B
BayouCountryPowerSaws
Guest
Show off your firewood processing setups in this thread!
HobbySawer372
New member
Here is a shot of my "processor".
prmckenney
New member
- Local time
- 9:21 PM
- Joined
- Sep 7, 2021
- Reaction score
- 11
Picked this up a couple of months back- for less that the price of the steel it would take to build from scratch- so worth a tinkering with.
Homebuilt, rather crude and rudimentary horizontal splitter, powered by an old Kohler 161 (fairly rare over here and not in every old tiller or lawn tractor from yesteryear), has a prehistoric Vickers pump and a small non vented oil tank that will hold about 5 of your gallons of oil.
Pretty standard practice for a homebuilt splitter here in NZ, search, scrape and steal what you can from where to make something that will work- no doubt the steel was all recovered from some other use, the pump is likely off a tractor and the motor could have been on anything. No idea what the ram is off- but it looked to be a decent size and the chrome is good and that is kind of what sold it to me.
Got the motor running and replaced the missing gas tank with a Honda clone one.
Need to make/replace some hydraulic lines and the thing should run again- although I am picking the cycle times will be way slow.
Have a Honda 13 hp sitting waiting to replace the Kohler and will buy a new more suitable pump if things check out, plus upgrade to a larger oil tank. Figured I would try to get it running as it was built and go from there once I have a baseline.
These are my more usual splitters- Hultz 4.5lb 36" Hickory handle, Plumb 4lb on a cheap Bacho Ash handle and a no name 4lb on Hickory.
Homebuilt, rather crude and rudimentary horizontal splitter, powered by an old Kohler 161 (fairly rare over here and not in every old tiller or lawn tractor from yesteryear), has a prehistoric Vickers pump and a small non vented oil tank that will hold about 5 of your gallons of oil.
Pretty standard practice for a homebuilt splitter here in NZ, search, scrape and steal what you can from where to make something that will work- no doubt the steel was all recovered from some other use, the pump is likely off a tractor and the motor could have been on anything. No idea what the ram is off- but it looked to be a decent size and the chrome is good and that is kind of what sold it to me.
Got the motor running and replaced the missing gas tank with a Honda clone one.
Need to make/replace some hydraulic lines and the thing should run again- although I am picking the cycle times will be way slow.
Have a Honda 13 hp sitting waiting to replace the Kohler and will buy a new more suitable pump if things check out, plus upgrade to a larger oil tank. Figured I would try to get it running as it was built and go from there once I have a baseline.
These are my more usual splitters- Hultz 4.5lb 36" Hickory handle, Plumb 4lb on a cheap Bacho Ash handle and a no name 4lb on Hickory.
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Nutball
Active member
Alpha 5 splitter
Fabz
Active member
BCP Hotwoods ported saws to buck em up and a SuperSplit to finish the job. With straight grain wood 8-18” diameter you can produce 4+ face/hr all the while sipping very little fuel 
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Fabz
Active member
This BCP Hotwoods ported 261c takes care of 14” and under ...
Fabz
Active member
And This BCP Hotwoods ported 462c takes care of the rest sporting a 20” ...
... purty good 1,2 combo that takes care of 90% of the wood I process.
tacotodd
Member
Does ANYONE have a splitter that’ll effectively handle sweetgum? Because that’s some intertwined wood grain. But if you let it dry under cover for a couple of years it’ll split fairly easy. It’s just that I’VE never encountered anything like it. In comparison to hickory, well the hickory is easy when both are green but let em dry and the sweetgum wins, hands down. I know that’s probably a losing battle but I’m at least gonna ask.
Fabz
Active member
Some Australians are just obstinate and you cannot always bend them to your rules- especially some of the Gum species.
My best advice would be something large and mechanical attached to at least a 30 tonne excavator- either tapered cone or multi knife box cutter- that shite versus an axe will cripple you.
Nutball
Active member
On the Alpha 5, which is under powered in my opinion at only 19T pushing 6 wedges, green hickory is some of the hardest stuff to split, but green sweet gum may or may not be worse, and I've been splitting a lot of gum lately. I've found Elm to be even worse than gum, and Sycamore may be the worst of all, aside from any unusually twisty grained wood.
For twisty grained stuff like elm, gum, and sycamore, you want a thin and very sharp wedge to cleanly cut through the wood. Also, knowing where best to put the wedge in the wood helps it split easier and cleaner. Here is a picture of my method for using a 2 way splitter like a County Line brand, which by the way has a thin cutting wedge that then widens into a splitting wedge, and its 30T will go through anything you need it to.
For twisty grain wood split on the rings (parallel to them) or diagonally to the rings, but not perpendicular
For twisty grained stuff like elm, gum, and sycamore, you want a thin and very sharp wedge to cleanly cut through the wood. Also, knowing where best to put the wedge in the wood helps it split easier and cleaner. Here is a picture of my method for using a 2 way splitter like a County Line brand, which by the way has a thin cutting wedge that then widens into a splitting wedge, and its 30T will go through anything you need it to.
For twisty grain wood split on the rings (parallel to them) or diagonally to the rings, but not perpendicular
Nutball
Active member
I borrowed a friend's County Line 30T to test and see how I like it, and it has plenty of power so far. I think my dad's 35T Huskee had a 12HP motor, I think the 30T is 9.5, but it seems as strong if not stronger.
4x speed video of the Alpha 5. The slow pieces are Gum.
View attachment Wood splitting.mp4
4x speed video of the Alpha 5. The slow pieces are Gum.
View attachment Wood splitting.mp4
Fabz
Active member
Wallenstein makes a nice product for sure. A couple of ripper saws with sharp chains and you”ll produce well. Conveyor is slick
I would want to be guy pulling lever up, other gentleman could be losing a finger soon!BCP Hotwoods ported saws to buck em up and a SuperSplit to finish the job. With straight grain wood 8-18” diameter you can produce 4+ face/hr all the while sipping very little fuel
Fabz
Active member
. I modded the engagement such that if you let go / push down on the lever it stops all forward motion.Slow is good no hurry ..
tacotodd
Member
Slow is fast, fast is slow Loss if body parts could be BAD!