whats good and what bad with your log splitters

[tractor dave]

it will toughen it depending how you treat it, this should stop it blunting as much. If you heat it to a red colour then cool it quickly, this will make it hard but brittle so it might need tempering....

[tractor dave]

best way would be to put in a forge so the length of the weld heats up evenly, you can use a propane torch (or simialar) but try to heat up evenly

[liamjordan]

tbh i prefer horizontal ones to vertical ones, easier for doing long stuff, less fannying around getting the log into postion well thats what i think

[33bk]

dont thelogs on the horizontal splitters fall off ?

[liamjordan]

nah not off most of them, if you see this one of ours has "sides", but having said that the "side" nearest the log lift has fallen off now aha, but it still works fine and logs seem to stay where there put

[treequip]

it will toughen it depending how you treat it, this should stop it blunting as much. If you heat it to a red colour then cool it quickly, this will make it hard but brittle so it might need tempering....

 

I am a bit confused here, how would a weld go blunt?

 

Heat treating a weld won’t do much unless you use some exotic material rods. Heat treating depends on the alloy. Most people are on mig or MMA and there simply isn’t enough carbon or other material for heat treating to have any meaningful effect.

 

My choice if blade material is boron alloy steel, it’s the stuff they edge digger buckets with and the boron gives it excellent strength and durability. It needs no heat treating and using it on timber will hardly blunt it much less wear it out.

 

Andy

[tractor dave]

I am a bit confused here, how would a weld go blunt?

 

Well if the weld makes up the blade edge for example if you weld two leading edges off buckets together back to back then the weld will make the edge as it were....

Heat treating will affect the welds toughness although granted if your welding onto already toughened material you wont get the same toughness from the weld but its better than just leaving the weld

[treequip]

I am a bit confused here, how would a weld go blunt?

 

Well if the weld makes up the blade edge for example if you weld two leading edges off buckets together back to back then the weld will make the edge as it were....

 

I wouldn’t do that the combined angles make for a “burster”. Better to put a double angle on the blade and make the angle up out of plain mild steel.

 

 

If you did weld two pieces back to back you would get a marginally dissimilar material weld. You could get some durability into the weld area by case hardening it.

Andy

[Mesterh]

Have a blade that is a + shape so you can quarter logs rather than just half them. Ideally the blades can be interchanged as the + wont be suitable for all logs.

 

I prefer horizontal splitters too, just seem easier to use to me.

[treequip]

My preference for arb arising’s make the table as big as you can manage to cope with big rings. Idealy a double handed interlock but failing that make the operating lever send the ram down when you push the lever upwards, that way if you fall forward into the machine (pulling the handle down) you will send the blade up rather than down, thus avoiding amputating your other hand in the process.

 

Andy