My 3rd and hopefully last log splitter

[mikefromnh]

I would have made the bottom plate of the pusher wider so I could bolt it top down... But I had that 8" wide piece already and didn't realize there would be so much force on them. Timberwolf uses a similar setup on some of their splitters so I thought I'd be ok.

 

[ultrarunner]

Maybe a U-shape channel using the same bolts to hold in place?

 

[LD1]

Shear strength is 50-60% of tensile, not 10%. And grade 8 bolts using the lower # are 120,000psi. So each bolt will have ~5800# shear nominal. But the design of your setup it sheared at the threaded portion. So the diameter of the bolt is far less than 1/4". the minor diameter of a 1/4-20 bolt is 3/16" Which gives you ~3300# shear per bolt. With 10 bolts thats only 33k of shear. And if I recall correctly, you are using a rather large cylinder arent you?



I used 6 grade 8, 1/2" FHCS when I did mine. Using the minor diameter of 1/2-20 bolts, thats about 18k shear per bolt. With 6 bolts I am close to 100k for shear. So far no issues. Even 10 3/8" bolts wont be as strong as the 6 1/2" bolts I have.

 

[CDN Farm Boy]

Shear strength is 50-60% of tensile, not 10%.

I knew someone would be correcting me on that once I posted it. At least it was by someone who's opinion I can have some faith in. :thumbsup:

 

[mikefromnh]

I'm using a 5" cylinder at 2250... So about 22 tons.

I drilled it out for 9 5/16" bolts on each side. 18 total. Bigger would have been better but I didn't leave myself much room to work with.

If this doesn't work I may just weld the guide bars in place.

Or maybe some type of clamp to hold the rod end of the cylinder down...if the cylinder can't rise up then the push plate shouldn't be able to either. I'm not sure that's a great idea either. But the rod is rated for a column load of 30 tons.

 

[ultrarunner]

All great ideas take some tweeking... still a great build and very inspiring...

 

[rswyan]

I used 3/8" Grade 8 hardware ... think there is around 10 or 12 sets of 'em on each side of the push block ...

No issues so far ... but I probably only have 8 hours on the unit max at this point ...

 

[mikefromnh]

I got it back together. I ended up using two 3/8 grade 8 bolts on the front of each side as those are the ones that take the punishment when a log slides up the push plate. And 5/16 grade 2 for the rest.

I split about a cord and a few tough pieces without any failures

 

[LD1]

Time will tell. Sounds a lot stouter.

 

[CNC Dan]

Those bolts should be vertical not horizontal. That will keep the bolts in tention not sheer. With the bolts in tention, they all take some load.

But in sheer, unless you drilled all the holes very accurately, one will take most of the load untill it fails, then another will take most of the load, and fail. Zipper failure.