Anyone tried to split this wood? Think it broke my Countyline splitter

[Wonkydonkey]

I’ll see your engine and raise you a pump… still splittin wood.

Low hanging fruit, for the taking.


My take on your reply ….. you like the look of his engine and recon yours can pump a bit moar and spit the beans what ever it pumping

 

[J.Noss]

If you call the Surplus Center they will give you a few pointers on which pump to go with what size motor. You don't want to big of a pump for the motor. Upsizing the motor and pump if you are buying new will still be the same tonnage but proportionately faster cycle time. Is the HF motor bigger than the original husky motor? Or new and you may be able to return it and get a bigger motor. Be aware of mounting/clearance issues and pump to motor mount variables. I put a smaller cyl on one splitter for doing small stuff like smoking hickory wood. really wakes you /it up.

Well the original is an old B.Stratton 650series 190cc vertical shaft and the new is a Harbor Freight Predator 212cc engine.. the old engine never even hardly notices the 11gpm pump and the new engine is a good bit more powerful.. I was pretty sure it'd pull 13gpm as the 25ton Countyline splitter I just got and had the issue with is a 190cc size and it's running 14gpm.

 

[J.Noss]

For identification purposes here is a branch from the tree which was now leafing-out after being on a piece that was cut back in February laying on the ground in these rounds.

 

[drf256]

Elm makes sense now. Stringy as hell and not that dense.

Almost all here died, this is first I’ve ever seen.

 

[thompsoncustom]

I'm not a splitter expert nor have I much experience with hydraulics that was just our take on what we saw at the store today when testing and doing a quick look-over of it. I'm always wanting to learn more about any subject and this one is especially interesting and intriguing to me

As far as building your own power comes from the pump PSI and cylinder size not the engine HP you only need more engine if your running more gallons per minute. For example a pump at 4000psi on a 5in cylinder is 40ton if your pump could run 5000psi than the output would be 50ton but most pumps don't go that high so to increase tonnage you would go to a bigger cylinder. So if you run the same pump at 4000psi with a 7in cylinder it's now at 80ton but your cycle time will also be reduced by half. To fix that you need more gallons per minute and a bigger engine to move it.

 

[Junk Meister]

For identification purposes here is a branch from the tree which was now leafing-out after being on a piece that was cut back in February laying on the ground in these rounds.View attachment 417333View attachment 417332

think you are showing us a vine growing on not a shooter growing out of the wood. looks more like a Virginia creeper.

 

[Junk Meister]

As far as building your own power comes from the pump PSI and cylinder size not the engine HP you only need more engine if your running more gallons per minute. For example a pump at 4000psi on a 5in cylinder is 40ton if your pump could run 5000psi than the output would be 50ton but most pumps don't go that high so to increase tonnage you would go to a bigger cylinder. So if you run the same pump at 4000psi with a 7in cylinder it's now at 80ton but your cycle time will also be reduced by half. To fix that you need more gallons per minute and a bigger engine to move it.

YUPP. But to much power and to small of a pump with to small of a pressure relief/bypass will get you a shattered pump. extra power is most times in-efficient.

 

[J.Noss]

think you are showing us a vine growing on not a shooter growing out of the wood. looks more like a Virginia creeper.

There were no vines on the tree at all nor do we really get any like that here, we mostly get fuzzy poison ivy type vines and wild grapes and these water vines that when you cut one 1" or bigger around waterlike sap runs out of em. They all look extremely different. And it was odd enough to notice that this was taking place and was quite surprising so I did do my due diligence in making sure I wasnt mistaken.
But the reason I had the picture like that was because I'd actually cut the small branch from one of the rounds and was holding it in front of another one for contrast and to provide a better background than the ground And to show the bark again at same time.
But there's other ones of this kind of tree up there, in fact I believe that this one was one that grew as a V shape from the ground with 2 central leaders from the same root-ball and I was told to cut it because they were clearing a trail. But I'm saying all that to explain that I'm actually intrigued by this essentially ignored tree species that Is so hard to split and I'm gonna do all I can this spring/summer/fall to come up with a positive identification. I never really cared about them before because I just knew 'em as crap firewood and thought they were a type of Poplar or something.. but now I truly wanna know!

 

[thompsoncustom]

YUPP. But to much power and to small of a pump with to small of a pressure relief/bypass will get you a shattered pump. extra power is most times in-efficient.

Agreed that extra power is just a waste if not needed my 100hp chevy vega motor for a wood splitter was not needed but the engine was free. But as far as blowing the pump up that shouldn't be a problem if everything is set right. if you blow up the pump your either building to much pressure from the pump pressure being set to high or you got your relief bleed back set to high even with my 100hp engine I can have it set to not build more than 2500psi no matter how fast I spin the engine and it's just running a standard size log splitter 2 stage pump nothing special.

 

[Moparmyway]

No experience with elm here either, but elm does make sense.


Leaves are still very small, but they definitely do NOT look like any hickory I've seen.
Mayhaps in another few days we could see another picture with a fully grown leaf ?

 

[RCBS]

Alright update on the situation: I took the splitter to the Tractor Supply, learned a few things: 1- the splitters that were being sold during the $300/off "spring black Friday deal" were reconditioned.. that is: sold, used, broken, and fixed again to be sold as new.. a super nice guy working in the back yard area who does all of this stuff for that particular Tractor Supply and I spoke for a good hour and he confessed that little detail.. (super great dude) but anyway the problem was the 2-stage pump was frozen in the 1st high speed/low pressure stage and was over-stressing the engine and pump by trying to split without going into low gear.. the main cylinder leak and that problem combined with a honest worker got me a brand new (this time) splitter of the same model and 2 free bottles of bar/chain oil.
I am happy with this outcome provided that this truly new splitter works and functions into the future as it should.

