That's one thing I noticed about my new CL 40ton vs my old Speeco. The Speeco was not balanced as well. My CL is much easier to move from horizontal to vertical and back. They put the hinge point further to the front of the beam, which also gives the operator more work room. Although I never really split vertical. Actually, that's not good. You want some tongue weight if you ever tow it on the road. Having that little of tongue weight may cause the splitter to want to dance while being towed. I guess that's not an issue if you don't ever plan to tow it down the road.
And some tongue weight so it doesn't do a "wheelie" every time your drop a large round on the beam...unless it gets left hooked to tow vehicle to split?
When you get the chance, can you measure from the ground up to the splitting beam where the wood sits? Curious as to what yours measures. Also, next time you have it running, put a stopwatch to the cycle time. Curious about that as well. It should be pretty fast, as it has a 22 GPM pump. It probably has a 5" cylinder......? That too! I tested that with both of mine when I got my CL. On my CL I can lift myself off the ground by pressing down on the stop plate and the front end just gets light, it's almost balanced with my weight when I do that. On my Speeco it doesn't move until I bounce on it then it will come up a bit. I am 215lbs. The difference is the location of the hinge point, as I mentioned above.
I know the better commercial splitters don't have those channeled beams and have a flat surface. I get why a lot of people prefer that beam design, but I actually prefer the channeled beam design. I have a tendency to kind of "toss" the round on the beam and let go and that channel on the beam actually helps cradle the round and keep it on the beam. I would probably be tossing the rounds right off the other side of the beam on those flat beamed splitters. Although the log rack would keep it from doing that. Although it could still roll back at me....until I got used to having to actually hold on to the round. The channels do build up crap and can completely understand why one would not like that design just because of that, especially if they split commercially. I do a decent job and keeping those channels clean though. When I split, I basically split and throw the splits into an ATV trailer until full, then I shut the splitter off and stack what's in the trailer....repeat. I always idle down the splitter before I shut it off and while it's idling I use that time to brush all debris off the beam and under the ram. When I am done splitting for the year, I then take a screw driver or something and pry out any "petrified" wood that gets pressed into the corners near the stop plate. I then spray down the beam surface with Fluid Film before putting it away in the garage for the summer, fall and winter.
I never road tow. It's illegal to tow without a registration, lights and fenders in MA and towing something without suspension isn't really wise anyways. I towed my DHT once a very short distance and even with it's exorbitant tongue weight, she certainly was dancing. LOL. If the plan was to road tow, I would have definitely went with the Iron and Oak 37 ton that comes with torsion axles. (My Bearcat chipper has them and it makes a world of difference.) However, for the extra 2k that would have cost me, I can just put this unit in my dump trailer or enclosed sled trailer if I need to bring it somewhere. So, the only time tongue weight affects me is when I'm lifting it to roll it around the barn. For me, the lighter the better... Yes, 5" cylinder. I'll time it when I split the oak in the ATV trailer and will report back. I'll get you a height too. I never thought to check that because again, I never split in horizontal. As to the channels, I would agree if I split in horizontal. My DHT had them so I know what you mean. DHT actually advertised their units as having a "built in log cradle" on the beam.
I do always leave it hooked to my ATV when splitting and I NEVER split in horizontal. Non issue. Also, to be clear, I didn't mean it was feather light. What I meant is the DHT took two hands and a lot of your back to lift the tongue off the ground. This one can be picked up with one hand without a problem. So, while I didn't weigh either one, I don't think that the new one would be doing any wheelies if used horizontally. It's just reasonable where the DHT was not. The DHT also took that much effort to get the beam from vertical back to horizontal. I had to develop a method where I stood on the tongue, locked one foot behind the tongue jack for leverage so I did't slide down the tongue, and pull with two hands to get that sucker back down. As JR pointed out, it's all about pivot point location and the DHT was LOW.
I towed my Speeco just a handful of miles once to help someone split. It's definitely not something I'd want to do often. LOL The lack of suspension does cause it to bounce. I'm going to be transporting my Speeco up to the buddy who bought it from me the next time we go ATVing up there. It's almost 4 hours one way, so it's definitely getting strapped onto a trailer.
My very first splitter back around 2000 was a White 27 ton. It was used and I drove to the other side of the state to get it... without a trailer. I didn't know about the 45MPH rule for road towing and brought it back the way I came... on the interstate! About half way home, I had a gut feeling that I should pull over and check it. Wow, did I get lucky. The pin that held the beam had either lost its cotter pin and fallen out or had broken. The beam had slid down the cart and only the twisted hoses were keeping it in place. I did my best to get it forward again and secured it with every tie down strap I had. When I got home, all that was damaged was the missing pin but man did I dodge a bullet. I don't think I could have made it many more miles and if that beam dropped on the highway, it could have caused quite the accident. It as a big lesson learned and I still cringe thinking back on what could have happened.
yikes! Say, how do you like your Polar trailer? I have the same one and the thing has taken a beating now for 6+ years. Has hauled out of the woods probably 80 cord or so. I don't load it lightly either. LOL Before I put the walking arms on...going from splitter to being stacked back in '14.
