At Home In The Woods

[Obed]

I've been looking for a used log splitter on craigslist for a few months but have struck out. It looks like I will be buying a new one. I really like the Super Splitter but am hesitant to shell out the bucks. Recently I saw that Tractor Supply Company has a flywheel splitter (Speeco SpeedPro) that is significantly less expensive than the SS. I told my wife to contact TSC and buy one yesterday. When she called them, they told her the SpeedPro has been recalled. They have removed the SpeedPro off of their website. So now I'm back to square one.

Until I get a splitter, I guess I'll be using the maul and wedges. It's getting colder and we don't have much cut and split firewood. I stopped at Northern Tool today after work and got some wedges. I'm not sure I liked them. They are much narrower than the wedges I've used in the past.

 

[dstig1]

The SS sure is nice, but it is overkill ... I like overkill . Many folks doing their own firewood end up swearing by the Speeco hydraulic units. Overall well made and good bang for the buck. It seemed there were some other design flaws with the Speeco SS clone, too - I read complaints about the low working height for one. That could be a back killer, if true. You can get the Speecos through TSC or possibly other farm type stores in your area. Fleet Farm around here carries them. TSC calls them Huskee or something.

The only thing to watch for is that the teenagers TSC has assembling them don't do a good job, so you need to make a quick pass over it checking all bolts and hose fittings, plus fluid levels prior to using it. Or if you can, get them to sell it unassembled and you can do it right the first time yourself.

 

[955Lincoln]

I also looked forever on Craigslist for a used splitter and finally decided to give up and buy a new one from Tractor Supply. A day or two before I pulled the TSC trigger a new listing came up on Craigslist for an off brand splitter that I had never heard of called Iron and Oak that was close and cheap so I decided to look at it. It was like new so I bought it and it works pretty good.

 

[dstig1]

I&O isn't off-brand - it is pretty high end. You scored, I'd say... Very rare to see decent splitters on CL around here.

 

[955Lincoln]

Thanks...it does seem pretty heavy. I'm looking at vids of the Super Splitter right now and they sure are fast. I love that nice straight gain wood they use in these videos. :laughing:

 

[tony Cecil]

Why not wait and see how much wood you really use?? As the fireplace isn`t really proven yet, you may find the winter is not so long or cold to justify another piece of equipment--particularly when you factor the garden in---Don`t get me wrong, I love a nice fire, but it gets tiring after the newness wears off.....Tony

 

[Obed]

Why not wait and see how much wood you really use?? As the fireplace isn`t really proven yet, you may find the winter is not so long or cold to justify another piece of equipment--particularly when you factor the garden in---Don`t get me wrong, I love a nice fire, but it gets tiring after the newness wears off.....Tony

Tony,
There's some wisdom in your comments. I have little doubt that we will regularly use the fireplace. Yes, the FP still has some question marks. Recently it has been burning very dry ashe firewood fine. However, ashe burns a lot like pine. We have to evaluate how it does with mixed hardwoods. If I continue to see problems with getting enough combustion air into the firebox, I do have the option of removing the automated air control mechanism to allow more air into the FP.

I know my wife; she loves a fire. She is at home several days during the week and will keep a fire going. Thus I really expect to go through some firewood. I do believe a splitter is in my future. I'm just waffling on what to get.

Obed

 

[tony Cecil]

Well Obed---after all this time I know you to be tenacious, but in this case I think with the number of chores you do, this is one you will `tire` of in the not distant future...Now if there is some `magic` I don`t know about, then the fire will take a fairly constant amount of attention, with the additional occasional shot of smoke in the house, and on your hands....I love the fire for it`s ambience, but after an all day one, I am looking for an excuse not to have another one too quickly, as the novelty wears off if it s overdone.....

You certainly deserve whatever you desire after all the trials and tribulations you have gone through, but I would bet a dollar to a penny after the first cord of wood is burned , the novelty of the pioneer will have diminished....It is very nice to have the option with a power failure, to be able to warm the room, but what you really need is a generator--not a splitter We`l see if you share your thoughts Tony

 

[Obed]

Now that we are frequently burning wood, I've got to get some wood cut and split. I'm way behind the curve. In an ideal world, I would have my firewood cut and split 12 months ahead of time. However, it's been all I could handle building the house and getting grass on the yard. I hope to be in better shape with firewood before next year's winter.

