Some cooler days here and making firewood is fun again when not fighting the heat. Running the fir through the splitter, it is satisfying turning the rounds into splits that will profile warmth in the Winters to come. The Champion splitter has proven to be a good addition to the homestead. It does behave differently than the Yard Machines splitter I was using before. The wedge has a narrow sharp section before it widens out so slices right through the knots. Also the faster cycle time cuts down on the wait time to split and cycle back into position. So easy, a fat bald old man can do it.
Ive heard the Champion cycles a little faster vs. other generic splitters. How much faster? I've considered one before. Nice that you had good weather and the hardest thing about splitting like that is getting up!
I sold my splitter. Running it hurt my back, i would rather swing an x27. If i ever bought another splitter its gona have a log lift on it. Only doing about 7 cords a year now, so any tough rounds can just be noodled.
First time I've heard of going from hydro to hand splitting. The rounds do seem to get heavier as we age.
The cycle time is quite a bit faster than on the Yard Machine splitter. I haven’t tried splitting Alder with the Champion splitter yet but most of it pops open before the wedge gets a couple of inches into the round so the faster cycle time probably won’t be a big difference. With this Fir there were some stringy and knotty rounds that required a full cycle and I felt the faster cycle time was an advantage over the Yard Machine splitter. Probably not worth buying a new splitter but since I found this one at a good price I figured it was worth a try.
Ive seen them for sale used around here and if priced right I may pull the trigger. Nothing wrong with having a back up splitter, right?
Don't be hard on yourself. I'm in the same boat. I do know that if the work has to be done I would depend on an old man of grit and determination and born to work and responsibility rather than to some young entitled slacker! I would be proud to stand next to you and many other ones on our forum who keep getting the job done! Have fun with your new machine. Hope your hearth is always bright and warm!
Most of the wood i split is pine or douglas fir and Larch. Dont really need a hydro. Sometimes i put the rounds in a tire and split it that way. Hydro is certainly the way to go on hardwoods. Ive ran an Easton made splitter with a log lift and it was heaven. As mentioned above a saw with a sharp chain will split any round.
Too much of what we cut is 24” diameter. I have read of guys chipping away from the outside in with an axe on large rounds, that’s just counter intuitive to me. I have always broken rounds down by splitting them, halves into quarters, quarters smaller etc. At 60, I don’t know that I could learn a new trick. we burn 8-10 cords a year, and the thought of hand splitting that much I don’t want to think about. If I couldn’t use a hydro, I’d probably be done heating with wood, and just be cutting and splitting for campfires and ambience fires, less than a cord a year The hydro is so much faster than hand splitting, and around here firewood is ridiculously expensive to buy, typically $350/cords mixed Fir, Alder, Maple, that buying it for heating isn’t cost effective We enjoy going wood cutting, and doing it ourselves, is a very cost effective way to heat our home, but take away the hydro, and that changes the whole game Doug
BTW, don’t get me wrong, I have a lot of respect for those who do hand splitting, but the thought of swinging an axe, and/or a maul that much hurts my back, way more than running the splitter I prefer splitting horizontally, and have been trying to keep my rounds to a size that is more easily managed for splitting horizontally, unfortunately the Goldilocks wood isn’t that easily found around here, the 20-24”+ is much more common For inexplicable reasons, my Wife prefers splitting vertically, probably not having to lift rounds onto the beam, and being able to sit down while she splits. I cut and roll her rounds, and keep them near the platform I built for splitting vertically, so it has a base that is probably about 22”x 30” rather than trying to balance rounds on the rather small, narrow foot. She can spin them onto the platform and split without standing up, then tosses splits into or near the trailer. I alternate cutting, rolling her rounds and stacking splits into the trailer as needed. Our system works pretty good for us. Unfortunately, the last load, about a week ago the splitter started puking hydraulic fluid out of the cylinder around the ram seal, enough that I decided it was time to shut it down, so we didn’t get very much of the wood loaded as splits 85% came home as rounds A Friend who was the contractor that remodeled our kitchen tore it down, and we are just going to have the front end seals replaced, we left the rest of the piston and ram in the cylinder, it was pretty obvious where the leak was. In better times, I would have had Russel pull the whole piston and ram out, and do all the seals, but I will probably be off work until the beginning of October because of my sleep apnea issues invalidating my medical card, so I have to go the cheap, and fast route this time, I have about a cord and a half of large rounds to split, and I would like to be able to go cut another 2-3 cords if I can, and I am running out of time. We just got the cylinder apart today, and the hydraulic shop in Gresham opens Tuesday, so hopefully, I can get the seals Tuesday morning, and get the splitter put back together Tuesday afternoon, and get caught up on my splitting Yep, this very subject is something that I have been thinking about for the last couple days. Well, gotta get back to rolling rounds off the trailer, over to where the splitter is supposed to be, I need the trailer to move some other things, and would like to have it empty and ready to roll for hopefully another couple loads of firewood soon Doug
Most of the wood i split is pine or douglas fir and Larch. Dont really need a hydro. Sometimes i put the rounds in a tire and split it that way. Hydro is certainly the way to go on hardwoods. Ive ran an Easton made splitter with a log lift and it was heaven. As mentioned above a saw with a sharp chain will split any round. The splitter i had just wasnt for me. It was a yard machines 27 ton. Cycle time was slow, and it was to low. When i ran the lever i was hunched over. Uncomfortable. Most of the wood i cut is 14 to 20 inch diameter pine or douglas fir. From the edge of a huge fire we had in the Ochoco mtns. Lots of trees that only the bottom 4 to 7 feet got scorched. So it splits pretty easy with an axe. There is some Larch and lodgepole also, and you could split the larch with a hatchet if you wanted to.i would post some pics, but this site fights me on that. Would probably go better with a pc instead of a smartphone.
Our 27 ton DHT is fine for me, at 6’ tall height wise, I don’t feel scrunched over running it. If your splitter was uncomfortable for you to run, absolutely hand split and all the power to you. For me, I’m dealing with larger rounds, but I would still take a hydro over an axe or maul any day. With the table on the hydro, I can break down rounds much faster, and with infinitely less bending over than hand splitting I sure won’t tell you how you do it, is wrong for you, but it sure isn’t the best way for me Different Strokes, for Different Folks Doug
Tamarack, I have an I-13 Smartphone, and posting pics on here is usually pretty easy, especially if they’re pictures I took with the iPhone. Just click on upload a file, right next to the post reply, and select photo library, and choose which album you want to post pics from, scroll through selecting the pics, then click Add, then it will go back to the page you’re posting on, and it will load the files, and you can select full size or thumbnail and insert whichever image you want to wherever you want to, regardless of the order in which you selected them from your album, and you can sdd text before or after as you want I admit that I’m a dinosaur, and struggle with a lot of techno stuff, but I usually don’t have too much trouble posting pics on FHC, some other forums I have been on, I have struggled with, but usually not FHC, there is one pic of Yogi having a snack at one of my Wife’s Friends bird feeders, that didn’t end well for the bird feeder, that I get some Security issues message for some reason that I haven’t been able to figure out Doug
