heatit said:
Wonder how many people also wear safety glasses (ANSI approved, not just sunglasses that say they are) while splitting, even if not using a wedge. I had also read the news link mentioned here as well as the thread with the guy who had the piece fly off into his leg. Both make me feel much better about getting a splitter recently; got a great CL score of an MTD 20 ton for $700 - will post that over in the gear section later. Really glad to hear that you are ok. I was giving my neighbor a hand last weekend splitting some maple and oak rounds and it was his first time using my Fiskars pro splitting axe and I had warned him to make sure he was wearing gloves which for the most part he did. However, the one time he had taken them off and returned to using the axe, he gave himself a nice 4" long cut into the base of his thumb while cleaning off a chunk of wood from the axe. He couldn't believe how sharp that thing was; didn't even feel it at first. Luckily it wasn't bad and didn't need more than some peroxide cleaning, but he sure did wear gloves and glasses the rest of the day! LOL...got my splitter the very next day; boy he was pissed! I still like manual splitting though, it's a great workout and helps me unwind after a crappy work week. Will use the splitter for the hard ones and larger stuff; at least until Backwoods tells everyone how to make kindling with a splitter!
HOW 2 MAKE KINDLING WITH A gas or electric SPLITTER****************
I have a huskey 22 ton horz & vertical splitter with a 6.5 hp B&S;engine. I find that smaller splits are easier & faster in horizontal mode & large heavy rounds are easier to work with in vertical mode; as less heavy lifting is required in vert mode but better split positioning to the moving wedge is available in horz mode.
My splitter can always shave 1/4 inch thick slices off of most wood & usually 1/16th shavings
depending on the wood. My wedge moves on the ram & the end of the I beam has a 9 inch rectangular
foot to it to catch the end of the round: so, to make a shave of wood from a split,
just stop the ram about 3/8 of a inch from where it would touch the wood & carefully position the wood to the ram wedge for the thickness of wood you want 2 shave off the split.
I have quartered a 1 inch diameter branch with my huskey as well as a 4 ft diameter tree trunk slice; although for the 4 ft diameter tree trunk slice I have to raise the engine rmp somewhat above idle speed. For some big knarly, knotty & stringly mothers, I actually had to use full
throttle for 45 seconds .
I can split 1 to 3 cords a day with this michine, depending on the weather, the wood & my current (lack of ) health.
The only time I ever use sledges & wedges is when I get rounds too heavy too move towards the gas splitter and rolling them is impractical due to terrain considerations or the rounds need to be lifted into a pick up truck for transport to the splitter.
At 61 yrs, cut ,split & delevered is starting to look good to me, although I will still split some wood just because I enjoy it, up to the point where I am tired & don't want to do it any more but need to get done before the rains start.
I got all the wood that I had, done for this year & into the shed. I just hope I have enough or5 I'll find out how much i like paying for c,s & d a lot sooner that I planned for.