Today I spent a whole day doing just that. I've really been looking forward to cutting and splitting wood today. For the past month I've been working 70 hour weeks for my regular job because of a big deadline. While I really enjoy the work I'm doing at work right now, I've needed a break from sitting at a computer.

My wife cleaned up the natural area in front of our house and made a pile of small trees for me to cut up. So I cut up the pile and we stacked the wood on a pallet. I've seen some threads on TBN where people have used pallets for stacking their firewood. The concept seemed to make lots of sense so I decided to follow suit. I like the idea of minimizing how many times you handle the logs. Now if I could just figure out how to get the pallet of wood into the living room!

 

[Obed]

Today I finally started cutting up this big pile of logs. Some of these logs have been lying here for over 2 years from when we cleared the road and and when we cleared spaces for the house and garden. The logs in the back of the pile are the oldest so I decided to cut a log from the back of the pile.

I picked a red oak log to cut up because we are still evaluating whether or not our fireplace has burning problems. I wanted some oak to see how well it would burn in our FP. The log I picked was fairly dry in some spots but wet in some others. I pulled the log out of the pile with a chain until one end of the log was sticking out in the air. This position allowed me to saw pieces completely off without needing to roll over the log. The log was about 25 feet long and approximately 15 inches in diameter.

I cut up the log into 18" long pieces. Our fireplace will handle pieces up to 24" but pieces that long are a little clumsey to use in our FP. When the log was down to the last 10 feet, I pulled it completely off the pile so that it was lying on the ground. I made the cuts on the top side of the log, then rolled it over with one of these that I bought from Northern tool two days ago. The one I purchased can be seen in my FEL. It has a wooden unlike the fiberclass handle shown in the picture. Rolling a big log over was a breaze with this tool. I'm very glad I bought it.

After cutting up the log, I started splitting with my maul and axe. The red oak split fairly well with an occasional log that gave me some trouble. I split the logs into 6 to 8 pieces. As the day progressed, my splitting proceedure improved. What worked fairly well was to split the log into 2 halves with my maul. Then I used my axe to split the halves into smaller pieces. Using the heavy maul was a lot of work so I took advantage of the lighter axe for the smaller pieces. I was also much more acurate swinging the lighter axe than the heavy maul. After splitting each 18" log, I stacked the pieces onto the pallet. I didn't have my wife's help on this log. This knotty piece gave me particular troubles. I spent a good 15 minutes or so splitting it with my maul, axe, and wedges. If I had any sense I would have put this piece aside and waited to split it when I get a log splitter.

When I finished cutting up the log, my pallet was looking rather tall. Unfortunately, my tractor couldn't lift that big of a stack. Thus I had to unload some of the wood and stack it onto another pallet. I then delivered the nicely stacked pallet of wood into our garage where it is easily accessible.

 

[Kyle_in_Tex]

Wood has many ways of warming you up before you ever burn it.

 

[Obed]

Wood has many ways of warming you up before you ever burn it.

Yes Kyle, that's very true. After I finished cutting and splitting by hand 2 1/2 pallets of wood, I was worn out, I mean so exhausted I ached. After supper I treated myself to a long tub bath in our claw foot tub. Then my wife rewarded me with freshly baked homemade cookies. I WILL work for food!

 

[brin]

Yes Kyle, that's very true. After I finished cutting and splitting by hand 2 1/2 pallets of wood, I was worn out, I mean so exhausted I ached. After supper I treated myself to a long tub bath in our claw foot tub. Then my wife rewarded me with freshly baked homemade cookies. I WILL work for food!

Oh geeez, this is now an X rated thread....:laughing:

 

[hawkeye08]

years ago when we heated with wood stove, we would get a firewood permit, take the pickup and trailer (pickup box trailer) to the woods and work hard to get both loaded with fresh cut firewood. We unloaded and did it again and again until we had enough for the winter. Then we would rent a splitter for the day and split it all. I wanted my own splitter but could not justify the expense at the time. We heat with propane now so no need.

Renting might work for you until you find the one you want...

 

[Obed]

Well Obed---after all this time I know you to be tenacious, but in this case I think with the number of chores you do, this is one you will `tire` of in the not distant future...Now if there is some `magic` I don`t know about, then the fire will take a fairly constant amount of attention, with the additional occasional shot of smoke in the house, and on your hands....I love the fire for it`s ambience, but after an all day one, I am looking for an excuse not to have another one too quickly, as the novelty wears off if it s overdone.....

