I'm not thinking of building one at the moment, I'm pretty swamped as it is. I honestly had no clue how much something like that goes for. It's also one thing to build one for yourself and a whole nother thing to start selling them for profit, and honestly i really don't have a need for one. I helped a buddy build his splitter, and he lives next door 
I think it's got a permanent 4 way welded on it, and has about an 8 second cycle time, so you can pile wood up in a hurry, that one you guys got must be ungodly productive.
That said i haven't borrowed it, I've been hand splitting. Yeah I know, but since I'm feeding a little insert I'm cutting the cookies short so i can feed it better, and then rather than picking it up i just smack it a few times and it's all over. No picking up or moving heavy stuff, split right where it lands and only touch it when it's firewood, which suits my back a bit better. The loading arm setup removes this problem, since my buddy's splitter is lacking one I'll have to resort to using my chipper crane thing to try and save my back when i finally borrow it.
I took one of those stupid heavy monster mauls and cut the short handle off and welded on a really long one, I'm talking medieval executioner long. With a lazy round the world swing the short rounds sitting on the ground don't fight much at all. The overkill weight combined with the long handle really do all the work, you simply guide it. Production? Nah but fine for me so far. I'll probably borrow the splitter once i get a bunch of wood lined up ready to go, but so far i've been scrounging for stuff so the piles haven't been too big. Scored pretty big tho recently, a buddy has a bunch of logs from removals in a pile, and they're ready to go just gotta cut and split it, so that's pretty awesome.
The splitter we built used a 2 stage pump and a larger sized single ram. It runs the pump at the large displacement most of the time so it's pretty quick but when the going gets tough the psi goes up, kicking a relief for the large displacement section and only pumping the smaller displacement stage. This goes much slower but has tons of power to split the bad stuff, just like a transmission would in a car dropping into low 4x4 or something. Once it's thru it goes back to fast, all done without your input as needed by the system. This also allows an engine to have a higher gpm than a single stage pump while still allowing it to be used at intermittent higher pressure to do the most demanding work. Usually they will develop higher pressures than a comparable sized single stage pump would too because they don't have to compromise with a single stage that has to do it all.
If i were to build one today i would like to try to build a kinetic one. The simplicity, speed, lack of hydraulics and associated headaches, and low hp requirements are attractive, and it would be cheaper since i have a good sized lathe now to help make parts rather than building an entire hydraulic system. I could also get my salvaged h press going and set up something in that, maybe even a 4 way. Then i can justify upgrading a bunch of parts on it and adding power to it That's the most likely outcome for me, it's a 50 ton they used for bending weld coupons. With power i could do good sized forging with it, broach keyways, press bearings, and set up an Ironworker type shear, punch, and brake to whip out parts in record time. That's enough to be worth it to suffer thru using it to split wood until i can figure out the next best laziest way to do this horrible task for minimal capital outlay since it's just for my house
I think it's got a permanent 4 way welded on it, and has about an 8 second cycle time, so you can pile wood up in a hurry, that one you guys got must be ungodly productive. That said i haven't borrowed it, I've been hand splitting. Yeah I know, but since I'm feeding a little insert I'm cutting the cookies short so i can feed it better, and then rather than picking it up i just smack it a few times and it's all over. No picking up or moving heavy stuff, split right where it lands and only touch it when it's firewood, which suits my back a bit better. The loading arm setup removes this problem, since my buddy's splitter is lacking one I'll have to resort to using my chipper crane thing to try and save my back when i finally borrow it.
I took one of those stupid heavy monster mauls and cut the short handle off and welded on a really long one, I'm talking medieval executioner long. With a lazy round the world swing the short rounds sitting on the ground don't fight much at all. The overkill weight combined with the long handle really do all the work, you simply guide it. Production? Nah but fine for me so far. I'll probably borrow the splitter once i get a bunch of wood lined up ready to go, but so far i've been scrounging for stuff so the piles haven't been too big. Scored pretty big tho recently, a buddy has a bunch of logs from removals in a pile, and they're ready to go just gotta cut and split it, so that's pretty awesome.
The splitter we built used a 2 stage pump and a larger sized single ram. It runs the pump at the large displacement most of the time so it's pretty quick but when the going gets tough the psi goes up, kicking a relief for the large displacement section and only pumping the smaller displacement stage. This goes much slower but has tons of power to split the bad stuff, just like a transmission would in a car dropping into low 4x4 or something. Once it's thru it goes back to fast, all done without your input as needed by the system. This also allows an engine to have a higher gpm than a single stage pump while still allowing it to be used at intermittent higher pressure to do the most demanding work. Usually they will develop higher pressures than a comparable sized single stage pump would too because they don't have to compromise with a single stage that has to do it all.
If i were to build one today i would like to try to build a kinetic one. The simplicity, speed, lack of hydraulics and associated headaches, and low hp requirements are attractive, and it would be cheaper since i have a good sized lathe now to help make parts rather than building an entire hydraulic system. I could also get my salvaged h press going and set up something in that, maybe even a 4 way. Then i can justify upgrading a bunch of parts on it and adding power to it
That's the most likely outcome for me, it's a 50 ton they used for bending weld coupons. With power i could do good sized forging with it, broach keyways, press bearings, and set up an Ironworker type shear, punch, and brake to whip out parts in record time. That's enough to be worth it to suffer thru using it to split wood until i can figure out the next best laziest way to do this horrible task for minimal capital outlay since it's just for my house 
