Dangerous log splitters

[AardvarkTreeServices]

Just seen an HSE bulletin with this in it as part of a report where a lad lost the top of his thumb holding a log in a vertical splitter.

 

"An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the splitter failed to comply with the latest safety standards for such equipment. A device should have been fitted to hold logs in place without human intervention, and the controls should have been better configured to prevent accidental use and access to the splitting zone"

 

Looks like you need a clamp on your splitter now!

[likeitorlumpit]

Just seen an HSE bulletin with this in it as part of a report where a lad lost the top of his thumb holding a log in a vertical splitter.

 

"An investigation by the Health and Safety Executive (HSE) found the splitter failed to comply with the latest safety standards for such equipment. A device should have been fitted to hold logs in place without human intervention, and the controls should have been better configured to prevent accidental use and access to the splitting zone"

 

Looks like you need a clamp on your splitter now!

 

They're just so awkward and slow

[fergusonforestry]

my mate lost his middle finger in one nobody has worked out quite how

[Le Sanglier]

Thought it had been law for years.

[treequip]

You are reading that way too literally, not a clamp and not now

 

The machine has to be safe, it was ever thus, that means if the log needs to be held in place it needs to be held with something that isn’t your hand vertical machines may need a holding device but horizontal ones won’t need a clamp of any kind.

 

What you do need is a machine that won’t allow a youth to remove a chunk of his thumb

[Rich2484]

You are reading that way too literally, not a clamp and not now

 

The machine has to be safe, it was ever thus, that means if the log needs to be held in place it needs to be held with something that isn’t your hand vertical machines may need a holding device but horizontal ones won’t need a clamp of any kind.

 

What you do need is a machine that won’t allow a youth to remove a chunk of his thumb

 

That would be a blunt plastic one then. Bit like the child's scissors. :lol:

[treequip]

That would be a blunt plastic one then. Bit like the child's scissors. :lol:

 

there are plenty of safe machines out there, or do you think people loosing body parts is acceptable?

[Rich2484]

Oh here we go. Fact log splitters are dangerous. Chainsaws are dangerous, processors are dangerous, tractors are dangerous, cars are dangerous. That's why there's training and rick assessments. Oh and that very rare thing called common sense.........

 

It's a joke. Oh I forgot you don't get those....

[treequip]

Oh here we go. Fact log splitters are dangerous. Chainsaws are dangerous, processors are dangerous, tractors are dangerous, cars are dangerous. That's why there's training and rick assessments. Oh and that very rare thing called common sense.........

 

It's a joke. Oh I forgot you don't get those....

 

Some log spliters are dangerous

[Chris Sheppard]

Given that splitters are supposed to require two handed operation, there should be no possible way your hands are in line of the splitting knife.

 

Before anyone starts, I don't know which piece of legislation relates to this, but it does exist, I've been shown it and know of at least one manufacturer who HSE had interest in for not following this.

 

Also, nearly every commercially produced splitter I've seen new has got a sticker on it saying for use by one person only - if someone elses hands are i nthe way then themachine has been being used incorrectly surely?

 

More and more vertical splitters are now also being produced with a small sliding spike that moves just below the knife - the idea being you bang the log against the spike so as then not having the problem of needing to hold the log.