I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

Regards and thanks in advance


Pat Macguire

The message
from "Syke" contains these words:

I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and
specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?


No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge hammer.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:

I'm looking at these at the moment, specifically the Logmaster currently
advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from Screwfix at £99.

No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge hammer.

I've used log splitters working on the back of tractors using the
hydraulics from them -and they are crap. They take forever. It's OK on
knotty sections but far quicker to just dump those and go at the
straight grained stuff with an axe.

"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
k...
The message
from "Syke" contains these words:

I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and
specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?


No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge
hammer.

So do we.

Mary
not a felling company but idle and stingy, therefore wanting the most
efficient with little cost and no storage problem :-)

"Syke" wrote in message
...
I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and specifically
the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

Regards and thanks in advance


Pat Macguire
~~~~~~~~~
For ordinary splitting a 'splitting axe' is very good.
They are quite blunt, and teflon coated, but split with ease and never get
stuck. They also have a very stout plastic shaft that cannot break. Not
expensive.
We use large quantities and also have a hydraulic splitter
powered by an old tractor. This will split faster than two men can feed it
and is not fazed by burrs or anything!
Best Wishes Brian.

Weatherlawyer wrote:
Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:

I'm looking at these at the moment, specifically the Logmaster
currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99.

No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a
sledge hammer.

I've used log splitters working on the back of tractors using the
hydraulics from them -and they are crap. They take forever. It's OK on
knotty sections but far quicker to just dump those and go at the
straight grained stuff with an axe.

We have one of these which we work off a MF35 and it's absolutely
brilliant. We have special axes and wedges etc as well but nothing is
anything like as good as this thing. Don;t know about the quality or
brand though, I expect it's a Makita equivalent as opposed to the Lidl
version, that might well make a difference :-)

--
Holly, in France
Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.
http://la-plaine.chez-alice.fr

Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:
The message
from "Syke" contains these words:


I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and
specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge hammer.

I have a few large lumps of oak lying about, about 9" x 12" x 18". Bit
weathered on the outside, but hard as anything on the inside. I imagine
they were part of the house before it was renovated in the 80s. They're
just a bit too large to go in our woodburner and they laugh at my
chainsaw. Is there any other way I might split them, or should I just
find another use for them?

James

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 15:47:08 GMT, "Syke"
wrote:

I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

Regards and thanks in advance


Pat Macguire

We had a look at a couple (in catalogues and magazines only - not
'real life') and found that the diameter of logs they would split
wouldn't be much trouble with a splitting maul or axe. We get wood of
well over a foot diameter sometimes and the best thing we found was a
wood grenade from Screwfix. Looks a bit like an old spinning top and
you stab the pointy end (which is very sharp) into the cut end of the
log and hit it hard with a sledgehammer a couple of times and your
log's split. If its a large diameter log it should only be a few
inches deep, I think, or you might lose your grenade into the wood if
it doesn't split.

Joan in Ayrshire
remove 'spam' from email to reply

Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:

The message
from "Syke" contains these words:

I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and
specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge hammer.

My neighbour in Belgium had a marvellous hydraulic log splitter (and a
concession in the local forest to go with it). Cheap ones probably will
not last. Ideal way for a retired pensioner to generate logs as fuel.

Given the way British Gas intend to rip off consumers of gas and
electricity it may become a growth industry.

Regards,
Martin Brown

The message
from James Fidell contains these words:

I have a few large lumps of oak lying about, about 9" x 12" x 18". Bit
weathered on the outside, but hard as anything on the inside. I imagine
they were part of the house before it was renovated in the 80s. They're
just a bit too large to go in our woodburner and they laugh at my
chainsaw. Is there any other way I might split them, or should I just
