Scrap Iron Wood Splitter, Two Old Tractors, a Buzz Saw and a Dog

An hour or so of sunshine was left in the day and that was just enough to fire up one of the old Massey Harris 30 tractors and split a little wood. Our goal was to fill the last section of the wood shed to the brim with wood to season under roof for three years prior to use. So the video is just a few minutes of splitting, looking at the wood pile with a walk around and a few brief and redundant comments about the old tractors, splitters, buzz saw and a few seconds with Maggie...the grand daughters faithful, furry and fun loving canine.

There are those that claim wood under roof will not dry. I can attest to that being a fallacy of thought. At least that is my findings after stacking wood sheds to the top for sixty-plus years. The greenest of green splits literally dripping moisture from the exposed grain and stacked dead center of the woodshed is just as dry as those further towards the extremes of the outside of the stack. The trick is time. If your wood is split and stacked three years in advance, under roof, it is perfectly dry and ready to safely burn with no fear of residual dampness present in the fibres to contribute to unburnt gasses in the flue. Of course those unburnt gasses are the basis for the creation of the dangerous creosote build up in your flu or chimney. Of course the green wood stacked and stored on the the center of the stack under roof will not share the same level of moisture loss as those splits stacked on the outside and exposed to the wind and/or sunlight. That is only common knowledge as well as logical.
Ready to close up the shop for the day, I got a text from the SIL about topping off the wood shed with a little red oak we had stacked and ready for the splitter. What the heck !! Can't an old guy with a sore foot get any rest ??!! Dang. No big deal though, I just stacked the wood as he did all the hard work with the splitting. Also I snuck off and made this video while he was trying to work up a sweat. But at least you get to see an unfettered video of the old home grown splitter in regular video speed, no speeding of the video. But I do note that we are running it just under half throttle so the ram speed is lower that what it would be at full rpm. We also lose a little potential energy (?) with the slower ram speed because a faster ram combined with a wide wedge base acts similar to a splitting maul under a hard swing. The shock of initial contact forces the piece into the thickness of the wedge base which results in a quicker split of the grain. If you think that theory doesn't hold water, try swinging with less force with your maul next time you are splitting wood by hand. Many times, while using higher ram speed, the grain needs only an inch or two of penetration for the shock to pop it completely apart. Well of course, there may be a thread or two that holds together at the bottom of the piece, but most of the times it will separate totally with the toss into the shed. To prove the benefit of the faster ram speed, you can slow the machine down to watch how much further the wedge needs to penetrate before it achieves the same action with the very next split. Of course its only a fair test if the grain all the way across the piece is similar. Hitting a big old knot makes for a totally different experience.
Of course all that pontification is just a bunch of hooey with no scientific evidence documented by myself or anyone I know. But I DO know what works best for me and that is stated above. What works best for you could be entirely different, because mechanical devices for splitting wood are of greatly varied design, the wood you process could be entirely different from mine and by dang, you just may have a technique that allows you to produce a greater quantity in the same given time, proving your technique superior.
At any rate, the estimated quantity to fill the remaining void was split with ease, but unfortunately my estimation was off by about a wheel barrow full. So the wood shed still ain't filled !! So maybe we will just get the splitting maul....wait...just WHAT am I thinking! Ain't no way I'm gonna do that. (-:
I do apologize to the faithful viewers that become bored with the redundancies in content. But the repetitions are mostly for the newest of new viewers that are not well versed with the whole Tractorman44 theme. Of course if you are a loyal old viewer and enjoy it no matter what, its for YOU too.
Maggie, our resident rabbit chaser, mouser, squirrel hunter, cat chaser and chipmunk crusher stopped by to wag her tail and look cute right at the end. Her main goal in life though is to be near my two little grand daughters.

Видео Scrap Iron Wood Splitter, Two Old Tractors, a Buzz Saw and a Dog канала Tractorman44