Lookie what I have....NIELS!!!

[Montanalocal]

After thinking some more on this, I think that the simplest way to do this is to use a square box rather than a round pipe. Just because the commercial bricks are round, it does not mean yours have to be. You could weld up a long square box with a hinged top lid and bolt or clamp it to your main beam.This way you can just open up the hinged top, pour a bucketfull of sawdust into the box, shut and latch the top shut, and run your ram. Even simpler would be to use a dedicated splitter and use the top of the main beam as the bottom of your long box. Weld heavy sides to the beam, and put a hinged heavy lid on top. I would think that if someone got into this seriously, they would want to use a dedicated splitter, that you could weld up this way.

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

Two, you will have to experiment to see how long of a pipe-full of loose sawdust it takes to make a compressed brick of the length you want. You may need a ram longer than most normal spitters to accomplish that.

According to NIELS it takes 7 cubic feet of saw dust to make 1 log. A 4" x 13" log is 163.36 cubic inches. A cubic foot is 1728 C.I. 7 is 12096 CI. Therefore 74 feet of tubing would be required. As you state, bit longer than most splitters. I also bet it takes a lot more than 50 tons of pressure to compress the logs. Still it would be a fun project to experiment and try different ideas.

 

[BKVP]

I've been to their plant. The tubes are not that long. I wish I could recall exactly how long. They are on a cylinder, (envision a cylinder in a revolver) and there are dozens of holes in the cylinder. Too busy managing a stove company to start thinking about this...as posted earlier, best for retirement. You guys carry on with the project!

 

[Woodcutter Tom]

I've been to their plant. The tubes are not that long. I wish I could recall exactly how long. They are on a cylinder, (envision a cylinder in a revolver) and there are dozens of holes in the cylinder. Too busy managing a stove company to start thinking about this...as posted earlier, best for retirement. You guys carry on with the project!

I am also sure they are not 74 feet long. Just an observation. I am sure they have a better method for loading the sawdust. A factory tour sure would be interesting.
For anyone who has not been to the factory, the video on NIELS facebook page that I posted earlier gives glimpses of the machine. If you look close at the 20 second mark, it looks like the logs are continuous piece and they are cut off as a length is extruded.

A few photos of their machines: