Picture frames… 
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CarlOR, you nailed the answer – butt grain wave/ripple.
Even on a very strait grained tree like Douglas Fir this aways happens when that tree hits a certain weight-mass. The downward pressure of 20,000-30,000+ pounds does this grain downwards compression squashing.
Yeah. Bugger-do to split. I now been using a 34 ton force hydraulic splitter for the past 4 years. Just got old, and tired of sinking in 3-4-5 steel wedges and still having to saw completely to separated.
Regards
tree-farmer Steve unruh
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Steve
I like that description. I always wondered why the butt cuts were twisted, waves, and squishing makes sense.
My little splitter is only 12 tons but I haven’t stalled it yet, but is probably slower/safer than the bigger ones.
One advantage is that I can move it around like a wheelbarrow.
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Actually almost all the hydraulic splitters are the same speed. Typically the higher rated splitter have bigger cylinders and the pumps are not enough bigger to speed them up. It actually take a pretty big motor to run a higher gpm pump to speed up the splitter. There are the 2 stage pumps but I haven’t used them.
Now if you want crazy fast on a small motor look up the super split I think it is called 5 hp lawnmower motor with a rack drive setup a friend of mine has one I went over to help him one day and after that think made one split I told him no way you can run that I will just bring wood over for you or run a chainsaw.
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Gary Gilmore made one from scratch i think its on here somewhere if not here its on the Yahoo charcoal forum , anyway sure is fast at what it does .
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4.52 in this video, they have a 1 horse powered kinetic splitter.
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Here in WV we have mountains and hollars, the trees on top of the mts. get what we call wind twisted. They really get some crazy looking grains in the wood.
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Yeah, the butt end of a big Doug fir log is a nightmare. Around here the approach is generally to “noodle” them - which is to say rip it into firewood sized pieces with the biggest saw you can lay hands on. Cutting with the grain makes a giant pile of long skinny shavings, hence the term.
I will also attest to the speed of a super-split. My brother has one, and with both of us working, we can split and stack a cord in 40 minutes. It basically splits as fast as one person can frantically stack it away.
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Does it use a rack and pinion drive like what Gary made?
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Yeah, Its a Super Split brand unit, they really are pretty amazing. They dont really handle super gnarly wood all that well, but for the cherry, maple, alder and doug fir we have around here it is pretty crazy how fast it is.
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Hey, yeah.
Noodle strands make the best of chicken nesting material. I suppose be good for rabbits and goats bedding too. I’ve done this on high-stumped tree butts to recover some usable. Takes a lot of saw sharpening though. And best done in the winter cold or need to do a lots of pitch kerosene chain washing.
My 34 ton force woodsplitter will do both horizontal and vertical. Handy for 44-56" round cut off. Is a dual stage-pump. Works out fine. Fast’er 13 second return-time on the lowerer force. Hard resistance encountered and it slows way down still grunt pushing . . . and then, watch out. Once that wood twist/knot gives up . . .some flying chunks will occur with the enrgy release. Had to learn to hip turn to protect the family jewels if you follow me. HURTS, bad keeled over gasping.
Trick to reduce that 13 seconds cycle time is to not let it auto-cycle all of the way back. Just enough for a reset. Elbow valve stop it for a power forward hand directed re-split.
Best the valve directing hand is the same person as the round chunk holding hand. Then bad-things sensed like a bow-split, or push out, and quicker off-power/reverse-quick reaction. Two guys on the splitter leads to fingers losing sooner or later.
The second guy is to feed the splitter guy new material, to-be; and keep the splitter area cleared of splits. Ha! Yeah. He has to hustle.
S.U.
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Wind twisted grain, now that’s “pretty” interesting.
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I cant split wood that fast here , my property is on a 30 deg slope and makes moving wood real hard , so the cone splitter works pretty well moving the wood and reducing it to a size so i can pick it up and then split to size on the slow 40 ton hydraulic splitter , nearly all the tree’s here are mountain ash apart from a few blackwoods
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My absolutely, final airport project shut down for 2 weeks .
So been making wood chunks.
My neighbor has some 40 ft high ash trees, 6” to 8” at the butt, and so really nice straight grain.
1 tree makes about 15 - 5 gallon buckets of chunks.
Cut them up in 20” lengths, then use the splitter to get them under 2”, then chunk away.
With the rain every day or so, 0.71” today, the 60 buckets I have processed will probably not be dry enough until next May?
I am in the recliner, a bit sore, but smiling in anticipation of DOW.
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Ash is a pretty dry wood, at least green or black ash. It is known for being burnable off the stump, though obviously the dryer the better. But it is fairly low moisture content to start with.
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1050/5000
Hello wayne,
be careful with the oak, and also the chestnut tree, these are two species of wood that have pyroligneous juice excrementally corrosive, in Europe they say tannin, attached a photo of cooler and filter of a gasifier all rusted, so the owner only used oak from falling from the construction of his furniture, but mixing softwood and oak is a good, less problem and in addition the gasifier makes less vault.
Anyway, in the coal part when the gas passes for cracking, it must be greater than 850 degrees, to get there, I use the exhaust in a wood dryer to finish removing the water wood, the ideal is that there is no more water, in Europe we call it the red wood, and there you will be amazed at the temperature rise of the gasifier and its performance.to torrify the wood, do not to exceed 270 degrees to keep all the noble products of the wood, it is the grain size of the wood which determines the residence time in the dryer.
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Excellent report FrancoisPal
Only one word that did not translate well: “vault”. Would this mean less fuel bridging in the hopper?
Regards
Steve Unruh
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Thanks very much Francois .
I may go ahead and experiment using the oak and see how long the components will last. Then make a decision if dealing with the pine tar is easier.
I think best might be as you suggested, mixing soft wood with the oak.
Thanks
Wayne
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Thank you FrancoisPal; Very interesting information. We all need to dry our wood. The idea of drying it with temperature just under 270 makes since and I hope some of the more ingenious people will take on the task of figuring a way to do this for the common folks. TomC
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