find another use for them?


You can get a panel saw-shaped 'frame' which carries a hacksaw blade. It
would be slow, but you'd cut them with that. (A tungsten carbide tipped
saw chain would do too, but a bit expensive for a one-off job.)

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

On Sun, 19 Feb 2006 19:04:18 +0000, James Fidell
wrote:

Is there any other way I might split them, or should I just
find another use for them?

Steel wedges and a 4lb bronze (or lead) maul on a long shaft. (A steel
lump hammer mushrooms the wedge). Three wedges is about the minimum, in
case you have to work down the side of a long log. "Log burster" twisted
wedges or grenades are IMHE only good for timber that's easy to split
anyway.

The trick with oak is that it splits cleanly and easily along the radial
rays but is a pig of a job if you try and go through a ray. So start it
off with the wedge placed accurately radial and then follow the split
however it wants to go.

Splitting oak is easy. Try elm or hornbeam if you really want to work at
it! I still need to work on my oak riving technique though as I need
to make usable timber by this method, not just firewood.

I've never found hydraulic splitters to be worth the trouble. They need
too much care with getting the logs to identical lengths, so they're
less than ideal for randomly-sized clearance timber. Feeding them random
lengths slows them down. They're also (if hand pumped) slower to use
than a good few wedges.

The message
from Andy Dingley contains these words:

Steel wedges and a 4lb bronze (or lead) maul on a long shaft. (A steel
lump hammer mushrooms the wedge).

After a long time. Our wedges are still in use, sloshed with a
sledge-hammer, and we bought them around 1965

Three wedges is about the minimum, in
case you have to work down the side of a long log. "Log burster" twisted
wedges or grenades are IMHE only good for timber that's easy to split
anyway.

The trick with oak is that it splits cleanly and easily along the radial
rays but is a pig of a job if you try and go through a ray. So start it
off with the wedge placed accurately radial and then follow the split
however it wants to go.

Splitting oak is easy.

All true.

Try elm or hornbeam if you really want to work at
it! I still need to work on my oak riving technique though as I need
to make usable timber by this method, not just firewood.

Hmmm. Most of our early work was with elms, and mostly, it split more
easily than oak. However, a knotty bit can be a pig. See one of our jobs
at:

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/elm.jpg

I've never found hydraulic splitters to be worth the trouble. They need
too much care with getting the logs to identical lengths, so they're
less than ideal for randomly-sized clearance timber. Feeding them random
lengths slows them down. They're also (if hand pumped) slower to use
than a good few wedges.

My experience of them is similar.

--
Rusty
Direct reply to: horrid dot squeak snailything zetnet point co period uk
Separator in search of a sig

Andy Dingley wrote:


I've never found hydraulic splitters to be worth the trouble. They
need too much care with getting the logs to identical lengths, so
they're less than ideal for randomly-sized clearance timber. Feeding
them random lengths slows them down. They're also (if hand pumped)
slower to use than a good few wedges.

Ours is tractor pumped, so not quite the same. We cut 1m ish lengths
where possible for tidyness of stacking and because they are the right
size for our fire, and when cut in half they are the right size for the
woodburner. But since we are clearing fallen trees we have loads of logs
of uneven sizes. Our splitter has no problem *at all* with this. The
wedge just goes down until wherever it meets the timber and then goes
down right through it. Must be a different sort of animal....

--
Holly, in France
Gite to let in Dordogne, now with pool.
http://la-plaine.chez-alice.fr

In uk.d-i-y James Fidell wrote:
Rusty Hinge 2 wrote:
The message
from "Syke" contains these words:


I'm looking at these at the moment, not too much money, and
specifically the
Logmaster currently advertised in The Times at £199, and the Ferm from
Screwfix at £99. anyone have any knowledge of either of these?

No. We (a tree felling company) always used steel wedges and a sledge hammer.

I have a few large lumps of oak lying about, about 9" x 12" x 18". Bit
weathered on the outside, but hard as anything on the inside. I imagine
they were part of the house before it was renovated in the 80s. They're
just a bit too large to go in our woodburner and they laugh at my
chainsaw.

Sharpen your chain then. If you were trying to cut along the grain it
might be a bit slower, cut into thin slices across the grain and then
split it.


Is there any other way I might split them, or should I just
find another use for them?

Oak isn't *particularly* good for burning so another use might be the
way to go.


--
Chris Green

"Rusty Hinge 2" wrote in message
. uk...



Hmmm. Most of our early work was with elms, and mostly, it split more
easily than oak. However, a knotty bit can be a pig. See one of our jobs
at:

http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/hi-fi/elm.jpg

You were splitting atthat height?

:-)

Mary