Splitting Wood with the Modified Harbor Freight 10 Ton Manual Log Splitter

This video is for entertainment purposes only! Not a welder or structural engineer so don’t know when I’m lying! This isn’t called the beautiful weld channel for a reason.
Added 2” or 50.8 mm to the height of the vertical splitting edge and testing to see if the weld holds up. This makes the vertical cutting bar 8” or 20.3 cm tall.
Why go to all this trouble? Don’t split wood often enough to justify the cost of one that runs off a tractor or stand alone motor. Sub 10 ton units that run off mains voltage don’t have the power to go thru twisted or curled grain hard maple logs
Factory splitting edge was rounded over and dull which limited the splitter. After making a sharp splitting edge, knew the splitter could handle larger logs with a better vertical splitting edge. After that added the horizontal cutting edge so logs could be split 4 ways instead of having to be ran thru the splitter three times! Horizontal edge is removable for sharpening or for splitting really large logs.
Overall the effort and time to split has been reduced because the splitting edges slice thru the wood grain much easier. In general the vertical splitting edge is not in contact with the log when the horizontal splitting edge makes contact so only one split starts at a time. It may take a little more effort splitting in two planes for a short time but once the split starts, the only effort required is to force the wood apart which is close to the same as an unmodified log splitter.
If you split wood frequently, you would split wood faster by hand if the grain was straight. When it comes to hard maple with twisted or curled grain, have gotten axes and splitting wedges stuck. Same logs on the modified log splitter now go thru in one pass so it’s faster to use the log splitter. Also much easier to position and split the wood for different sizes than with an axe or hatchet.
Horizontal splitting bar back stop bent the back of the built-in splitting wedge! Stock splitting wedge needs to be removed and a true height adjustable vertical and horizontal splitting bars replace it. Problem with this is this splitter is designed to be operated while sitting on the ground. For now will just align smaller pieces with the splitting edges even though that probably puts more strain on the seal of the shaft.
Miscellaneous:
Finally oiled the splitter so it’s much quieter!
All the wood in these videos is green and we and needed to get them split and dried quickly to prevent rot. This wood is primarily for a wood fired outdoor oven and not a fireplace. Much wider range of sizes are required to control the temperature of the fire so the wood gets split more than normal.
Not all the logs made it into the video because of time and cracks caused by the storm. Not a problem splitting but the split wanted to follow what was in the wood instead of where I wanted it.
If you noticed, fades aren’t syncing up between tracks for some reason in Filmora.
Same log splitter is sold under the brand name of SunJoe.
If anybody has any ideas for future mods to the log splitter, please leave a comment and can see if it’s feasible.
Have been thinking about replacing the hydraulic pump with a cylinder and powering it off the tractor but that won’t be anytime soon.

[@MrTommy001]

Kind of a cool idea, cutting the whole time in half. I have the electric version of HF's log splitter duo. Wonder if this would work on mine.

[@t-towncase3808]

Check out Donn DIY's channel where he did that and much more.