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Excavator-Mounted Log Splitter
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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2021 - Volume #45, Issue #1