Excavator-Mounted Log Splitter

Excavator-Mounted Log Splitter WOODLOT EQUIPMENT Miscellaneous Skid loader-mounted log splitters have been around for years but this is the first excavator-mounted splitter we’ve seen Dean Zimmerman Tunas Mo mounted a home-built log splitter in place of the bucket on his Takeuchi TB 240 compact excavator which is equipped with a 35 hp 4-cyl Yanmar diesel engine “It lets me split firewood and load it into a truck or trailer without ever getting off the excavator ” says Zimmerman “I can swing the splitter around just like I would swing the bucket around without moving the machine and tearing up the ground I can position the splitter horizontally to ‘pinch’ the log then swing the excavator around and rotate the splitter to a vertical position so that as the wood is split it falls into the truck or trailer “My 92-year-old dad came out to watch me operate it one day and he commented ‘I never thought I’d see the day when you could split firewood while sitting in a seat ” The splitter consists of a 5-ft steel I-beam with a fixed splitting wedge at one end and a push plate that slides back and forth on a pair of steel rollers powered by a 4-in dia 2-ft stroke hydraulic cylinder The splitter originally was designed to be trailer-mounted and Zimmerman used it with his tractor that way for years To make the conversion he welded a quick tach mounting bracket near the center of the I-beam which hooks up to the quick hitch on the excavator He also removed the splitter’s hydraulic valves in order to use the hydraulics on the excavator’s thumb making it hands-free and more machine friendly to operate “I use the thumb hydraulics to operate the splitter ” notes Zimmerman Contact: FARM SHOW Followup Dean Zimmerman 73 Elkhorn Lane Tunas Mo 65764 cell ph 417 770-1158

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