The village has a sea of 30"+ logs in their lay down yard. I've cut there for years and yes, there is some smaller stuff, but I usually leave that for other folks who cut there, since most don't have equipment to process bigger wood. I have used the horizontal/ vertical splitter in the vertical position using the forks to position the round. That works OK, but requires getting on and off a lot if I'm by myself. The other option is log tongs or forks lifting it onto the push-through splitter. It has the draw back of having a 200#+ chunk to deal with until it can be broken down too. Here's another hair-brained idea, part way into execution. Rigging up a fork mounted cylinder and beam from the vert/horz splitter. Everything can be put back to OEM configuration except the four clearance holes for 5/8" bolts holding the fork bracket. The thought of mounting to the forks is two fold. I can fairly quickly back off the grub screws (5/8" bolts, nuts to be welded in pic above) and quick disconnects in the event I only have the little John Deere 870 at the site. The other reason is that I am mounting it off-set to the left so I can easily see the log that will be broken down and, in most cases, finished on the other splitter shown in the first pic. I don't have third function on any of my tractors so the plan is to position the splitter in the desired orientation, dis-connect the quick disconnects on normal curl/dump lines, and run hoses to the front, one with female and one male. I'll mark the tractor side lines once I make sure the cylinder actuation is the way I want. Will it be a bit slower than when mounted on the tractor using it's internal pump? No doubt. Will it be faster than a one legged guy, getting on and off a tractor to split using the forks as a pivoting platform, with the splitter in vertical mode? Highly likely. Hopefully, we test this concept after church today. Wish me luck.
I had to fart with the controls on the Johnn Deere 870. I was hoping to use the dump/curl circuit but I was getting wonky pressure spikes. The extend cycle was the worst. I ended up using the loader, raise/ lower circuit for splitting and the dump/ curl to raise and lower. That worked ok, but boy is there a learning curve. Not intuitive at all. The concept works great. Mount is sturdy, I can move pieces around with either end of the beam. Splits fine, even without bumping up the output pressure. I would give it a solid 7 out of 10, mainly due to control inputs being the way they are. It definitely achieves the goal of making 30"+, rounds manageable. If anyone knows why I'm getting over pressure on a circuit with a double acting cylinder, I'm all ears.
I like it ,hats off to you for being creative. You probably have a fraction of the cost of a store bought unit
