Black Diamond 25 ton splitters

Anybody know anything about this brand?

A little background:
A good buddy of mine lives in Northern WI in the snow belt and is an avid snowmobiler. He has a OWB that has incredible appetite for wood and I help him with processing firewood. In return he lets me keep my sled and 23' in line trailer at his place, (he has 6,000 square feet of storage). He has extremely nice equipment such as a large late model Bobcat tracked skid steer and Bobcat toolcat with about a dozen attachments. One thing he is cheap about is getting a splitter and he needs one.

So I bought a 25 ton Black Diamond splitter for him to use an unlimited amount of time. It's still mine but I have no intent of bringing it back home as I have a high end splitter of my own unless I have a catastrophic failure.

So what is up with Black Diamond? The are owned by Frictionless World LLC and they are affiliated with Dirty Hand tools that have always treated people well. DHT on their web sites lists ALL splitters as sold out?

All I can find is the brand is made for farm type stores in the mid west. Price was cheap @ $809.

Any comments or knowledge?

Black Diamond 25 Ton Log Splitter

 

Bankrupt

 

I have a black dimond 25 ton spitter. Going on 3 years now it has split everything I put on it and I put some gnarly oak on it. The only problem I had and it was my fault was I was splitting one day on an old concrete pad and was setting my pickaroon down by the hydraulic hoses while I was splitting and had to jump on the atv and move the splitter and the pickaroon got stuck on the concrete and and hydraulic hoses as I drove forward it broke the the housing that holds the pump to the motor I was done for the day had to order a new bracket butt other than that she has been good to me

 

Good catch.

 

Frictionless World LLC is an importer of foreign made equipment.

 

OK, the machine looks OK and does have a full length beam. The motor is a B & S.

It ought to be alright for his needs. The vast majority of the wood he burns is cut and split by a guy he hires with a processor. He feeds it with the log grapple on the toolcat, they crank out some serious production.

I am going up Saturday to do some clean up in the woods and around his house. With the equipment he has a lot can be done in short order.

 

I think I'd chance it. Splitter's are usually pretty easy to source parts for if needed.

 

Rural King has been selling the Black Diamond line for 4-5 years now...can't say I've heard anybody complain about them.
As mentioned above...most splitter parts are available pretty readily through many sources, other than OEM...not much proprietary on many of them.

 

That is pretty much my thoughts too.

 

I got to try my new 30 ton Black Diamond on a load of logs this fall and it worked great.
No regrets.

 

I've looked at the black diamond splitters at local stores. They look to be decent to me.

Even if the parent company went away, these things are pretty much interchangeable with other brands. If it's a dabbed party, that's something that can be done, but I doubt that would happen.

 

They look very similar to the DHT and County Line splitters. Should be a great splitter for him.

 

So what viscosity oil would you guys recommend. This will be sitting outside in Northern WI.

I normally use AW-32.

 

ATF in my splitter. Factory recommendation.

 

Sitting out in the cold yep atf or the same weight as used in the Aircraft hydro systems , or on the expensive side the stuff for snowplows I use to run the aircraft stuff in plows because I could buy that in 5 gallon pails at half the cost of branded label stuff or ATF. regular SAE 10 or 20 will work as well no need for the mutiviscosity stuff. hydro fluid has a wider range operation wise that straight SAE 10 or 20.

 

I think Mike from outdoors with the Morgan’s used one before he got his hands on the Wolf Ridge.
I believe he gave away a Black Diamond last year during his wood stacking contest as well.

 

Yeah, ATF works well. That's what's in our mtd splitter that is in the Northwoods of Wisconsin as well.

 

So does this mean no more DHT products or replacement parts??

 

When I did a google search what I found is Frictionless LLC ownw DHT. All the splitters they have are "sold out".

So as far as parts, all use the same ones and the only thing in my mind to likely go is lovejoy coupling, valve, motor or cylinder. All of which can easily be sourced from other vendors.

FWIW, I picked it up yesterday. Had to order one in as everything the store had was assembled. Attempting to haul this thing 180 miles in the bed of the truck would be difficult. So I opted for one in a crate that we can just pull out with the skid steer or toolcat. Assembly shouldn't be a big deal compared with the hazard of hauling a cannonball with wheels in the back of the truck.