Building a 4 way splitter wedge

so I have this log splitter here and I'd really like to convert it to have a four-way wedge I actually tried a couple years ago to do this on successfully and I want to give it another try now last time I tried to do this I had the wedge on here it was something I bought I didn't make it and the what would happen is it would split it and then once once this piece hit it it would get stuck because the wedge was like it was wedged like this you know less extreme obviously but it would pinch the log in this gap right here and there's there's no way any log splitter would be powerful enough to do like crush a log sideways you know so I'm gonna try to do it redo it and have them I guess we'll call it the wing off the side instead of having it angled like that I'm gonna have it almost angled like this and I'm going to angle it up up like that so then that way the log will it should what it should work that's the plan so let's give this a shot so I'll just do demonstration how this is now all right so what I just did in three motions or three cycles I'm hoping to be able to do in just one so really having a four-way wedge on this thing should almost triple the speed at which the wood gets split all right so let's give it a try you [Music] [Music] all right so I'll do something like that wild that's solid then grind this to a nice point and then I'm going to try putting these bends in it so there should be this should be bent right here and I'll make this plate further forward bend it right here [Music] now I'm gonna well then this piece here so I'm gonna this thing that the idea is that you'll just be able to slip this down on top of it so I'll wall this in here now the reason I'm all that now because if you went and welded this entire gap right here and you know really burnt it in huh what would happen is when you weld stuff it heats up and then the metal cools down and it shrinks so what would happen is since it'd be shrinking here it would actually pull these apart I'll just wall this piece in here now so that doesn't happen you you you all right that should split wood just fine all right now it's time to design these wings so okay this is a plate of one-inch thick steel and I got I just got this as a drop 6 by 15 so it's 15 let's cut it in half so 7 1/2 you so I got a little bit of a challenge for the plasma cutter I don't think I've ever caught 1 inch with it before I think it's supposed to be able to though so let's see hard we gotta go slower [Music] [Applause] [Music] I did a nice job that's the way to do that it should probably be about about that high I want to angle it up a little bit and it needs to I guess I got to cut this chunk out of it or something you that's pretty good so I'd be like that and I just got to cut this wedge so so it's got to be caught that's gonna be hard actually [Music] you [Music] you you so I got it all working I I had to do a little bit of trimming on this on this bracket here and the thing underneath that mounts it right in there but all this is for is when you cycle them back it's if a log is stuck on the wedge that this pushes it off but I don't think I've ever had that happen with this splitter so but it's still there this will still push off a log and now it's time to bring it outside and test it [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] you you you all right now just splittin you know regular firewood size logs the thing it's working absolutely great let me try doing some something that's really really big see how it does with that a good question is how come you think these splitters don't come like this from the factory I mean it wouldn't be that much more work for the the people who built this whole machine to just sell it like this it seems like it probably doubles the triples the production so why why not do that I wish I had done this years ago the amount I would I've split off the splitter probably had the thing seven years now if this was on it really probably double at least double the wood alright let's try something big now you you you all right the log splitter four-way wedge has worked great on everything so far let's try it on something like this so that is well that's 43 inches right there geez I guess my bar is barely gonna reach through this it's a 20 inch bar and I saw [Music] I don't think that bar reached I don't think it made it through the center [Applause] [Music] my mini excavators on a job I use that [Music] [Applause] [Music] all right now this is a bit of a little crazy here but let's see what happens [Music] [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] [Music] definitely calling this project a success this pretty much worked on everything I threw at it it works excellent on normal firewood sized pieces where you pretty much only have to cycle them about once to get a perfect sized piece of firewood even on the gigantic stuff it worked pretty good I guess that one piece that was like 44 inches or whatever I guess doing stuff like that you're probably a little better just taking it off for the first few initial splits on that but it's very rare that you'd be working with logs that size anyway so you know usually stuff even stuff like this big you know if it's just a nice straight log instead of cutting that up for firewood I'll usually send that to a sawmill because it's a lot more useful than just firewood usually fire with stuff is you know a little smaller than that you know probably that on average a little bigger but again this worked great and a good question I really want to know why you think these splinter companies don't just sell the splitters like this in the first place

Channel: Andrew Camarata

Views: 349,961

Rating: 4.9333625 out of 5

Keywords: fire wood, log splitter, split wood, troy bilt, welding, metal fabrication, plasma cutter, home heating, woodstove, fireplace, camp fire

Id: 46thRHFDcpQ

Length: 23min 51sec (1431 seconds)

Published: Fri Dec 15 2017