In this video the machine is running at idle.. It does speed up a little when in use but nothing like the commercial splitters.. Thanks

That is it in a nutshell, old school, simple and indestructible.. As far as old school goes, we recently rehabilitated a 1958 school bus and converted it into a top of the line motor home with a 12 valve Cummins power plant power brakes and all the bells and whistles of a modern RV. Queen bed, AC, central heat, hot water, shower, TV, generator etc.. And my daily driver is a 1989 Dodge Cummins that I have complete faith in making it anywhere I want to go.. Maybe I am just getting old, or maybe I have lived long enough to understand the value in simple solid engineering... I have nothing but trouble with most of the new vehicles and gadgets I own.. I started into the work force as an attendant in a full service gas station. We carried a handful of belts, mufflers, alternators, points and condensers etc. and were able to get any vehicle that pulled in with a problem running in top order..

Oh yes.. I will never go back to hydraulic.. In fact I gave my Hydraulic to a friend of mine who was still splitting wood with an ax (caveman style)... Of course, I may have a different opinion if I were using a store bought kinetic, this home grown version is very robust and powerful.. Thanks for the comment..

I must admit, I was thinking all the same things before I started buying parts to build mine. I have been rebuilding engines, rear ends and transmissions for 30+ years dealing with gear meshing and backlash measured in the thousandths of an inch or prussian blue, I just couldn't imagine any way this would work, or if it did I sure didn't think it would last very long. Well, I am now on the fourth year of splitting wood and I can tell you that there is very little wear on the rack or pinion of my splitter. It has never once jammed at the gear engagement only comes to a stop if I run into a nasty knot. Of course I don't dally around about engaging the gear. I slap it right into gear every time and make sure that the ram has a couple inches travel before engaging the log. The over center adjustment on the idler bearing arm is very critical. It must just snap over center to hold the pinion and rack engaged. If it travels to far over center it will eventually slap your hand so hard you will be afraid to look down to see if you still have a hand..!!!

Thanks Larry. I have another issue. Whats your advice? I have a 6 pitch spur gear. Do you imagine any difference in the application between 6 pitch and 4 pitch? The 4 pitch teeth are of course much larger, and meshing a finer pitch may be one issue, but from what I'v read 6 pitch might be a s strong as there is as much surface area engaged with more teeth in the mix. Have any Idea if the 6 pitch will work?

Since you have it you may as well give it a try. The 6 pitch will require a little less travel to engage and dis-engage.. Other than that, I am not sure what else to expect. I do see many higher pitch kinetic splitter videos on here that seem to be working fine. I think the DR brand uses a pitch nearing or more than 6? Thanks

That adds up pretty well. The only thing that jumps off the page at me is the 8" pinion.. That's a large diameter pinion. If you can make it work out it should last for ever. As I recall my pinion is only around 2 or 3 inches OD...

The rack gear is beveled on the end allowing the engagement bearings to drop open.

Relocating the Flywheel to below the H beam actually improves the center of gravity by lowering it.. The machine is very stable with the single low mounted, rather than double high mounted, flywheel.. I can pull this down the road at 65 mph without any issues.. As far as maximizing the energy transfer, the larger the pinion the larger the contact area between pinion and rack.. The larger the contact area the greater the potential for energy transfer without busting a gear.. Of course the large pinion reduces the mechanical advantage between the flywheels rate of rotation and the linear motion of the rack.. That's where the low mounted flywheel comes into play.. You regain the mechanical advantage with careful selection of the drive and driven sprockets.. You must use the weld on hub type sprockets so that the left and right side can be timed exactly the same.. In other words so that both chains are equally loaded.. I just processed a cord of snarly hedge last week.. This splitter didn't even work up a sweat.. I have since come up with an even better design, in my head, since this build.. It would work a lot like a set of half nuts on a lathe apron only greatly scaled up.. The flywheel would reside at the rear of the H beam, positioned at a right angle to it rather than in line with it.. I won't start that build until I have this one worn out.. And from the looks of things that may be some time.. Larry B.

The large #35 sprocket is on a jackshaft with a small #40 sprocket on the other end of the shaft. Then a large #40 sprocket on the flywheel. The final drive is two #60H chains timed to load in unison. You could replace the #35 and #40 chains with belts and it would work fine. Actually if I were to build another I would use belts for everything but the final reduction to reduce the running noise.

jextrad Not sure where you live, but around here they tend to be laying around old farm houses. You can practically get them for the just knocking on the door. Good Luck

+ufoengines I do think it would be possible, but not very practical unless you had an assistant doing the cranking. The original kinetic splitter, the ax, would be more practical for hand use. It would take a lot of effort to get the flywheel up to speed and keep it there. Thanks

+Larry Barnett I've already modeled out of cardboard up my idea on hand cranked flywheel splitter and the parts count is very low (a good sign for good design) I suppose for one man operation you would spin up the wheel, get about three stroke out of it and then spin it up again. Need to show it to the folks who make exercise equipment. Can see the late night ads now "All you greenies out there, split wood and get you exercise safely with Super Spinner Safety Splitter, now only $59.95 in four hundred easy payment. CALL NOW BEFORE THE COPS GRAP US!

+worduptwice I do not sell plans, but it's not all that technical to construct. If you read through all the prior posts and replies you will find part numbers for the gears and a great deal of valuable information that should steer you away from the pitfalls. Thanks for the comments..!

It was delivered smooth bore I broached a .25" keyway into it. The pinion gear is keyed with a steel key while the two large sprockets, on the same shaft, are keyed with aluminum keys for overload safety. It has sheared the aluminum keys twice in 7 years of use.

