McMoonter's Scrap Heap Challenge Log Splitter

It’s a work in progress as I ran out of welding wire this afternoon.

I now need a hydraulic ram, some cat 1 pins to make up the three point linkage to the Fergie to complete it.

If it doesnt work, I can always call it sculpture.

Total cost so far £45.

😯

Is the ram going to run horizontaly off the back of the tractor? What is that going to sit on?

are you going to sell it to the French?

The ram sits vertically above the cutting wedge

Come the revolution a few aristos are going to get McMoontered….

Needs a nifty basket.

When you’ve finished it, please post lots of pics of the things you’ve split with it. I’m assuming you’re going to try all manner of things other than logs !

Nice work mcmoonter, if you don’t mind me saying, you may find that the blade needs to be more of a wedge. With a slim axe like blade like that you’ll find it sticking in the rounds a lot. With a more wedge like blade or maul you’ll find it will only go into the wood an inch or two and the log will split.
Pfft, amateurs….. 😛

Smarty, I plan to make a v shaped gusset at the top of T of the cutter. If that doesn’t work I could weld some flat bar to fatten up the wedge.

What I really want is this

I love a Heath Robinson contraption 😉 love the paintjob

now that is awesome 😯

Looking good.
You must post a vid of it when you get it working.

Here’s my log splitter……

SB

mcmoonter, judging by the pics you post, you seem to live in the sort of environment I dream about.

Good on you.

^^That is a mattock.

Fear not McMoonter,

The emergency services have already been alerted.

😀

The spirit of Heath Robinson is alive and well and living in Fife.

I get the impression from Mcmoonters posts that ‘come the glorious day’, he’d maybe find himself at the wrong end of that improvised guillotine 😉 , so don’t wish it on the landed gentry too much (I like his posts), not north of the border anyway.

I get the impression from Mcmoonters posts that ‘come the glorious day’, he’d maybe find himself at the wrong end of that improvised guillotine , so don’t wish it on the landed gentry too much (I like his posts), not north of the border anyway.

I’m not at all from a landed background. My mother was an artist who started a bohemian antique shop in Newhaven (Edinburgh) while she was in her post grad year. Happiest days of my life were spent there. My father came from a middle class background and was a nightmare. Born in Rawalpindi into a military family with servants.

Once when my father and his folks travelled by train somewhere with my mum. They went first class, my mum went third class.

Come the glorious day I’ll be at the control end of the guillotine. 😈

That really is a lovely old photo^

Nice work! but please, watch your bloody fingers! One lapse of concentration and they’ll be off before you feel it. Swinging an axe may be harder, but In a weird way probably safer as youll not have your fingers anywere neer the bugger.

A proper bike in the window! – Mama McMoonter = class 🙂

Awesome bit of kit.

Great photo as well

Blade looks thick enough to me, one on our splitter can’t be more than 18mm.

Hope your log size is regular though as that plate on top won’t allow any over split. Ours has the blade mounted and a ram pushes the logs along a tray, makes it easier to get through a lot of logs too as putting in/chucking out is easier.

Ram is also connected to a collection of linkages so that it flicks the spool valves at either end of travel for automation as well as lever operation.

Timber – I’m going to put a v shaped plate under the T of the blade. The blade is 20mm wide.

I’m a bit miffed as my Grey TEF 20 hydraulics arent up to the job. So I’m trying to find a hydraulic power pack or in true Heath Robinson style, I’ll try and make one. I’ve got a 5.2hp Kubota engine. If I can find a pump, tank and a a two way valve, I may be back in business.

PTO powered hydraulic pump?

5.2bhp engine won’t provide enough power/speed, unless you go for a two stage pump (high flow until pressure builds, at which point high flow pump dumps back to return, and low flow pump continues at higher pressure), but that kind of system isn’t cheap/common.

You could run it of the fergie hydraulics, but you couldn’t have it on the 3point linkage, as the only way you’ll get hydraulic pressure out a TE20 is with the linkage at full height.

Be far better/cheaper to buy a PTO driven pump, which if buying new, I’d suggest White House Products in Port Glasgow, who can supply all the other bits you’d need aswell. But you’ll need to know what displacement pump you’ll need, which if you drop me an email (moray<dot>cuthill<at>googlemail<dot>com, I’ll dig out the spreadsheet I’ve got for doing flow/rpm/hp requirements.

Last log splitter I built had 14t real splitting pressure (not the usual theoretical rubbish spouted by sellers, which is only possible if you have a stupidly high pressure pump, which nobody ever does!), with a 30sec cycle time for a 2ft ram.

Regarding the blade, it depends what you’re splitting. A wedge is only good for relatively straight grained wood, which splits easy. If you’re trying to split knotted/twisted grain, then a knife blade is far better, unless you have lots of pressure to force the log through.
And don’t even attempt a multiway blade unless you’re only ever planning on splitting softwood!

14T! – sounds ideal for beech and black poplar lumps MC, those are what most reliably defeat our 5 ton splitter anyway

Beech isn’t too hard to split with a sharp knife. It’s knotted elm that tends to push things to the limit, resulting in lots of cursing and axe/sledgehammer swinging when they inevitably jam!

14T isn’t that big, as there are some big log splitters out there, but there is the whole issue of how you use them to their capacity. If you’re having to rely on machine loading them, then cutting to length with a saw, then you’re aswell discing them with a chainsaw to start with.
My brother has been doing firewood for nearly 30years, and numerous machines have been looked at, priced, forgotten, copied, modified, rebuilt, and scrapped in that time.

nice work.

log splitting’s a national sport here…

gets through that in 33 whacks if my Basque numbers don’t fail me…

That bloke with the whirling wheel would have a lot less of a beergut if he split logs with an axe.

Cheers folks. I’m thinking along the lines of a stand alone power pack, the costs in making one are too high compared to a second hand unit. As you guys say, the flow rate on the Fergie is too low. I could disconnect it from the linkage and refit the stays that hold the lift arms in place when the loader is in use.

Here’s the updated splitting wedge.

So, I won’t be waiting for the phone call from Moots looking for a new welder, but I got the scrapheap challenge log splitter working. I found a second hand tractor loader ram from Orkney. I got the power supply from a hydraulic power pack found locally on ebay. It works really well.

There is a wee video in here https://picasaweb.google.com/mcmoonter/20110226LogSplitter#

Brilliant!!!! I watch vid now!!! Kewl!!!

Nice but err it’s not fast is it, I could have split that log by hand before it got the through that. 😀

It’s as fast as I would like. I love my fingers.

Like!

Good point mcmoonter and it’ll get through the knotted ones easier.

colour choice could have been more creative, otherwise impressive…

colour choice could have been more creative, otherwise impressive…

I had some left over Fergie grey paint.