small scale processing

[Martin du Preez]

A swinging saw horse and a decent hydraulic splitter would do you for 15 cube a year of you really wanted to make your life easier. I’ve use a cone splitter and they are a pain in the arse/lethal on long lengths of wood. If all the timber is ringed up with two chaps on the splitter, one on the levers and one handling the wood through the wedge I’ve turned out 10 ibc cages in a long day

[Martin du Preez]

Especially if you are handling decent size cord wood which can go through a 4 way splitter. And with 50 cm logs you would probably do all 15cube in a day

[Finnercy]

cheers for the info  - although I dont see myself splitting 50cm length logs with an axe! 

(log diameter size varies greatly from less than 100mm to 300mm)

 

I have split a large quantity of green Oak 250mm logs with an axe previously (200mm-400mm diameter)  as I found it quicker that using my hydraulic splitter, using the "tyre" method. But 500mm length forget it.

 

I find using  a chain saw laborious and dangerous. Plus you have to factor in time for  maintenance, sharpening etc.  I probably spend a fairly equal amount of time cutting and then splitting a load of wood. Id buy a better/faster  splitter , they  do seem expensive for what they are.

 

A decent swinging saw horse for my own chainsaw as suggested above, combined with a better splitter  would see little change out of a grand but would improve productivity and safety.  Renting a processor (maybe with operator) for 1 day a year would be £250 ish, and Id probably need to work hard that day lifting and shifting.

 

Those are maybe the two most practical options for me

 

[Finnercy]

So regards splitters - any that are particularly good/quick  (must be able to handle (500mm logs)  ??

[Jcarbor]

this will split anything you put on it, we use 1 metre long billets in our biomass burner. You need a hydraulic source to run it ,we use a Jcb loader or piped 360 excavator.

[Jwoodgardenmaintenance]

https://gardenmachineryshop.co.uk/products/hornet-log-splitter-hrgt35tb-petrol-briggs-stratton-35-ton-splitting-force?variant=14280046051401&utm_campaign=gs-2018-12-14&utm_source=google&utm_medium=smart_campaign

 

There supposed to be really fast and go up to 500mm

[scbk]

If you cut a lot of thinner logs, consider a circular saw bench

[Finnercy]

I saw a video of that splitter on line and a few other similar ones, this one being smaller/cheaper : https://www.woodmanstore.com/765/product/-jansen-log-spliter-20-ton-fs-speed-with--3.5-ps-briggs-&-stratton-petrol-.html?gclid=CjwKCAiAv9riBRANEiwA9Dqv1eMSME2nUEVLoNn6pVnOn9bSLHFo5IQW4hk4PGbR812HVur8btKJTxoCrsgQAvD_BwE

 

I do tend to cut a lot of smaller stuff ( birch),  which can be a pain with a chainsaw as it moves when being cut

[Ashes_Firewood]

I do more logs than that with a Balfor circular saw bench and log splitter and I can't justify buying a processor to do it with. As much as I'd love one!

 

A saw bench cuts so much faster than a chainsaw as well as being more comfortable to use.

Edited February 4, 2019 by Ashes_Firewood

[drinksloe]

It all depends on the timber but i often split logs around the 500mm (just over 18") mark with an axe,

don't get me wrong sometimes can be a pain with big beech rings so usually cut the shorter now, plus u can hardly move them at the bigger size.

I treated myself to a Fiskars X27 and a great investment for the money (about £50) just effort less to use i genrally fil my 6T dumper skip in about 1hr.

 

With ur 500mm burner, do logs have to be that size? ie could u cut everything to 250 and build 2 logs into ur burner instead of 1?

 

Can u use gravity to help u anyway?

I dump my logs on top of a banking, i then welded up a saw horse that is very narrow and can take 2-3 quad trailer fulls of logs in 1 go, strap them all down then just cut throu all the logs together (not saying best paractice for H&S thou) they then roll down hill to wher ei have a splitting bench dug into banking.

So splitting logs at waist hieght, never have to bend down (esp if using a tyre or similar) and logs all above me usually just pul them down with the axe.

 

In the process of planning/building a 'log slide' for the wee'er timbe rthat doesnae need split.

Same log horse and the idea is cut timber will drop of onto a corragated/box profile tin slide and straight down into dumper skip. In theory

Getting it al to roll down might be a problem

 

The way i look at it if i can minimise handling as much as possible esp lifting of deck/bending down the better. Esp if gravity can do the lifting for me