22 vs. 28 ton splitter.

Maybe it was not maple! Maple when green splits super easy.

 

Mike, as you can see there are several different opinions on splitters. If you haven't caught it, there is also a lot of bad information about splitting wood and hydraulic splitters. I'm not a pro but will state what we have and how it works for us.

First and foremost, the general treand on splitters is the bigger is better thing and faster and faster and also some love to claim they can split wood faster by hand than with a hydraulic splitter. All pure baloney in my book.

Back in the 1980's I suffered a bad injury. Up to that time I happily split all wood by hand and had done so since I was a very small boy (age 6 or 7). But when I injured my back, that put an end to my hand splitting....almost. I learned very quickly that I could not buy dry wood and suffered through one year of burning freshly cut white ash. You know, that stuff you can cut and burn in the same day. Ha! Well, we got through the winter but it was tough.

Then I came into some nice white ash and had it cut and delivered. That winter I would go outdoors and sit on one block and with sledge and wedge I would split the ash logs. The way I did it was to just sort of tap the wedge as I could not swing the sledge for sure. I did a lot of thinking. Soon, we were the proud owners of an MTD 20 ton splitter that had a 5 hp Briggs & Stratton engine. Wow! Why did I wait so long for this? But wait! Only 20 ton rather than 30 or 35 or more? And aren't B&S engines junk? Hum...

I can tell you we have split well over 300 cord of wood with that thing to date. Our total cost of repairs on it has been exactly $0.00; zero, zilch. Well, maybe that little thing with the poor engine wasn't such a bad deal after all. Btw, Zap (woodlands) had a splitter just like ours and loves it.

As I began splitting with the hydraulics I quickly learned there are techniques one can use to make things easier and if needed, faster even with the small splitters. As someone stated earlier, many times the wedge has to go into the log maybe an inch or 2 and the log is split. Then when you raise the wedge, there is no need to let it raise to the top. Only raise it high enough to get the next log onto the plate. Therefore, when folks talk about cycle time, it is usually a non-issue. But perhaps on some woods where you do have to use the whole cycle, one might be concerned and even then, most people do not split long enough logs to have to raise the wedge all the way. I remember my wife timing a cycle once as I was splitting and she came up with a lot of 3-4 second cycles. Is that too long?

Most times putting the splitter into the vertical mode will be the best, easiest and fastest way to split the wood. Therefore, one that will go vertical is an absolute must. You no doubt have seen my avatar and this is how I split wood. Yes, I sit which saves a lot of energy. It is also faster and you do not have to lift every log up onto the splitter. You simply roll it there. Why lift if you don't have to? It is terrible on the back.

btw, some will cut wood in a day then split it. We don't for a couple reasons. First and foremost is the fact that I don't want to have to get the splitter out every time I cut wood. We cut in winter and sort of stack up the rounds. After snow melt, the splitter then comes out and we do all the splitting then and follow that with putting the splitter away for another year and then stacking the wood. We stack it right where we split it so there is not an extra time to move the wood.

One big benefit of the smaller splitters is that moving the splitter is rather easy and we don't have to hook on a tractor or atv to move the splitter. It can be done by hand. Another big benefit is the amount of gas and oil. Our little 5hp engine just sips the gas but a larger engine naturally will use much more. That is another expense along with the added expense of buying the splitter.

As you split, you will get into a rhythm. You'll find the easiest and quickest way for you. But I can't stress enough about the vertical splitting. Some complain about bending when doing it this way. For sure I could not do that. This is why I sit. Leave that bending to others.


In the end, get what you will be comfortable with. It is a considerable expense and there is more expense in keeping things running. How much do you want to throw into this? Where is the dealer? Can you get needed repairs if necessary? Will the dealer stand behind the machine? In our case, I got from the manager that if I used that splitter for a week and was not satisfied, I would either get my money back or trade it for a larger one. No trade necessary. We are happy.

Good luck.

 

I should have added that we have split well over 300 cord of wood with our 20 ton and so far there has been one log we did not splits. Perhaps it would have split but it would have been all stringy and it was not needed. It went onto the brush pile. So, I know not how many logs those 300+ cord amount to but only one bad one is not too shabby.

 

I had always split by hand until I brought home a giant pin oak. Ended up over 6 cord, the trunk was 40"+ and knotty. The maul and Fiskars bounced off and the wedge would just pop out of it. Imwent to TSC and bought the 22 ton and it went right through the stuff. The bigger rounds went slow but it did the job. That splitter has done all I needed.

 

Shawn, don't you just love all those knots in pin oak?!


And something I forgot to mention for the new people thinking about buying a splitter. One of the good things about these 20 ton and 22 ton is that they do have a 2-stage pump. If it gets into splitting hard, like through a big knot, the wedge will slow, thus allowing more power to go into the splitting. Once it is through, it will go back to the fast speed automatically. We have a few every year that will cause the 2-stage pump to go into power mode. I like it.