Started messing with the splitter today. With all the big logs I’ve procured it seemed only logical to use the winch power off my trailer to help get the big rounds up. FWIW I’m never splitting vertical again, hate it. So I used an old arm from a masons well wheel. Bought a new pipe so I wouldn’t have to modify the rest of the scaffold rig. Got a set of tongs too. Going to try them with the trailer also. Maybe get rid of the choke chain entirely. Some quick release scaffolding pins to drop the pipe easily. Fairly certain I’ll need to lock the arm in one position or it will be pulled towards the trailer. Gonna set it up and play with it a bit before I go doing more mods though. The trailer will be backed into the table side. It just happened to be parked in that spot so I ran the rope to it for haha’s Hopefully no more noodling
Interesting concept. With the pick up angle of the line coming from the right, how will you manuever the mass to the left to the splitter table? Just thinking out loud.
The angle in the pic is opposite of what I’ll be dealing with in use. Just wanted to see the tong hanging before moving on to the next project of the day. I fully expect I’ll need to either lock that arm in one position or create a stop which it cannot go past. I’ll want to set up the trailer correctly and toy around with a round before doing any cutting/welding for that. Seems I have good height on the splitter. For use with the trailer that concoction of connections may need to be shortened. Heights are critical for winching logs onboard which makes the choke chain and grab hook optimal. On the tong I can cut the yellow hook and it’s D shaped swivel body off and replace with a 3/4” shackle. Need to modify the cross bolt on the shackle to accept the grab hook. Shackle body should be close enough in size and shape to not greatly change the tongs picking behavior. Local hardware store was out of stock on shackles so I just bought one of those screw apart chain links. I’ll test it on the trailer to see if there’s any utility. Otherwise it would work as is on the splitter. May also want to switch back to my full swivel block on the splitter. The block in the pic is better quality and works better on the trailer (USA). The full swivel Chinese block has a hard time with the weight of the full logs due to poor manufacturing tolerances. Would work fine with just rounds.
Yeah just sitting on the rails. Time to bring the four way out of retirement. It’s a poor design that caused some headaches and bent steel when I first used it. Smashed it back into shape with a sledgehammer and brought it out just to look at some mods. Decided before I modify anything I wanted to use it as is again to have a better feel for what heights I want the horizontal splitters at. I can strengthen the thing but any mods worthy of doing will negate the adjustability of the cutter heights. I plan on adding a cutter knife to the top of the wedge. Not so much to split but just cut some of those strings that always hold the rounds together. Maybe add some cutters to the horizontals also. I’ll know better once I use it again as is.
