North Star 37 ton 4 way wedge

Hello all, just wanted to hear your opinions. I have a 37 ton north star hydraulic log splitter, I wanted to speed up with the splitting so I purchased and installed the 4 way wedge that North Star offers. It wound up slowing down the process. With 37 ton of force it could not push through a lot of the logs. The machine seems to be running correctly, felt like it needed more power to push through the logs. Anybody else experience this with the four way wedge?

 

Wow. What kind of wood were you splitting? Must have been some tough stuff for 37 tons to not be enough.
I've never used one.

 

You may need to turn up your pressure relief on your valve.

 

I have a 4 way on a 20 ton and it does well. It won't split everything but it is surprising what it will split. The relief pressure could be low on your splitter, the wedge may not be a good design or the wood could have been that nasty. Do you have a link to the wedge you got.

 

Northerntool.com sells it, it's made for the north star splitters.

 

Is this it?
NorthStar Wedge Wings — Fits Item#s 110800, 110900 and 1131 | Log Splitter Accessories| Northern Tool + Equipment


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I have the same unit and also the 4-way. On the big ugly stuff, I take the 4-way off. Anything else, I put it on. I have not noticed that it sows down the pump; but I'm sure you're aware that the pump does have a low stage also, right? It is slower in the low stage which is probably what is happening if you are into splitting big gnarly stuff with the 4-way.

 

Actually no I did not know that. This is all new to me, just starting out splitting wood. Don't really know a lot about the machine, I bought it used but seems to run well.

 

Very satisfied with mine. I think it is 5 yrs now? Bought it new on a black fri sale and had the 4-way included since I asked for it!!!

I have only used "corn-free" gas in it also. No ethanol for the dog.....

 

Yep, that's the wedge wings I bought.

 

Same a ting!

 

The 4 way should work fine.

I was thinking my hydraulic splitter is 20 tons. I can split anything with it. It also does really well with the way on it. Your splitter is 37 tons, almost twice what mine is. So it should split about anything with the 4 way on it. I would get a gauge at check the pressure relief valve setting.

 

This is your pump. Notice the first stage is 16 gallons per minute and the second is 3.5 gpm. They are slow in the second stage but if the wedge keeps moving, it's working. It's like 1st gear in a vehicle.

 

That's where I ran into my problem, it didn't keep going with the 4 way on, it wasn't a dead stop but it was really slow and I didn't want to damage the machine so I stopped and took off the 4 way wedge. Hope I didn't damage or blow the pump, it works fine as of now without the 4 way on.

 

I had some bad stuff I used the first summer I owned it. Same thing, why would you torture it and make it struggle when you take it off (4-way) and eliminate the extra stress on the system, right?

 

Each to his own but there is a bypass that will only let it build 3000psi, which it is rated for. It will only build 8 tons in the first stage.

 

I messed something up because the auto reverse keeps slipping out on me

 

I think its just a matter of adjusting the cable or something like that....