Peggy Power!

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Although we do plenty of bicycling, walking and hiking, and Peggy is trim as she can be, she's always had a weakness for exercise machines. At different times she had one that simulated cross-country skiing, a rowing machine, and one that she could set up differently depending on what she wanted to do. Trouble is she never used them, so they ended up at yard sales or the thrift store (I think one of these contraptions is still in a closet somewhere).

So when I saw this hydraulic splitter, I thought, now there's an exercise machine Peggy can use, while getting her chores done at the same time. Here she is splitting logs yesterday before the big snow hit, and building up muscles too!

Just kidding girls!

I do most of the wood splitting but Peggy did try it for a spell yesterday having no trouble operating it long enough to split several hefty logs.

Her part of this job is usually the placing & removing of logs from the splitter, and as a two-person operation the task is done quite efficiently.

The splitter is much like the gasoline powered ones in design, a long I-Beam frame with a sharp steel wedge at the far end, and a fluid-driven cylinder for pushing the log.

But instead of an engine, this one is powered by the hand-pumping a hydraulic jack with long handles that pump at two separate speeds. The one on the right is low speed, for easy pumping against strong resistance, where the high-speed handle on the left is for pushing the cylinder out rapidly to engage the log, and breaking through it faster after the end splits.

With a little practice you are using both handles in conjunction for fast, efficient, non-polluting, healthful log splitting.

The splitter will accomodate logs up to 18" long, the same length that fits our stove, and I've split logs up to 30" diameter with it so far.

The splitter is simple, sturdy, well-made, and the jack is rated at 10 tons which is 20,000 lbs of splitting force, and does the job just fine. We got ours online for $99 at Northern Tool but the shipping is very expensive for this heavy item. I think they had a deal on the shipping charges when we ordered ours, I had been looking at them for quite some time.

We spent a couple of hours yesterday having fun together in the brisk winter cold, getting great exercise, and moved, split & stacked over a 1/2 cord of wood.