Wow. I once had a heavy steel trailer ramp that was just gone when I got to the destination (8 hour trip) dodging a trailer ramp on the highway would be one thing...but a splitter beam! I think we have all had a "good lesson" incident or two like that. Back in high school I was working for the neighboring farmer...he had us take a round bale to another farm in an old F600 dump truck...it was all up hill on the way out, and you could see for a long ways when pulling out on to the road...so I never stopped, never used the brakes. When I got to the end of the road, it was downhill, and you had to turn left or right...that's when I realized there were no brakes...none. Fortunately there was nobody coming on the cross road and I had the forethought to floor it so that we had enough speed to clear the ditch...what I didn't think to do was to stay on the gas once we were over the ditch...tore the heck out of that guys muddy hay field getting the truck out of there. And still don't know how I missed the telephone pole that was dead center in my flight path! Boy was the boss mad. Lesson learned...pre-trip your equipment!
I load mine heavy too and I also have the side rail extensions. However, I have the single axle one. Mine is great. I have the 1200 at mom's which has been in use for over a decade and is great too. The only issue I've ever had with either is I was dragging a load of fresh split red oak down the hill for mom last fall. (I do all her cutting and splitting and she stacks to stay healthy...) Anyways, it was a heavy load and it was pushing her little Honda TRX300FW down the hill pretty good so I stopped fighting it and went a little faster near the bottom. I hit a root and the whole trailer popped up and back down hard and I blew out both wheel bearings on one side. I tried to order higher grade replacements on Amazon going off the numbers on (what was left of) the bearings. However, despite matching the numbers, they were just a hair too big so I had to send them back and get a set from Polar. I wouldn't blame Polar for the failure though. They were old and overloaded... All this said, I was JUST on Polar's website yesterday and found they now make an HM MAX Hydraulic model. As you probably know, the style we have is not great for dumping at all since the curled up part at the back end of the tub rests parallel to the ground when dumping and everything seems to just stop when it gets there. However, the new trailer is shaped more like a real dump trailer with the back end square and a door that swings open to dump. I have looked at ATV dump trailers in the past but they were always heavier than I wanted. However, this one with it's poly tub is about half the weight of the ones I looked at in the past. So, I'm considering it. The only thing is, it's so new that HD, Amazon, Lowes etc. don't carry it yet so I'd have to pay full MSRP from the manufacturer. I think I'll wait for a reseller to pick it up and grab one when it's a hair cheaper.
Indeed. One trip when I got home with a 36' travel trailer in tow, I noticed the nut on the bottom of the ball had threaded itself all the way to the bottom with only the cotter pin left holding it from threading off completely. If that wasn't gut check enough, I also noticed that in my haste to get home, I had forgotten to hook the break away cable up. That would have made a skidding splitter beam look like child's play! Oh lord, with these two memories now back in my mind, I think I might need an adult beverage early today to calm the nerves...
Nice machine. My lawn tractor has a Kawasaki V-twin (272 cc., 17 h.p) and it has been dead-nuts reliable for ~15 yrs and 400 hrs. Yours should be super reliable, too.
That's what I originally had too. I added the walking arms after the fact. They make a HUGE difference in the woods. They are called walking arms for a reason, they simply walk over everything in their path. If I can drive over it with the ATV, the trailer will walk over it as well. crap, I just greased the pivot on the walking arms and noticed my bearings on a couple wheels don't roll as nicely as they should. I was hoping to find some good HQ ones to replace them with. yep, however I have disabled the dump capability of mine seeing as I never used it to dump. I did so in order to take stress off the dumping latch/catch. I used a couple of large hose clamps and clamped the frame and the tongue together.
Good to know about the dual axle deal. I don't dump much either so perhaps I'm just looking to spend money again. It happens... On the bearing thing, the good ones were 3 times the cost as ordering from Polar so while I didn't upgrade, I saved 20 bucks.
HD Max Hydraulic Pretty slick. I just don't have the room to solely dump 5-10 cord of wood without piling vertically. I have to throw it into a pile or I will run out of room. This would be the way to go if one has the room or if they split/stack as they go instead of accumulating wood all winter long to be split later like I do.
Same here... I had a Kawi twin in my JD X324 for almost 400 hours as well when I sold it. Completely trouble free! Now I have the fuel injected version in my X739 and I anticipate more good things...
