jamius.com

hello everyone,
i am a disabled american war veteran that has relocated to my home state (indiana) after 8 years of military experience and 3 tours to iraq. i'm finding that my transition to civilian life has left me with a lot of time on my hands now. i've decided to take on a project of making my own log splitter. however, i don't know where to start and could really use some help/advice to point me in the right direction. i was a medic in the army and my abilities of being mechanically inclined are limited. if anyone could help out, i would greatly appreciate it. thanks.

I have no experience with log splitters but what I would do is look at how lots of different ones are made and how they work, then find the design features they have in common and the things that are different. Generally you want to reverse engineer them and just look at the basic principles of how they function. I think they just drive a splitting edge through the wood right? Figure out what forces are needed and where and what objects (like a blade) are needed. This is pretty much what I do when I want to make something. Once you have the basic workings just figure out how it can all fit together and you can ask for help on that

Generally I just find this cuts out any features that you dont really need to have and it helps me to come up with my own design that suits me (part of that is normally cost and materials). Anything can be done any way and you dont need to copy the exact way something is normally done for it to work! The only problems I run into with my ideas is then safety with things. With some things you cant just look at how it works because there are hidden features etc. But if I had my way then I would be figuring out everything before I made it which is what design is all about! So you minimized possible problems in the future by looking at what could be problems before you put time and money into it.

I hope that helps you in some way. What I'm trying to say is to get what you need to do don't think you have to copy everybody else to get the same outcome. But most of the time what everyone else is doing is the best way anyway. In the past though my ideas have been limited by that, not understanding fully how something works so I can't reverse engineer it and make my own I ended up just trying to replicate or copy other things which wasnt what I should have done!

Anyway goodluck with your project. I wanted to offer help but thats all I could do to help

First, thank you for your services.

Second, most log splitters I've ever used are portable (made to be towed behind a truck.) If I were making one, I'd make a stationary one. All you really need to do is mount a hydraulic piston on an upright with a blade on the end and a solid base (could be packed ground).

The reason I say that is, for the portable ones, they have to be able to withstand the forces the hydraulics put out to hold the log in place. If you just have the log on the ground, you don't need lots of support. Of course, the hydraulic piston would have to be solidly mounted.