My woodsplitter project

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Hello my fellow GMC nuts!

Today was soooo nice outside. I celebrated by bagging up 12 bags of leaves for the first 4 hours

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But then I got busy with my splitter. I painted the ospho'd side and hooked it onto the trailer hitch.



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It's sitting next to this beautiful truck now so I can pull in the garage again when it turns cold. I'll tow it back around to the front as I need to weld on it more.



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Then I took my acetylene torch and cut some angle plate steel. I also cut a few holes in my fancy file cabinet table.

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Then I welded the cut pieces together into a steel plate. Tada! Homemade steel plate! This will be my engine mount. it's about 10 1/2 inches by 14 inches.



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After that I had some more yard maintenance stuff to do, but the sun didn't cooperate. It went down and left me hangin.

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I did manage to find four bolts that fit this old kohler 14 engine that I'll be using so that's something. They're a little long though. Not sure how I'll fix that yet.



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[BarryGMC]

Pepsi keep it up. Barry

[Rockdriller]

Okay, Pepsi..
Here is my tip fer the day...:

When you're cutting freehand with a torch, you can clamp or lay another piece of iron about a 1/4 inch from your mark and use it as a guide to steady the torch (kinda like a ruler and pencil).
Just rest the side of the tip right up against the guide and let her rip.

We will stay tuned.

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Originally Posted by BarryGMC

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Pepsi keep it up. Barry

Thanks! I got more done on Sunday but came down with a nasty belly bug for the last three stinkin days. I've been laying around wasting the good weather and kicking myself in the butt.

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Originally Posted by Rockdriller

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Okay, Pepsi..
Here is my tip fer the day...:

When you're cutting freehand with a torch, you can clamp or lay another piece of iron about a 1/4 inch from your mark and use it as a guide to steady the torch (kinda like a ruler and pencil).
Just rest the side of the tip right up against the guide and let her rip.

We will stay tuned.

That is GENIUS! I have been using the roll-yer-knuckles method and it does get flippy sometimes, but I have surprised myself with how straight and purdy the cuts are getting. I'll try that next time. Hopefully tomorrow fingers crossed.

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Like I said, I got some more cutting done on Sunday. These are all pieces of those three bits of angle iron that I got from the scrap yard for $3.00. They're pitted pretty badly but they're thick and strong.

I took one piece that ran about 3 inches wide and marked a spot at about 10 inches. That gave me two pieces 10" x 3".



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Then I cut up the larger ones too. The pieces will get welded together to make larger plates. They will be 8" x 10" after welding. Notice the old rough cuts on the inside and the nicer smooth cuts on the bottoms. I R Improvin!




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The Powder Puff had a welding helmet on to watch this. She wanted me to cut up a little 2 inch piece of 2x2 box pipe (see it on the pics above) so she could use it for playing in the dirt. I added it to my honey do list and finished up by cutting these small pieces up into 8" strips. All of the strips will be used to hold the pusher onto the beam to keep it from flying up and hitting me in the face when I'm splitting logs.



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After all the cutting I had to run around raking up leaves again. TOO MANY LEAVES!!!!! I filled four more bags of the things so I didn't light the house on fire. Then I fired up the welder and welded my plates together.
After welding I got the grinder out and that's how the rest of my day went. I ground from around 1pm until 5pm just trying to get through the biggest part of those pits.



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When all the grindin was done and I was about ready to sneeze a car out of my nose (from all the metal fragments) this is what it looked like. This one will be the motor mount plate.



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After the grinding the Powder Puff wanted to use the Ospho so I let her spray them all down. I meant for them to sit overnight before getting to them but it's been 3 days now. Oops!



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Earlier I turned the old motor Im going to use over and put a piece of paper over the mounting plate on the bottom of the motor. Really it's the side because it's a sideways motor. Then I poked some holes in the mount hole spots so I could figure out where to knock holes out of my homemade mounting plate.



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By the end of the day the Powder Puff Mechanic had built a bunch of great looking dirt and acorn cookies with her piece of 2x2 pipe so we settled down for a crumble-in-your-lap feast.



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Maybe the acorns did me in, but wow. Shortly after this I got hit with the green apple quickstep and got real dizzy. I spent the next three days groaning and starving because nothing would stay down. Tonight I shoved a piece of pizza in my gullet. So far it's queasy but it's staying down. Maybe tomorrow I'll be back in the saddle.

[FetchMeAPepsi]

Today I got back on the wagon, er...the trailer...the splitter!

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All the babies are home so the Redhead watched the little ones and I went and unwound my welder cables again. I only have about 5-6 things left to do and I can start splitting!

It was 30 degrees this morning so I was motivated to get finished. My lovely wife left with my only vehicle with a tow ball on it so I had to string my welder through the garage. I also had to do something unsafe - I welded on the ground. To make it a little less dangerous (and give me some great winter firewood smells) I laid down a piece of plywood under my work area so the grass and leaves all around didn't catch on fire. Satisfied, I put my wedge on in the middle of my splitter, about a half inch from the end of the beam, about 2 1/4 from each side, and got to sparkin!



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Remember I already painted the beam so I took the welding rod and scratched some of the paint off. It felt kinda dirty doing this to such a nice paint job, but it had to be done.



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Then I welded all around the wedge. All three edges.



I stepped back and looked at it. Not too shabby...then I thought about water. It would run toward my wedge. It would run UNDER my wedge...It would attack my fearsome woodsplitter from the inside. I welded up the edge of the wedge.



