Hillbilly Engineering

I've assembled several portable log / boulder lifters, none perfect. The log grabber is an older red model like this from Northern:

Deep in the woods I use a folding tripod of chain link fence posts that's light enough to carry. I'm not sure enough of my stress calculations to describe the design in detail. I proof test my constructions with a crane scale.

At the truck I lift them with a swiveling bed crane with a boat trailer winch added. To gain working height I built the pulley into the end of the boom tube and mounted the winch on top.

At home I assemble an 8' long gantry hoist from two 3" steel channels bolted together. Each is only half the total weight of the track beam and reasonably easy to carry around and raise overhead. They can be balanced on boards slid across the upper rungs of an A-frame folding ladder when erecting the gantry alone. I tried tripods for the end supports but don't trust them to not tip over from jerky motion of the load, so I attach one end solidly to a shed. The gantry is for sawmill logs, I haven't needed it over the splitter.

My log splitter was built low enough to rest the hitch / wedge end on the ground and roll green oak rounds I can't or shouldn't lift onto it, over a ramp of split wood. Normally I back the splitter up onto automotive ramps with the tractor and raise the tongue to stand-up working height with this folding leg, which is bolted under the middle of beam.

If you are going to spend some money, you might look at uhmw rope. Look at winch rope on ebay and ali.

Dan

Split'em with a maul. My dad taught me the tricks back when I was a teenager and I'm 72 now. I've split about 8 cords a year. Mostly hard maple slasher butts up to 24" dia. Oak is much easier to split as is yellow birch. And those slasher butts were split in place in the woods. No need to lift those heavy buggers! Now that I'm old I burn pellets in a Harman stove, much less work. ;>) phil k.

In the woods I slice sections that are too heavy to lift into the trailer into halves or quarters lengthwise with the chainsaw.

Much less ornery and easier on your hands than frayed steel cable:

I position the table behind the splitter beam, and a tub to catch loose bark and splints on the ground in front of it. I can grab the pieces that split toward me and don't need the table there. YMMV.

Neighbor that mainly burns for heat went to a vertical splitter several years ago. Most of the other's around here have them too. I'm sure they have their drawbacks too...

Still using an 8lb maul myself but I only split a few now and then which I give away (relative). No way I need splitter with what little I'm doing.

When we were only heating 400 sf , it was easy to keep up ... even get ahead . Now it's almost 4 times that , and not so easy . I'll take every advantage I can . -- Snag <on the laptop because the power is off right now and we're on the genset>

Neighbor that mainly burns for heat went to a vertical splitter several years ago. Most of the other's around here have them too. I'm sure they have their drawbacks too...

Still using an 8lb maul myself but I only split a few now and then which I give away (relative). No way I need splitter with what little I'm doing.

Here are the properties of available sizes of square steel tubing. I is the moment of inertia to plug into beam strength calculators.

I have no idea how to use that info ... but for what I plan on lifting with this thing I'm pretty sure that 2x2 is adequate . I may or may not do a test lift with a known weight - I'm more likely to just monitor how it acts and watch for signs of stress . Any stump I might want to pull is going to be an oak with a big-ass tap root . And I know it ain't going to come out with the amount of force I can generate with a winch setup . -- Snag

I think the writer forgot to screw the two beams together so they act as one solid piece.

Yeah, those pieces are buggers to split. When I was the one cutting the logs I would make the cuts very purposeful with future splitting in mind. Having to re-saw them again later was poor planning to my eyes... I have several wedges and had a (inlaw borrowed it) bigger 12lb maul that worked pretty well. Don't know how long I would be able to swing that one anymore. It did speak with authority though ;-)

I always cringed when cutting stuff from peoples yards. Find all sorts of nasty stuff inside them until you get maybe 7 feet above the ground. One destroyed chain/blade kind of negates the value of "free" wood.

That article on stress and deflection is as simple and direct as any I've seen. It doesn't define some terms that have special meanings in physics and engineering. Stress is the applied force, strain is the resulting deformation. Deflection can be found by stretching a string tightly between the ends and measuring from it to the loaded, bent beam. KIPS is thousands of PSI, or three less zeros. Reaction is the weight on the supports. Shear is the tendency of layers to slide past each other. A good example is bending a paperback book. The pages slide and it bends easily. If you pinch the free edge together so they can't slide, the book becomes much stiffer. The Yield Point or Proportional Limit is the stress at the amount of defomation the material won't completely recover from, and stays bent or stretched. Ya busted it. The Modulus of Elasticity is the stress that would stretch the material to twice its length. It's valid only up to the yield point.

Red oak reveals embedded iron by a black streak extending above and below it.

My main complaint was grit embedded in trees beside trails the kids rode bikes and quads on.

After the land was logged the hazard became logs the skidder had driven over, opening temporary cracks that filled with sand. I've had the chainsaw bar glowing red within half a minute on such a log.

The boom on my 1000 Lb Homier truck bed crane is 60mm (2-3/8") square tubing with 4mm (5/32") walls. The extension is 50mm (2") square x

The better answer was to use my tripod as an A frame hoist that needs only one or two guy lines, one attached to the hitch safety chain to lift and pull the log in, the optional second one keeping the A frame from falling forward if I need both hands for the log.

An A frame hoist is a good solution if you need to move loads to one place, like the splitter. The source pile can be as long as your winch cable can reach and nearly the width of the leg bases. A load outside the legs can tip the A frame over sideways.

I like a chain fall or a boat trailer winch u-bolted to one leg to raise the load, and block and tackle to swing the A frame, so I can simultaneously pull one rope in and let the other out, controlling it as it passes over the top. I attached rope cleats above the winch, one on each side, clear of the winch handle. It needs to be set up on the line between the two anchor trees.

The most I've moved with an A frame was a 20', 2700 Lb oak trunk. The hoist was a 2 ton chain fall and I was as far away as the hand chain allowed.

That's the idea. You can't lift it, so it can't fall on your foot if something breaks while you are proof-testing the hoist's capacity.