Saw some posts on the HF 30 ton splitter which I think is reasonably similar to the 24 ton, but here goes for completeness.....
Four of us went in together on the 24 ton (the 30 ton was not in stock, but same ballpark size/weight). Delivery was quick but semi-painful. Harbor freight trucks do NOT have a lift gate. The delivery guy showed up with no idea how to get it off the truck. We eventually used some ramps we use for our tractor and built a belay system to slide it down the ramps. He also didnt show up when he said they would.
the splitter itself is nice. The engine is quality (6HP) and easy to start. It is definitely more than powerful enough to split well. The engine barely even changes pitch when splitting even very large rounds of red oak. So far it's been able to split everything we've thrown at it with ease. I'm quite confident that we could put a 4-way ram head on and it would be plenty powerful to split each round twice in a single cycle. The ram head doesnt have an easy way of acomodating one of the star (4-way) heads, but we think we have a solution.
Another nice feature is how well it's balanced since it can be pivoted to run in horizontal and vertical modes. Even tho it's darn heavy, it's takes little effort to rotate the main beam up & down depending when we flip it from horizontal to vertical. We found that bleeding the air from the system is not easy, and one of us is very mechanically inclined. We also got a 2nd opinion from the family mechanic who is brilliant with all things hydraulic. In the beginning we called it the 'wood exploder' since it would literally explode the wood since the piston wasnt moving smoothly. It's still a little jittery in horizontal mode. We found it works better vertically since the air bleeds out better. Maybe this will improve over time.
It tows nicely for a trailer w/ no springs. The trailer is DOT rated for 45MPH, have not tried faster since it doesnt have springs and the roads around here are ripe with frost heaves & pot holes. Be careful if you do tow any splitter that they are usually completely invisible behind an SUV. I cant see it in any of the 3 mirrors. It doesnt have an OOB mount for attaching trailer lights (not req'd in all states), but we thought it best to have them for safety reasons. A simpler trailer light kit & bungee cord is fine for non-highway speeds.
It does have a slower recycle time than the splitter we used to rent, but I've found that if you're using it alone, the person is the weak (slow) link with loading, throwing the splits into a pile, etc. A small amount of time percentage-wise is spent waiting for the piston to retract. if you have help, say a 3-man operation, then the slow recycle time becomes more apparent. For fans of horizontal use, it would be nice if the beam you set the wood on had 'wings' on it to hold the round in place when the piston rams it. The beam surface is painted and very slippery, so you have to hold the round with both hands to keep it from falling off. It doesnt seem dangerous cuz the ram is moving so slowly, but in our first attempts with the 'exploder', it was dangerous which is why I prefer vertical mode probably.
The biggest complaint is that Harbor Freight corporate was (IS
!!) a total PIA to deal with. In MA, its a grey area as to whether such a small trailer requires a registration/plate/lights. A Certificate of Origin (basically a bill of sale) is required in order to obtain a registration (we are erring on the safe side). Harbor Freight has utterly refused to issue one. At one point we got a supervisor to agree to send us one, but then another supervisor overrode their decision and we still cant get one after 3 months. A friend of mine (also in MA) who bought a trailer from harbor freight had the same problem, and it took months to resolve.
So if you dont live in MA or other states that have inefficient/corrupt DMV, overall I'd recommend it highly. A powerful splitter for the price. For reference, the rentable splitter we really liked sells new for more than 2x this one and $1800 used.
If anyone else has this splitter (or the 30 ton), I'd like to hear your experiences/suggestions/modifications.
Four of us went in together on the 24 ton (the 30 ton was not in stock, but same ballpark size/weight). Delivery was quick but semi-painful. Harbor freight trucks do NOT have a lift gate. The delivery guy showed up with no idea how to get it off the truck. We eventually used some ramps we use for our tractor and built a belay system to slide it down the ramps. He also didnt show up when he said they would.
the splitter itself is nice. The engine is quality (6HP) and easy to start. It is definitely more than powerful enough to split well. The engine barely even changes pitch when splitting even very large rounds of red oak. So far it's been able to split everything we've thrown at it with ease. I'm quite confident that we could put a 4-way ram head on and it would be plenty powerful to split each round twice in a single cycle. The ram head doesnt have an easy way of acomodating one of the star (4-way) heads, but we think we have a solution.
Another nice feature is how well it's balanced since it can be pivoted to run in horizontal and vertical modes. Even tho it's darn heavy, it's takes little effort to rotate the main beam up & down depending when we flip it from horizontal to vertical. We found that bleeding the air from the system is not easy, and one of us is very mechanically inclined. We also got a 2nd opinion from the family mechanic who is brilliant with all things hydraulic. In the beginning we called it the 'wood exploder' since it would literally explode the wood since the piston wasnt moving smoothly. It's still a little jittery in horizontal mode. We found it works better vertically since the air bleeds out better. Maybe this will improve over time.
It tows nicely for a trailer w/ no springs. The trailer is DOT rated for 45MPH, have not tried faster since it doesnt have springs and the roads around here are ripe with frost heaves & pot holes. Be careful if you do tow any splitter that they are usually completely invisible behind an SUV. I cant see it in any of the 3 mirrors. It doesnt have an OOB mount for attaching trailer lights (not req'd in all states), but we thought it best to have them for safety reasons. A simpler trailer light kit & bungee cord is fine for non-highway speeds.
It does have a slower recycle time than the splitter we used to rent, but I've found that if you're using it alone, the person is the weak (slow) link with loading, throwing the splits into a pile, etc. A small amount of time percentage-wise is spent waiting for the piston to retract. if you have help, say a 3-man operation, then the slow recycle time becomes more apparent. For fans of horizontal use, it would be nice if the beam you set the wood on had 'wings' on it to hold the round in place when the piston rams it. The beam surface is painted and very slippery, so you have to hold the round with both hands to keep it from falling off. It doesnt seem dangerous cuz the ram is moving so slowly, but in our first attempts with the 'exploder', it was dangerous which is why I prefer vertical mode probably.
The biggest complaint is that Harbor Freight corporate was (IS
!!) a total PIA to deal with. In MA, its a grey area as to whether such a small trailer requires a registration/plate/lights. A Certificate of Origin (basically a bill of sale) is required in order to obtain a registration (we are erring on the safe side). Harbor Freight has utterly refused to issue one. At one point we got a supervisor to agree to send us one, but then another supervisor overrode their decision and we still cant get one after 3 months. A friend of mine (also in MA) who bought a trailer from harbor freight had the same problem, and it took months to resolve.So if you dont live in MA or other states that have inefficient/corrupt DMV, overall I'd recommend it highly. A powerful splitter for the price. For reference, the rentable splitter we really liked sells new for more than 2x this one and $1800 used.
If anyone else has this splitter (or the 30 ton), I'd like to hear your experiences/suggestions/modifications.
