut it at rope height later and install a tee with the rope running through. Maybe even some short lengths of pipe too. Wrap with an old t-shirt and I think it will work. if not cut it and go back the he hay idea. Either way I should be able to decrease the needed counterweight substantially. Thanks for the idea brenndatomu Counterweight and bottom of post connection. First, yes the posts are t buried but there’s about 8” of rebar sticking out the bottom for added shift support. Cheap and easy insurance. Besides the angles there are straight arms top and bottom to help in the rope direction only. I guess if I’m not going to fix the first pen I could tighten the rope a little Quick down and dirty rope slide. The wheel doesn’t turn. I was ok with that. The rope will slide on the rim. Maybe next time I’ll do better and let the wheel spin. Top post support Crosstie inside with a little cribbing under for support. Crossties are 1 3/16” thick x 4”. I felt 1.5 was unneeded and 1 3/16 is a scale on my friends mill. Anyone need coffee?
I don’t remember seeing a review of the box wedge? It’s obviously making mountains of splits. Does the splitter push rounds through the box without struggle. What size motor cylinder and pump are on it? Cycle time? Sheesh what are you doing splitting wood all day?
American splitters makes a nice entry level commercial splitter. All quality parts. No scrimping on hoses, engines, pumps etc. it’s not a $15,000 splitter but it certainly isnt a box store splitter either. Im an impulse buyer. I wanted a splitter NOW. Well that’s during the covid shut down and this splitter was available and fit the bill. I knew upfront I was intending to chop it up and reconfigure it to my tastes. I enjoy tinkering and saving money. So I put a set of tilting and swiveling zero turn wheels on the front. Swapped the tow arm to the back where it belongs. And builT a box wedge on it. Now this model (25 Super) is not the most powerful they make. It’s designed more for speed. But I did iT anyway. Someone calculated it at 19 tons. Real world tonnage not box store tonnage. I’m sure any manufacturer would say no to a box wedge on such a splitter. I do mostly red oak and that stuff splits easy. Leave the nasty stuff in the woods. Anything in particular just ask.
Super Nope, not all day. Weather permitting I move and buck logs for a couple hours in the morning. Late afternoon I’ll split what I bucked. By alternating I don’t have a mound of splits too far from the splitter. Whatever’s easiest not the fastest It certainly does it’s share of struggling. A lot of it is reading the grain in the round. Generally the larger end should enter the wedge first. Not always easy to determine and for every rule at my house there’s a million exceptions. One thing I would do differently,,,I wanted to keep everything as close to stock as possible in case the experiment failed. Easy to revert back to original. I left the factory wedge in the middle. Cut it off at the height required. To do it agAin I’d cut it off at the beam. Don’t need a one inch thick wedge in the center. Just adds to the sideways movement of the splits. Wouldn’t hurt if I had added a little more angle to the other cutters. Couldn’t find that information on the web so went with what I thought would work. Logsplitter mods. Phase one done Splitter mods, phase two
I've used a tarp cover like that, but with a 4 inch PVC pipe in place of the rope in the center. Downfall was a really cheap/old tarp. Many of the rope grommets ripped out. I had milk jugs filled with water to hold the sides down.
Touch over $7000 out the door. Not cheap but I had so much trouble with My DHT I was hesitant to buy another Chyna splitter.
I did a floating tarp roof with rope ridgeline many years back to air dry lumber. It worked very well even with cheap tarps and bungee cords to ground stakes. Of course building it just off ground level is easier than building further up in the air. Hoping to do a better job on the second one. The span was less too, less sag. The nice thing about sloped tarp roofs is they shed water even after the tarp looks like chit. What kind of distance did you span with 4” pvc?
That's some Gilligans's Island Engineering jo191145! Nice work professor, now fix that hole in the boat and get the others off the island! Nice setup my friensd!
Thanks for the morning laugh. Now that you mention it I see it. LOL I couldn’t miss an episode of Gilligans Island as a kid. And I thought it was just Mary Ann I was enthralled with. I was just self educating myself and didn’t know it As for the boat,,,,it’s doomed dude. Every kid from the 60’s knows you can’t fix a hole in a boat.
I like the idea of running your rope through the tee (and pipes) Probably self something for sure... That's why y'all lived in a yellow submarine, eh?! And no worries, Horkn is gettin that boat all fixed up!
I’ll have to get back to you on that one. Still an unknown. I’m thinking it will be fine with a tarp to keep water out and air coming in from the bottom and sides and exiting out the top. Key is keeping air space between wood and tarp, and dry in the middle IMO. I’ve had piles uncovered on the ground for a year for health reasons and it’s not pretty. Black mold and mushrooms galore. Saved about 50% and dumped two cords in the mud trails. Off the ground, air on all sides and no water/snow soaking into the middle I think it will be fine. Time will tell.
Thank you for the detailed explanation and pictures!! Greatly appreciated!!! Hopefully next year you will get to see my version of this wood crib!
It is a time proven theory with ear corn. Around here most single row corn cribs are mono slope. But with the cable making a peak I can see a chimney effect being possible.