My immediate suspicion. Pump not kicking down.

 

[sawfun]

75hp single stage! That sounds really cool! What GPM and cylinder size/tonnage are we talking here? Sounds like it'd have to be pretty fast/powerful to require that much HP. I've been dreaming of doing a custom splitter build one day

I bought it alrady built and the numbrrs on the pump plate have faded away. Anyway it uses a 1600cc Pinto engine, the axle is that as well so traveling down the freeway at 70 is no problem. It is much quiter than a single air cooled cylinder engine. In fact I can run it late at night and pretty much all you hear is the creak of the wood splitting. It uses far less hydraulic oil compared to a two stage pump and the cylinder barely get warm, never hot. 3000 psi max on the gauge. Most wood is split at a 500 rpm idle so it uses less fuel than an 800cc engine at 3000 rpm. I am surprised no one else builds splitters this way. Glad I didn't get the Speeco 34 ton that had sold out when I found this one.

 

[Sloughfoot]

For identification purposes here is a branch from the tree which was now leafing-out after being on a piece that was cut back in February laying on the ground in these rounds.View attachment 417333View attachment 417332

Doesn't look like an Elm leaf.

 

[Seachaser]

Alright update on the situation: I took the splitter to the Tractor Supply, learned a few things: 1- the splitters that were being sold during the $300/off "spring black Friday deal" were reconditioned.. that is: sold, used, broken, and fixed again to be sold as new.. a super nice guy working in the back yard area who does all of this stuff for that particular Tractor Supply and I spoke for a good hour and he confessed that little detail.. (super great dude) but anyway the problem was the 2-stage pump was frozen in the 1st high speed/low pressure stage and was over-stressing the engine and pump by trying to split without going into low gear.. the main cylinder leak and that problem combined with a honest worker got me a brand new (this time) splitter of the same model and 2 free bottles of bar/chain oil.
I am happy with this outcome provided that this truly new splitter works and functions into the future as it should.

I know I have called corporate, which I never do, and got instant feedback from tractor supply. Glad you got good Customer Service.

 

[Cantdog]

There were no vines on the tree at all nor do we really get any like that here, we mostly get fuzzy poison ivy type vines and wild grapes and these water vines that when you cut one 1" or bigger around waterlike sap runs out of em. They all look extremely different. And it was odd enough to notice that this was taking place and was quite surprising so I did do my due diligence in making sure I wasnt mistaken.
But the reason I had the picture like that was because I'd actually cut the small branch from one of the rounds and was holding it in front of another one for contrast and to provide a better background than the ground And to show the bark again at same time.
But there's other ones of this kind of tree up there, in fact I believe that this one was one that grew as a V shape from the ground with 2 central leaders from the same root-ball and I was told to cut it because they were clearing a trail. But I'm saying all that to explain that I'm actually intrigued by this essentially ignored tree species that Is so hard to split and I'm gonna do all I can this spring/summer/fall to come up with a positive identification. I never really cared about them before because I just knew 'em as crap firewood and thought they were a type of Poplar or something.. but now I truly wanna know!

Can you post up a pic of a whole standing tree??

 

[Eakf]

My arborist cousin in law has told me in the past to look for the X's in the bark when identifying elm. Not all sections will have them, but every few feet will. This is an elm in my yard.

Definitely sucks to try to split, and burns cold.

 

[J.Noss]

No experience with elm here either, but elm does make sense.


Leaves are still very small, but they definitely do NOT look like any hickory I've seen.
Mayhaps in another few days we could see another picture with a fully grown leaf ?

Yeah certainly, I just got in from splitting all day with the replacement splitter so now I see all the comments.
But anyways those woods are out at my Wife's parent's house and I don't currently have any wood to cut there, that log had laid since Feb and was the last I had to get from there but I'll try to head up that way here at some point, it's still early in the season here and leaves aren't out very far yet so it might help if I wait a little bit.
I hope that I can get to one of the leaves on one of these trees without having to climb or cut it to reach them though. And I thought it was kinda weird to see it leafing out after laying bucked-up into pieces, but I don't hardly ever drop live trees much less leave them lay once on the ground.. so, I don't know if it's really that strange.
OH, and I'd just seen a Tulip Poplar that was dropped laying on the ground long enough that the stump had cracked and darkened but was still in one solid trunk-piece that was doing the same thing with the leaves coming out earlier that very day. that was on another person's property I cut at and they (or a logging company they'd had there) had felled it.. I'll try to ask em when it was dropped.
so I also seen that happen on a 2nd species of tree at another location so it might not be that strange.

 

[J.Noss]

@Junk Meister
Here's another picture I didn't post that I took of the wood.. here you can clearly see that this is indeed the leaves growing from a branch of the cut logs and that it's not a vine on the ground as was suggested earlier.. I took it the other day that I posted the story but I posted the other one because it showed more of the branch layout and things I'd hoped would help identify it. Just noticed that I had this one in the photos too.

 

[davidwyby]

App called Picture This on my phone says Tupelo

 

[Junk Meister]

App called Picture This on my phone says Tupelo

I Googled Tupelo Plant.
White Tupelo "GUM" Tree. I am not aware of any around here.
Worth reading about , Does not like Pollution.
Learn something new every day..