What kind of splitter?

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Treenoob

New Member
Dec 31, 2017
29
Maine
so I have about 20 acres roughly, most of which is covered in pine, fir, spruce, birch and some hardwood.(typical Maine woods)I was planning on buying a dirty hand tools 22 ton splitter. Is this a good rig? Plan on getting the splitter a hookaroon, maybe a set of hay hooks...what am I missing?
 
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Sorry to be repetitive, don’t know this website well yet. Thanks. Any info on the gear I have and or anyone thinks I should get, let me know thanks
 
Sorry to be repetitive, don’t know this website well yet. Thanks. Any info on the gear I have and or anyone thinks I should get, let me know thanks

It happens. For any new forum you should scan the first 2 pages to make sure your answer isn't there, then do a search. Lots of guys burn pine and love it as a filler wood, or if you have enough of it you can use it as your main burn.

For the splitter, if you're just splitting pines you can do just about anything. The DH 22 is an ok splitter. Just don't stick a knotty oak piece in it and bear down good without a welder handy. You'll do fine on the pine and birch clearing.

I can't help with the mauls and such. Like another user on here, i never was able to get mine started. Couldn't find the pull-rope. :)
 
A number of folks have bought the DH splitter and report good luck with it . . . although to be fair I cannot think of too many splitters out there that people have bought and have had all kinds of issues with them (at least if they stick with well known brands.) I mean there are sure to be a few issues here and there on occasion, but most folks have had good luck with almost every brand sold by the big box stores.

For a long time Huskee/Speedco splitters were the splitter to get . . . a lot of folks liked them . . . but it seems as though nowadays folks are buying many different brands and reporting success with them.

Instead of a hay hook I might get a pulp hook . . . that's one of my go to tools when loading heavy rounds.
 
Splitter, service , price in that order.
 
No, I built my splitter, but I did my DD on all the homestore brands when I was looking for one before deciding on making one myself. The metal's thinner than my homesplitter (which I've busted several times on knotty oak) and there's problems with leakage. Also this is a small splitter, it's not made to tackle huge hunks of crossgrain wood. Repair service is sketchy, so you need to get familiar with them so you can fix it yourself, unless you're in your return window in which case Lowes will replace it for you and you can just start anew.

Do a search on here for DIrty Hands and you'll see the good and bad. The Tractor Supply's County Line splitter is pretty good if you have one of those close.

Just my 2 cents.
 
The general consensus is the Dirty Hands splitters are pretty solid. No I don't have one and haven't used one but I've read plenty of reviews elsewhere and on this forum. I have the Ariens 27 ton which I've yet to have fail as far as splitting crappy knotty, stringy stuff like sycamore and elm. One thing I'll say is I needed one that was easy enough to push around the yard by hand, into the garage or shed. The Ariens design makes this pretty easy. The DH looks bulky to me now compared to what I have.
 
i love my DHT22. it works great, no problems at all (that weren't caused by me!) I would recommend the 4 way splitter.
 
So you have owned a dh22? Stating it can’t handle hard woods with knots?
i own one, and I split a lot of elm with knots. it handles it fine. Sometimes I have to open the choke a little bit, or run it twice, but it handles everything I have thrown at it.
 
I have a Dirty Hands 22 ton. Has never been stopped by anything! Works great every time. I feel it is well built, and more heavy duty than other comparable models. Log cradle is a huge help. Not sure why I would need anything larger. It splits Hedge, oak, Locust, maple, sweet gum, sycamore. Never want to split sweet gum or sycamore again, but it handles it fine.