For those who live on a wooded lot and have a fireplace
and/or firepit, here’s a tool to consider. As for me, I have both a wood-burning
fireplace and a firepit. The big deal there is I use seasoned hardwoods in the
fireplace and seasoned softwoods (pine and spruce) in my outdoor firepit. Now,
for added fun, I live on about two acres with about 25% of my land wooded. In
other words… I got a lot of trees. Amongst my trees are huge maples, towering
spruce, massive pine trees, and from there a mix of hardwood species that are
severely dwarfed by my Silver and Norway maples. Years ago, after an incredible
wind storm, one of my Norway maples developed spiral fractures around much of its
heaviest/thickest limbs. Needless to say, the tree had to come down. I hired a
company to cut down the tree. From there, my amazing neighbors helped me
discard of the tree bits. With one neighbor’s gas-powered log splitter, we
sliced and dices until that neighbor and others had a huge supply of wood for
their fireplaces. For me, I took a good amount as well before dragging the rest
to the curb for the town to collect for recycling. I stockpiled my wood in my
garage and let it sit for years. And years. I would say it was most definitely ‘seasoned’
by the time I went to split the tree parts. Like most, I can’t afford a gas or
electric powered log splitter.
That said, I wanted something to split the wood
left over from the Norway maple while also having a tool for handling future
tree falls. Loving hand tools, I purchased the Timber Tuff TMW-11 manual log
splitter. I paid $44 for it through Amazon. It’s been a few years now so the
price has increased to $54. Check out YouTube for videos of people using manual
log splitters. I got to say… it’s a workout and a half. It took me days to
split the wood. I ended up with nearly 2 cords of wood from the tree stockpile.
The Timber Tuff manual log splitter is a HEAVY tool, which
is a good thing. It is solid and works as intended. There were a few times the
log splitter got stuck about a third of the way into splitting a larger log. To
avoid this, I adjusted to splitting larger logs off-center. That greatly
reduced those instances. The device requires good upper body strength. No, you
don’t need to be a body-builder. I’m in reasonable good health and can lift a
decent amount for my size/age. This tool is tiring to use though. If you use a
manual log splitter, split logs over the course of several days. That way, your
muscle will not be so sore when you are finished. At a $44 price point, I give Timber
Tuff’s manual log splitter 5 out of 5 trowels. At a $54 price point - the current price? I
understand the increased costs globally after the pandemic, but at $54, I start
looking at Harbor Freight’s hydraulic log splitter priced at just over $100 and
consider giving that a shot. For the $54 price (about a 20% price increase in 2 years), I gotta subtract a trowel and
give the device a 4 out of 5 trowels.
Rating:
