Manual Log Splitters

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.

 

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