Home built 25hp splitter

Thought you guys might get a kick out of this.

My own home built 5ish hp Chinese Honda-copy powered (Chonda powered?) splitter is plagued by some odd running issues when warm at the moment, and when a neighbor saw my wife and I tearing into it instead of splitting wood he offered to lend us his machine. When he returned he had this brute in tow. One look at it and I just about fell over. Home built, 25 hp electric start Kohler with close to 40 ft-lbs, and a big honkin hydraulic system. Cycle time is pretty darn quick, 5ish seconds. That's creeping up on a Super Split for speed, but this thing has enough steam to just about split wood sideways. We were down to some good sized rounds and lots of gnarly stuff that we'd been avoiding and the splitter tore em up pretty good. With a four way wedge on it the thing would be really something. I had my wife grab a quick video so you all could check it out on some red oak with a bit of grain to it, and I took a few pictures tonight after we were done working. Sorry the picture is a bit confusing - that's my junk in the background with the custom broom handle actuation lever.

It was 90 degrees today, crap weather for wood splitting but I'm trying to keep my boyish figure...and I got another grapple load coming in September so I can't let this stuff sit around. Probably 1/3 of the pile was today's work, but as I said much of it was ugly stuff that would have taken hours of combined effort with our splitter, the saw, sledge and wedge, and the maul. Instead we whipped through it in a few hours. I know there's plenty of more impressive machines on the planet, but this one was built for cheap by an old Yankee in his shed out of mostly recycled stuff and it works well.

Sorry notshubby, I wasn't very clear. The engine on the splitter is rated for close to 40 ft-lbs of torque. Judging by the size of the ram the splitter might reasonably make 20 tons, but I don't know what pressure anything's running at so that's a guess. It's just fast, and the electric start is nice (especially for the owner I think, who's getting on in years). It was an engine the owner had on hand from some other project so he put it to use. Can't say I've seen such a high level of overkill on a splitter before, pretty awesome.

The tank isn't too large. I didn't measure it but it looks like it would hold about 5 gallons with room for expansion. It is set up with a massive cartridge style filter and big hoses, so there's probably a fair bit more than that in the system. Heat wasn't much issue for the machine, just the operator.

Auto return wouldn't be a bad feature. With as much motor is on there it could stand both a bigger pump and cylinder as well...I guess that's how projects spiral out of control. It was good to see how this splitter was built compared to my own home built junker, as it gave me some ideas for improving mine. I'll be cutting mine up soon and will post some pictures and such as I go.

I replaced the blown out tire and the latch mechanism in the hitch and returned the monster machine to my neighbor the other day with a standing offer to call me when he wants to sell it. He wasn't ready to sell, but said to come grab it any time I needed it which was very generous of him.