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I hope it sharpens pretty easy even though it's welded at the bottom.
Next came the engine mount. Remember making those? That was fun, wasn't it? Oh, you still can't hear because you blew your ears out?
Me too.

I put a piece of that 11ish by 3ish steel I cut on the beam and clamped it down.



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Then I put my homemade plate steel for the engine mount up next to the beam and clamped it to the 11x3.



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I made sure the engine mount plate was pretty close to even and got to tacking. See these two welding beads that go side by side? Thats what happens when the sun rises above you and behind your welding helmet. It lights up your face and you cant see where you're welding!

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I had to go back and fix it. This is all 7018 rod, btw. That's all I used today.



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Here it is all stuck along the top.



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Its times like these that I wish I had a rotisserie (sp) or a hoist or something to flip heavy things around. Super powers would do in a pinch

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I flipped the whole thing over, forgetting about the newly installed wedge. Guess the weld was good though because it held the whole way over. Yay me!



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[FetchMeAPepsi]

After I spun it over I welded the bottom of the plate to make sure it was good and snug.



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Then I grabbed two of those 3 x 11's again.



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These got propped in the crook of the beam and against the engine mount plate to add support while I'm going down the road with the splitter.



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Heres a better view so you can see how it goes flush with the outside of the beam and engine mount. Then I welded it. This close to the ground it really started my plywood dropcloth to smelling....like fire...

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I put another 3x11 chunk on the other side and held it with my magnet while I welded it on.



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Then I flipped the whole thing on its side (bent the fender again, doh!) and leaned it on a bucket so I could weld the other side of the supports. I dont weld very well upside down.



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That was it for the engine mount and supports. I moved to the cylinder.



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I laid the cylinder backstop (I forget what its called. Anchor maybe?) on the rail and the cylinder with it. I needed to get a good measurement. This blue cylinder is only 24 inches long but my wood can be up to 36 inches long so I'll upgrade the cylinder eventually. I have a small house and a BIG fireplace. It makes the heating bill alot less expensive.




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[FetchMeAPepsi]

I measured off 36 inches from the wedge tip toward the cylinder.



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Then I put my pusher plate on that mark to include it in the measurements.
Eventually this will be welded to another plate and tied to the cylinder to push the logs.



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I stuck one of my steel pieces that will get a hole put in it up there next to see how far it would push my cylinder back.



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I marked it at about the center hole of the cylinder. Then I took all the plating away and put the cylinder there.



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That told me where the front of the cylinder should be. So that also told me where the back should be. I tied the anchor thingy to the cylinder and popped the pin in. With the front lined up I then lined up the anchor and centered it. Clamped it down too.



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I scraped the paint away next to it just like with the wedge. It still felt wrong.



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Then I welded it and took a picture of my hand because that's helpful. You're welcome! As an added bonus the paint caught fire and I had to snuff it out with my glove.



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[FetchMeAPepsi]

Now it was time to build the pusher. I took two of my 8x 11 pieces and decided which one looked better for pushing. I chose the one that was a little bent in the middle hoping itll keep the wood from flying around willy nilly.



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Then I got two of these pieces. They're 6 1/4 ish by 5 ish. Remember this is all that scrap angle steel I got for 3.00 at the scrap yard and cut up with a torch.



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Thinking I was going to be clever (I wasn't) I clamped them together tightly and drew a 1 inch circle smack dab in the middle of them.



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Then i got my torch out and cut a hole straight through the both of them at once. It kinda worked. I got mostly through before hot metal from the top plate started splashing around and just about got me. IMPORTANT NOTE: I don't realize it yet, but I just cut a hole in the wrong place. The cylinder "fingers" arent long enough to reach the middle of the plates. Dont do this at home! In fact, dont do this at all! Any of it! What are ya, stupid?



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These plates were still rusty so I grinded them down for a while.



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I was so proud of myself when the cylinder pin fit in the hole. (Still dont know it's in the wrong spot at this point)



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Then I weld it in to the pusher plates. Wow, that looks so cool, doesnt it? Guess what I finally notice when i try to put this on the cylinder?



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DOH!

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I'll fix it tomorrow. It's nap time

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HAPPY THANKSGIVING EVER'BODY!

[David R Leifheit]

Originally Posted by FetchMeAPepsi

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What the heck? Now I see why these tanks were $10.00. They did cost me $60 to fill though so I was pretty angry about that.

Interesting. About $10 a piece is what I pay for full tanks of that size. I have a set, in their own little carrying package. Cutting with them though, you will go through the Acetylene -very- quickly.

Originally Posted by FetchMeAPepsi

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I'm stick welding with it because that's what I practiced on so I could somehow try to find a cheap cracker-box welder from a farmer or something soon. If you guys know of one around $100 (ac) please let me know

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Harbor Freight. I bought an 80 Amp stick welder from them (never used wire feed so I didn't get that one). It is also a 110 (or 120) volt unit I can plug into a "normal" outlet. Bearing in mind -all- my outlets are 20 Amp (house was seriously overbuilt) and can handle a lot. I think it draws only 15 amps when running, which would max out a normal home circuit. Even at 80 amps I was blowing holes in my work, had to drop it to 60 to do the welds on my trailer.

I *think* normal retail is somewhere around $100, but I never buy anything unless it is on sale (I am a cheap son of a gun). Also picked up an auto darkening welding helmet for around $35 from them as well. Saves your eyes (and you thought they Oxy/Acet was bright!) plus allows you to see what you are doing without taking the helmet off since it goes clear when the arc isn't struck. Probably senses the UV from the arc...