When you begin using the 4 and six way wedges, all thoughts about cycle time will go away. You will be spending time managing all the splits on the table as the ram retracts. I believe that, beyond a certain point, all the agitation over cycle time is wasted energy. Nice machine, nice features. Now you just need a young man to run it for you!
Depending on your setup, that's true. But with the right setup, and some good help, a slow splitter is definitely the choke point. If you have time to check your texts before the splitter is ready for the next piece, it might be too slow
That's a great looking machine. Nothing wrong with a single wedge, actually makes nicer wood. If your working by yourself, it's just the right speed, especially stacking on the table. We do that when stacking in totes. We use 4 way, but not always. With a conveyor, multi-wedge is the way to go.
I've gotten by with just using a single wedge for the last 16 years, so it will be fun experimenting with the with the wedges at some point. You make a great point though about making 'nicer' wood. Since a lot of my stacks require cribbing on the ends, using the single wedge allows me more control in shaping splits for stable cribbing. I feel the 4 and 6-way wedges would result in more 'you get what you get' pieces. And honestly, the driving force towards getting this new splitter was the hydraulic lift. That was the necessity.
100% I had the 4 way and my Yard max is 35 ton as well. (Depending on the wood), most of the time it wasn't worth a S#!T. I split single splits, I'm in no hurry and there's plenty of so, It is what it is!
If splitting nice straight woods grown trees a 4/6 way wedge will work a lot better than most of the stuff I get, which would be candidate for bLowes lumber!
