Many owners of private apartments and houses in modern Our Country are forced to use wood or coal for heating. Wooden stoves are widely used today for heating various rooms. To prevent the winter from being cold, it is necessary to harvest firewood.
If you have health and time, you can use an ax, however, if you don’t have the opportunity, you can turn on your imagination and make a wood splitter from an old washing machine.
Choice of construction
Compared to manual wood splitting, working with a wood splitter is much easier and more convenient. For such work, it will not take much effort to lift the chocks and swing a heavy tool. When working with a wood splitter, you only need to feed hemp. All the hard work is done by the mechanism. Before assembling a wood splitter with your own hands, you should familiarize yourself with the instructions and the features of the work. First, it is worth deciding on the design of the device. There are several common options:
- wood splitter equipped with a hydraulic system;
- a device having a rack type mechanism;
- wood splitter with a stepped screw design.
After all the options have been considered, we can come to the conclusion that a screw wood splitter can be made more simply and quickly. It is compact and easy to assemble. There are not so many elements in it, the splitting process is characterized by high speed. Thanks to the presence of a screw wood splitter, work can be significantly accelerated. First you need to understand the design of the wood splitter.
Such a device has several main parts:
- frame;
- cone;
- a motor borrowed from a washing machine;
- drive mechanism.
The principle of operation of a homemade wood splitter is very simple. The motor from the washing machine will transfer force to the small pulley. The stump pushes sideways onto the cone. As a result, it splits in half. The design is easy to assemble with your own hands. However, before starting work, you should select certain materials.
Selection of materials
To complete the work, you will need to prepare a small list of tools. In addition, you must have basic skills in working with electric welding equipment. From the tools you need to prepare:
- welding machine and electrodes;
- passages;
- drill;
- anvil and vise;
- ruler;
- grinding wheel;
- files and screwdrivers.
Finding all the right materials will be more difficult. One of the main details of the design is the cone. Such an item is usually not sold in a store. However, creating it at home is quite problematic. First, this part must be machined, threaded on a cone, held in an oven and cooled in water. This technology creates certain difficulties for making a cone with your own hands. However, there is another option. In any city, you can find shops that sell cones designed specifically for homemade wood splitters. In addition, there you can find all the necessary spare parts for such a device. You should purchase a large and small pulley, bearings, gearbox and shaft.
In addition to such elements, you will need to create a strong frame. It can be welded from metal corners. In addition, for the bed you will need a steel sheet and a gimbal suspension of an old car. It can be purchased on parsing for a symbolic price. In order for the wood splitter to be conveniently moved, you will need to attach wheels to the frame. It is better that they be from a wheelchair or a bicycle. It remains to find one more detail – the motor. It can be taken from an old washing machine. Without an engine, the operation of the device is impossible. For this reason, you should find an old washer and remove its electric motor. To make sure it works, you should use a multimeter. In addition, to fasten parts to each other, you will need to stock up on bolts and nuts.
Wood splitter assembly
You can make a wood splitter with your own hands quite quickly. Thanks to this device, you can forget about the exhausting work of chopping firewood. Work should begin with the implementation of a solid bed. To do this, with the help of a grinder, you need to cut a corner:
- 2 parts – 1,4 m each;
- 4 parts – 20 cm each;
- one piece – 45 cm.
After that, it is necessary to lay 2 parts of 1,4 on the floor in parallel. They must be placed at a distance of 45 cm. The ends of the long corners are welded with the letter “P”. Then you should step back from the welded joint 90 cm and weld the part of the gimbal between the corners. Then the steel sheet is laid and welded. It remains to make the legs. They are located along the edges of the bed. Subsequently, wheels are attached to them. After that, you can do the gearbox. A shaft should be inserted into the suspension element. Pulleys are put on it.
The next step is the most important. Then a small pulley is put on the motor shaft. It is necessary to fix the motor in such a way that it is installed as securely as possible. This is due to the fact that during operation, the vibration of the wood splitter is inevitable. The pulleys are connected with a belt. “Eared” bearings should be put on the free end of the shaft. And securely screwed to the metal sheet. After that, the engine is connected to the machine. You can later connect a network cable to it. Once this work is done, you should check how the motor works in tandem with the gearbox. If jamming and slippage are not noticed, a cone can be installed.
Screw wood splitter is a great helper in the household. It saves time and effort. When using it, you can forget about the hard work of harvesting firewood. In order not to get confused during assembly, you can draw an approximate design diagram.
