OK, you guys are trolling for a rebuttal, so here you go
. My wife says I love to argue, and she's right I suppose.
I completely understand why WCH is wanting to put the double detent on his splitter. I haven't seen his machine, and I don't really understand how he can do all that extra stuff just by putting a detent on the push stroke on his splitter, unless he has a cycle time that you can measure with a calendar. On my machine, it's fast enough that there is no way you would have all that time to do everything that he says he could do with the detent that he says he can't do without it. In my mind's eye, from what he says he could do extra, I'm seeing a somewhat comical scene of nothing but arses & elbows, a blur of a man, and firewood of all sizes flying in every direction. I don't really think that's accurate, based on all the different log splitters that I've ever worked with. But, I can see where a detent on the push stroke might have some advantage in some situations.
What you guys that are in support of him doing this don't bother to understand is that everything does not go according to plan every single time. Accidents happen, usually when you least expect it. The human machine is not very good at doing something exactly the same way, every single time, over and over and over and over. My case in point-- I pinched my fingers between the log and the backstop on my splitter... somehow, I let my fingers drape over the back end of the log instead of over the side where they should have been. I didn't even notice it until I felt the pressure on my fingers... I had my attention focused on where I wanted the wedge to enter the log so I could get the log split where I wanted it. I had my left hand holding the log in position, my right hand on the control lever... and my left fingertips got pinched... Like I said earlier, it scared the hades out of me... because I, like WCH, thought that I ALWAYS had my hand on top of the log (which I did... but not my fingertips this one time) and I thought I NEVER would allow my fingers to get back there while splitting... but it happened anyway. Luckily, I had the presence of mind to let go of the lever fast enough that I wasn't injured... just sore. If there was a detent that I would have had to defeat in that situation, it would have been much worse. Was it a stupid thing to have happen? Absolutely. I should have been paying closer attention to my other hand. But, when you've been splitting wood all day long, and you're feeling really comfortable with the machine, and possibly getting a little tired, complacency can and will creep in at some point, opening the door for something to happen. And it can happen to ANYBODY... we're all HUMAN. If you think it can't happen to you, you are truly naive. And I truly don't want anything bad to happen to good people like WCH. I've read a lot of WCH's posts, I've gained a lot of respect for him. I was quite shocked to read that he was considering doing this... maybe that's why I worded my original post on this matter so strongly.
So, if you guys want to call me
rude for
having the nerve to call a spade a spade when someone obviously isn't seeing the big picture in his plan to make a very, very unsafe modification to his machine, then so be it. You're not hurting my feelings any, you're just allowing Darwin to do his work. It's WCH and his wife and kids that will bear the big burden if something unfortunate were to happen. What a shame that would be, especially when other people warned him previously that it was not a good idea.
Farmerford, I'm not doing sitting here typing all this because he's not doing it "my way". There's no challenge being made to anyone's manhood or anything like that, so there's really no reason that I can see for anyone to get their hackles up. You guys can do whatever you want however you want to do it... myself and everyone else that advises against it here are powerless to stop you. All we can do is try to get you to see the light. Whether you choose to see it or not us totally up to you, and the responsibility for your actions fall solely on you as well. All I can do is try.
So, call me rude, call me whatever you want. But don't say I don't care about you or what happens to you.
All I ask is that you not let your ego get in the way of your better judgement.
Peace, all. I'm not looking to make any enemies here... just trying to keep friends together (pun intended)
.
So, Be safe, have a good evening, and enjoy the rain that we're finally getting (if you're as dry as we are here, and you're finally getting some rain).