@@ttenrabyrral1 Larry, thanks so much for getting back to me. I’m an old farmer not a machinist, and I would love to make use of the old bailers that’s been sitting up in the field for about 30 years, this would be a great project. I have a few more questions on the pinion if you have time. The S415 gear has a 2” face and 7/8” hub for a total of 2 7/8” . The standard broach bushing for a type C body is 2 1/2”, that leaves 3/8” of unsupported broach. How did you deal with that? Did you machine set screws into the hub to maintain lateral movement, how many, one on the key and one on the shaft, or something other than set screws? Did you have to heat treat the gear to harden it after the machining it? You mentioned that weld on hubs for the chain sprockets were used so they could be alined with each other. Can you tell me what was your methodology to get them aligned and then welded. Just curious if you thought about driving from just one side? I guess it doesn’t add that much more to the cost to drive from both sides. Im guessing driving from both sides help reduce the torque on the bearings? Wondering if that’s why the bearings are mounted on the diagonal?

@@RichMenzel Sorry for the delay. This project was a long time ago so the small details have long since been forgotten. If I were making the same key cut today I would not worry about the .375 unsupported distance for the broach as long as the broach was properly lubricated, being driven by a smooth straight stroking press and taking small cuts. I like to coat the back of my broach with anti seize and the cutting side with high quality cutting oil. I squirt cutting oil onto the cutting side from start to finish. Another tip for difficult broaching is to make sure you take small bites using home made shims if required. Sometimes the shim set provided with the broach is just not thin enough. I use brass shim stock under the first steel broach shim if the cuts seem to heavy with the factory shim set.

The rack and pinion gears are both by Martin, standard part numbers.. You may try Amazon if you don't have any other source..

Sorry but if I had drawings they were probably in soap stone on a steel bench.. Our stored in the depths of my gray mater..

It allows for a larger pinion gear providing a greatly increased strength of design while still maintaining the proper gear ratio between the flywheel and the ram. It also greatly lowers the center of gravity increasing stability.

@@ttenrabyrral1 thanks! When you say "larger pinion" do you mean wider or larger diameter? Good point about the stability.

@@ninja5672 Both, larger diameter with a higher tooth count and wider to transfer a much greater load to the ram. The store brand (not mentioning any names) has a quite small pinion and is prone to wear out or just flat out break under heavy loads. My design has a considerable reduction in the dual heavy chain drive from the flywheel to the pinion.

@@ttenrabyrral1 so you are giving a lot more torque to the pinion, using gear reduction, and upgrading to larger/higher tooth to give a lot more power to the ram. Smart! It is probably a good trade off to sacrifice ram speed for much more power.

@@ninja5672 I have a couple other videos of this splitter but, In this video the engine is at idle. At operating speed the ram is a little slower than the store brand but not by a lot. It still makes wood as fast as you can feed it. In my opinion the store brand kinetic splitter is just moving way to fast to be safe and should probably not be sold to the general public. The flywheel on this machine weighs 240 pounds and will split anything a 40 ton hydraulic can split in a fraction of the time. With this much weight in motion I can idle it right down and still have enough kinetic energy to split wood. This is handy in really twisted wood or rounds that are full of knots.

I tend not to keep very close track of expenditures on these types of builds.. But having said that not more than $500.00 Of course I am known by most as captain Tight Ass... When it comes to junk piles I have a photographic memory..

Not sure about the pressure angle choice but was wondering if you had the two Martin Part #'s for the Rack and Pinion ? Thanks in advance.

I did consider the 20 degree pressure angle but the bottom line, is it was financial. I found the rack for scrap iron price. Honestly with the low speed that the gearset operates at I don't think it would make a whole lot of difference. I have been splitting with it for eight years now and haven't had any issues with wear or breakage. However, I do reserve some of the huge knotty oak rounds for the hydraulic splitter. At least for the first couple splits.

@@kahvac The part numbers are in the first couple minutes of the video. This is a fairly old post at this point the numbers may have changed?

Ok, that explains a lot on your choice of pressure angle. I would do the exact same thing. Those racks, be it 14.5 or 20 are pricey pieces. Thanks for your detailed video and thank you for your response.

The nature of a kinetic splitter requires that you try to plan each split to help avoid the worst of the knots or at least hit them the way you want.. If all you were splitting was straight grain logs the 4 or 8 way wedge would work.. If you have ever used a kinetic splitter you would understand.. When you engage the rack with that much stored energy something is going to give and it may not always be the log...LOL... Besides that, this thing goes through rounds quick.. In fact I didn't even crank it up last year.. I was so far ahead on the wood pile, I am spending this winter trying to burn down to the bottom before the pile rots.. Thanks for the comment..

Larry Barnett Makes sense. Thanks.

There's a pair of long Stainless Steel springs tucked up under the beam. You can see them about 20 seconds into the video. Thanks. Wow nine year ago I posted this and still get questions. And guess what the splitter is still working great.

I am sorry but the drawings I had were in soap stone on a metal bench and are long gone.

What "called" an I beam is when the depth of the beam is quite a bit more than the width. For example when you check the book "American Institute of Steel Construction" a 36 in. beam depth x a 12 in width of the flange which is the width. Then there are the Wide flange beams which are close to the same depth and width. I'm guessing that the beam is maybe a heavy 6 x 6 in wide flange. Maybe a 25 lb./ft. which has 1/2 in thick flanges and a 5/16 " web. Hope this helps.