You certainly deserve whatever you desire after all the trials and tribulations you have gone through, but I would bet a dollar to a penny after the first cord of wood is burned , the novelty of the pioneer will have diminished....It is very nice to have the option with a power failure, to be able to warm the room, but what you really need is a generator--not a splitter We`l see if you share your thoughts Tony

Tony,
I suppose we could get tired of building fires. Yes, there's some work in it. The nice part is my wife does most of the fire burning and tending. She works part time so she has more available time than I to tend the fires. If we both worked full time, it would be very tough to keep a fire going.

Here's one thing I've convinced myself of after yesterday's log splitting. A log splitter is DEFINITELY in my future. I have an awfully large pile of logs to cut up and split. I can't image my splitting that whole pile by hand. Splitting all those logs by hand would definitely wear off the "novelty of the pioneer".

Obed

 

[easygo]

While you are still splitting by hand put the log to be split onto a stump or another log. You will not have to bend over so far while splitting and it might improve your aim a bit. Just be very careful! If you miss the wood the maul will keep going and sometimes it attempts to split toes or other body parts. Kudos to you for not giving up.

Edit: if that is an 8lbs maul you should try a 6lbs instead. Much easier to use and very effective.

 

[clemsonfor]

Tony,
There's some wisdom in your comments. I have little doubt that we will regularly use the fireplace. Yes, the FP still has some question marks. Recently it has been burning very dry ashe firewood fine. However, ashe burns a lot like pine. We have to evaluate how it does with mixed hardwoods. If I continue to see problems with getting enough combustion air into the firebox, I do have the option of removing the automated air control mechanism to allow more air into the FP.

I know my wife; she loves a fire. She is at home several days during the week and will keep a fire going. Thus I really expect to go through some firewood. I do believe a splitter is in my future. I'm just waffling on what to get.

Obed

Get yourself a nice high end wood stove! You will use the same amount or wood and get 100x the heat off of it. I have a High valley catylist stove. The wife resisted for a few years as she likes the looks of it and seeing it. Well this one has a glas door and you can see the fire. We use to heat the room barely to low 70s for 4 hours each day. NOw i can use a similar amount of wood and heat the house all day on that ame quantity of wood. The room can get well past 80 F in the dead of winter depending on what part of the house we open up to allow the heat to flow to. I have a large first floor, bout 2500sqft, not really an open plan either, we use 2 fans and sometimes the blowers on central units to distribute the heat. I figure i cut an easy $100/month off the cold months!

 

[955Lincoln]

That track loader is becoming a permanent addition to your property. I hope he is letting you use it as it's saving him money storing it there.

 

[srossman]

Here's another tip for splitting wood. Put the wood in an old tire to keep from having to stand up the piece of wood to split it again. Before I bought my splitter, I would go out every day and split for 1/2 hour or so and then quit for the day. Great exercise and doesn't wear you out has much.

 

[bem1965]

Dear obed,

Whatever you do do not buy a splitter without testing it!
You could always load some wood in your truck and take along. If it is more work using the splitter than it is useing your axe, do not buy it.
I have seen a lot of horrible examples of what is sold as log splitters in the US, and many of them are completely moronic, more work than chainsaw and axe. Many types of splitters appear to be made to drop your logs as many times as possible in the dirt or snow for no other reason than bad engineering.

Compare log splitters to washing machines, see how easy it might be to sell a agitation washing machine in Australia today when almost everybody have seen the cylyndrical models.... Same with splitters! I am all for buy local, but I would never buy a Swedish made machine just because of its origin.

Time how long it would take you to split logs with the FEL or excavator (back-hoe) compared to the logsplitter!! Use FEL to grind wood into soil and compare to wood after useing splitter..... If FEL method is cleaner donｴt buy the splitter!

I would reccomend you to buy a horisontal splitter with electric hydraulic engine.

Se if you can find a importer for Balfor A5-A9 VOR | Balfor
Or become a importer yourself!

Take a gander at this Log Splitter, Wood Splitter - Super Split(R) check out the videos :thumbsup: At least if you lose a hand you can sue them, right? Good concept, ergonomic and safety nonexistent. Might be possible to rebuild to a great splitter.
The Speeco SpeedPro, seems like an updated version of the Supersplitter. With some safety mechanisms built in! I would go for that if you want to buy US made

For myself I am useing chainsaw and axe, gives me lots of excersise and a sore back. Since prices are so high I sell most of my timber and buy electricity for heating (heat exchanger). Use firewood for nice fires in fireplace and kitchen stove only.

Ramble ends....