Big rounds, vertical splitter, turn them things

[Big_Eddy]

I seldom do stuff bigger than 30" but when I do I either noodle or load with my tractor forks. This is my Speeco modified splitter. That wedge is about 24" tall. I put my forks on an angle so that I can easily flip the round on it's edge then split it in half so I can work one half and the other sits on the extended table or the forks. I also have a 36" stroke splitter with a 4'x 6' table but I don't use it for big stuff.

My splitter doesn’t go vertical, but after 18yrs of development, my log lift works pretty well now, and then automatically splits too.

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[cantoo]

Use them while you can they get busy quick. My Grandson sitting on my son's newest bike. They both race motocross so summer is too busy.

 

[Big_Eddy]

He’s the last one helping out around home and even he is off at university. Our other 3 are spread out in Ottawa, Sarnia and Owen Sound. Hence why I built the splitter last year. Just the 2 of us doing most of the firewood. No more maul swingers to coerce into helping.


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[NSMaple1]

If you think about it, noodling doesn't make any more waste than a cross cut... just the chips are long noodles and make a big fluffy pile... but there is no more wood in those noodle piles than there would be in a crosscut pile.

What do you mean when you say "split up awkwardly"? Just trying to get the same picture in my head that you have in yours. I haven't had a problem stacking noodled splits.

The few times I've noodled, I ended up with odd shaped splits because your cut doesnt line up with the grain of the wood. So when I split, I had wedges and tapers being made. That's doing hard maple.

 

[Marley5]

When my brother and I are out logging " his business " we split everything by hand and noodle the knotty stuff.
He has pro saws and of bigger cc's so let him noodle.

This may sound crazy but at 60 years old, my back is liking a maul vs continues lifting of blocks up onto splitter or plowing up the ground with my knees on vertical.

That said, we're not moving a bunch of firewood, mainly logs.

 

[esshup]

I roll them into the bucket of the tractor, then roll out onto the splitter. Leave bucket there, half falls into bucket, I flip the other half over and keep splitting and moving it, throwing the pieces into the bucket. When that is done, I roll the first 1/2 onto the splitter and repeat.

 

[jonsereds 621]

If you think about it, noodling doesn't make any more waste than a cross cut... just the chips are long noodles and make a big fluffy pile... but there is no more wood in those noodle piles than there would be in a crosscut pile.

What do you mean when you say "split up awkwardly"? Just trying to get the same picture in my head that you have in yours. I haven't had a problem stacking noodled splits.

As the saw cut (noodle) does not necessarily follow the grain right the way through the log, ( here anyway, the trunk seems to take on quite a twist, maybe even a full turn / 10ft ), the split made next to the saws cut will produce a wedge shaped log around 50 percent of the time, also saw has 18" bar, so often doesn't noodle full length, making life more difficult for stacker (me). I appreciate it's minor, but I like a simple life !

 

[tla100]

Big rounds I roll to splitter. Will have the splitter pop the right side off about 5-6". Rotate 90 degrees or less so flat/split side against beam, pop off another 6" chunk. Keep rotating around, just throw the 6" split to side to be split in 2-3 pieces later. Then I have a manageable center chunk.

My wedge is about 10" tall, so it helps.

 

[Marine5068]

I was dealing with some very big (for me) rounds of Ash a week ago (40"-48" Dia) x 20". My solution was to make a plunge cut into the end grain with the bar nose perhaps 4-5" deep and 1/3 the way across the round, then insert a steel splitting wedge and drive in with a sledge. Even the nastiest pieces could be reduced to manageable proportions for my splitter with minimal effort. I find that noodling produces copious quantities of stringy waste and firewood which has split up awkwardly for stacking. ......your mileage may vary !

That's always my idea.
Maximum work with minimal effort.

 

[Socalmisfit]

I use to use my vertical splitter to crack down the big pieces to get them into manageable pieces to put through the vertical splitter because I thought noodling would be more work than it was worth. Than I got a 395xp and the old vertical splitter went over to my pops so he could have a splitter at his house. If you have a 70cc saw I say noodle. I can do it with my 455 but it’s hard on the saw.

 

[Ol' Brian]

So yesterday I was splitting up a good sized red oak (rounds in the trunk about 29" at the butt 24" at the top of the log), too big anymore for my 50 year old back to lift up on the splitter. So, I was busting the rounds in half with either the Fiskars SSA that I got for Christmas, or with the 8lb maul. Probably would have done the whole tree with the SSA, except that this red oak turned out to be pretty stringy, easy to pop, but tough to get pulled apart. So after fooling around with the hand tools, I ended up just busting the big rounds in half with the maul, and then splitting them on the hydraulic splitter.

As I was working this wood, I was thinking about this discussion, and I couldn't figure out much difference, if any at all, between the halves just split by hand, or what it would be if they were noodled to help bust the big rounds in half. In this oak there is very little twist, most of the manually busted halves were just as straight as if they were noodled.

Different strokes for different folks I guess. And maybe different wood plays a part too, but I've never come upon any trees yet that had a full twist in the grain over 10' of length.

 

[Natster]

Look at this:
https://hzc-power.com/en/accessories-for-log-splitters/universal-turntable-standing-logsplitterIt's someplace other than usa.
Anybody tried one?
N

 

[NSMaple1]

Look at this:
https://hzc-power.com/en/accessories-for-log-splitters/universal-turntable-standing-logsplitterIt's someplace other than usa.
Anybody tried one?
N

I tried to see a better pic of it in action but couldn't. I'm not understanding how it could only be good for 75kg rounds while also standing up to the splitting forces involved.

 

[Sandhill Crane]

 

[Natster]

Apparently, it sits on the ground, and spins. It does not bear splitting forces.
I'd like to see a video of it in action.
I fd a video of some product called red gum. This is the idea of what I'd like:

N

Ps: here's red gum link, in Australia: http://www.redgumproducts.com.au/log-splitter/log-splitter-turntable

 

[Mustang71]

I have a 3 point splitter and even if it did go vertical im not sure what good that would be. Seems anything over 20 inches i have to split and flip over and split again so as mentioned I wouldnt want to wrestle a 400lb log into place to only have to flip it and split it again lol. I rarely noodle logs. Recently I had the atv and a 6x8 trailer in the field next door cutting up one of my large ash trees that was cut down. As long as I could lift them into the trailer they came back to my wood area. The one I could not lift so I noodled it. I also left the weird shapped ones with branches on them because I was not going to waste my time trying to split them. Once I got all the rounds back that I wanted, I popped them in half with a slegde and wedge or 2. If its straight grained wood then they split easy with a wedge.