Log Splitter Trailer

[Paul99]

Having used the log splitters on the the mini digger for some time I've had a plan for some time to one day hook it up to a power pack for the times when the digger is out on a job or there's not enough ready to split to warrant firing the digger up. Having sourced a hydraulic power pack from dannyp on here some time ago I've only recently got around doing anything with it.

After making an air filter housing for it (to match a kohler air filter I happened to have) and replacing the oil cooler fan belt I started work on a trailer to put it all on. Being lazy (and on a tight budget) I just adapted an old rusty boat trailer that was rescued from the scrappy probably 10 years ago:

I'll let dannyp explain the characterful checker plate repair :P

It's not ideally balanced over the wheels but I didn't want to alter the digger mountings (shown here:http://www.mig-welding.co.uk/forum/threads/logsplitter.39391/) and so I knocked up a very quick T piece wih holes to match the exiting splitter mount and which then allowed the splitter to swing up into an upright position:

Having done a bit of reading up on hydraulic pump it is supposedly capable of 20l/min at 3000rpm. I haven't put the tachometer on it yet but despite the noise in the video below I doubt its running at much more than 2000rpm - which makes it a bit on the slow side but it certainly works:

With a 12hp Kohler Engine I'm sure there would be more than enough power to run a more modern 2 stage pump with a much much higher flow rate but it seems too much of a shame to mess with an old power pack that has survived for so long...

 

[p0689109]

Does not look slow to me, works fine. Good job i.d say.

 

[armalites]

I like the setup, I managed to buy a Honda power pack so I could run mine without the tractor. Your trailer set up works well there. Compared with splitting by hand the speed and control are far better. I put spool valve designed for log splitters on mine, it a has auto knock out on the return so you can pull the lever and let it return while you grab another log. Makes all the difference. I would get some hydraulic hose sleeve on the high pressure hoses especially give how close to your eyes and hands they are.

 

[Paul99]

I looked hard at the auto kickout valves when I made the splitter but decided against it in the end and I'm glad I did... That splitter has 20" of travel and our current wood burner takes 15" blocks so that would be a 10" of wasted travel before your actually splitting the next block - which would soon add up. Now double that wasted travel (and waiting time) on some of the huge rings that would be too heavy to move if you cut them much longer than 7/8 inches or so and it would get tedious quickly. I can see the attraction of the auto valves if you always had fairly free splitting dinner plate sized rounds and smaller all of identical lengths cut to suit the maximum travel of the splitter but for shorter stuff manually raising the wedge to just above the log before spinning the log and making another split would save a lot of time over cycling the ram each time. It's probably unfounded but I also think there is something to be said about the safety aspect of everything stopping completely as soon as you take you let go .

I agree with the sleeves completely though - It's something that I've been meaning to fit since I made the splitter but never got around to. I'll order some up now before I forget.

 

[Bill Edwards]

To prevent overtravel and allow the use of an auto valve you'd need only make it so you could put a pin in place to lower the stop point of the ram, or a chain that hooks on, that kind of thing.

As to the safety aspect, you'd have to be pretty special to hurt yourself with a ram moving upwards!

And on the hydraulic hoses, I can say that when they blow less than six inches away from your face it is not pleasant.

 

[armalites]

I looked hard at the auto kickout valves when I made the splitter but decided against it in the end and I'm glad I did... That splitter has 20" of travel and our current wood burner takes 15" blocks so that would be a 10" of wasted travel before your actually splitting the next block - which would soon add up. Now double that wasted travel (and waiting time) on some of the huge rings that would be too heavy to move if you cut them much longer than 7/8 inches or so and it would get tedious quickly. I can see the attraction of the auto valves if you always had fairly free splitting dinner plate sized rounds and smaller all of identical lengths cut to suit the maximum travel of the splitter but for shorter stuff manually raising the wedge to just above the log before spinning the log and making another split would save a lot of time over cycling the ram each time. It's probably unfounded but I also think there is something to be said about the safety aspect of everything stopping completely as soon as you take you let go .

I agree with the sleeves completely though - It's something that I've been meaning to fit since I made the splitter but never got around to. I'll order some up now before I forget.

I know what you mean but you don't have to use the knockout feature it can still be done manually, what you find you start doing is stopping it when you put the log on. Mine runs a bit slower than yours so I'm able stop the movement at the right point. The other thing I did from a safety point is configure the spool so the down stroke was a push and not a pull, the reason being was if stumbled due to the pile of logs that in variably builds around you there was no chance that I ended up using the lever to save myself and in so doing operating the ram downwards. That won't affect yours as your lever is horizontal.

Seeing yours has started me thinking about things I would do differently next time, I do like the whole trailer idea

I also like the Bill's idea about setting a stop point to suit the logs you are doing

 

[Paul99]

Yep a travel limiting mechanism would work and I certainly looked at a few different ideas (this being one of the neatest solutions IMO: https://www.facebook.com/HywelEvans...122160141266218/4549155444975/?type=3&theater) which would have been easy enough to make but in the end I came to the conclusion that it would be one of them features that would likely not get used once the novelty wore off and you couldn't be bothered setting it up each time so I kept it as simple as possible and avoided the hassle of making it. To be honest the current set-up works so well (for us) that if I was to make another I would almost certainly keep the lever set-up exactly the same.

 

[armalites]

It's one of those win win situations, you saved a load of money making yourself, had fun doing it and they make the job so easy it's almost an anti-climax. You can split a few months worth of logs in a few hours and not wake up in the morning feeling like you been in the ring with Mike Tyson.

 

[dannyp]

good to see the old beast is working well for you. dosent even sound as if it's even trying when your splitting that log.