I would like to make a post splitter

[norbert77]

I'm trying to come up with a way of having the cylinder on the side, so I can have a nice 8' stroke. Maybe with a 5x8 rectangular tubing. Only 4" cylinder at 3000 pounds, idea being if I use a small 6" knife I just need to cut half the post I think it should split. Bad idea, go for 12"?

I'm also trying to figure out the power supply, I have a 24hp 18gpm pump, I think I would like to upgrade to a 2 stage. What is the largest horsepower 2 stage pump? I was on a hydraulic surplus page and seems they are all made for low horse engines

 

[Patrick62]

nutty idea, be careful.
to get long stroke, use heavy chains and double the travel of a 4 foot stroke cylinder. It will cut the force in half, but it would work.
You should be able to use a small cable for return stroke with pulleys.
You won't need a lotta flow, but the pressure could be fairly high on the cylinder. 2 stage pump would be fine, since you are doubling the travel speed, you don't want a high cylinder speed. 16gpm would be PLENTY!
The chains would have to be probably #80 or #100.
Fix one end put a sprocket on the end of the cylinder, and the ram on the other end.

This is how my manlift works. except they double it a few more times to get 30 feet of lift. but only rated for 300# in the cage.

 

[norbert77]

nutty idea, be careful.
to get long stroke, use heavy chains and double the travel of a 4 foot stroke cylinder. It will cut the force in half, but it would work.
You should be able to use a small cable for return stroke with pulleys.
You won't need a lotta flow, but the pressure could be fairly high on the cylinder. 2 stage pump would be fine, since you are doubling the travel speed, you don't want a high cylinder speed. 16gpm would be PLENTY!
The chains would have to be probably #80 or #100.
Fix one end put a sprocket on the end of the cylinder, and the ram on the other end.

This is how my manlift works. except they double it a few more times to get 30 feet of lift. but only rated for 300# in the cage.

Thanks, I was thinking this over thoroughly and the cylinder head will be mounted where most cylinder are hooked to, and the cylinder will extend rar out. I know what you saying about chains, I would rather avoid any failures... Long time ago a chain broke and I was almost neutered as a result. Hence the longer cylinder with more flow.

 

[Patrick62]

yeah, the cost would be about the same. LONG cylinders are available. 500 clams and up.
I would just build a over grown long beam splitter. It won't take a lot of tonnage to split, but...
The catch would be, will it stay in a straight enough line?

 

[norbert77]

yeah, the cost would be about the same. LONG cylinders are available. 500 clams and up.
I would just build a over grown long beam splitter. It won't take a lot of tonnage to split, but...
The catch would be, will it stay in a straight enough line?

Flip up steadiers on the side?

 

[rtrsam]

How straight grained is the wood? Knots? Diameter? Biggest issue is the split follows the grain so if the grain has a twist, it might not be an issue at firewood length but when you get to 8' or longer, it's significant. Might be useful to set it up so the log could rotate to follow the knife as it's being split? If the knife isn't at least half the diameter of the log it might just split down one side and leave you with a big headache trying to split the rest of the way. Interesting project, I don't know how they split rails for fence material other than careful selection of the wood they try to work with.

 

[norbert77]

How straight grained is the wood? Knots? Diameter? Biggest issue is the split follows the grain so if the grain has a twist, it might not be an issue at firewood length but when you get to 8' or longer, it's significant. Might be useful to set it up so the log could rotate to follow the knife as it's being split? If the knife isn't at least half the diameter of the log it might just split down one side and leave you with a big headache trying to split the rest of the way. Interesting project, I don't know how they split rails for fence material other than careful selection of the wood they try to work with.

Didn't think of that yet. When we moved in there were little sections of that type fence, dude even split old hydro poles