Lots of snow and a bad frame of mind today, so wasted my day for the most part, got to thinking of a machine that my wifes grandfather had a picture of. This was a wood splitter made from a old junk 6-10 hp hit and miss engine. Those are pretty heavy duty, with flywheels that create alot of energy. This one was a junk engine that was belted from a tractor. The flywheel had a wedge welded or bolted to it that rotated between two large chunks of steel. A small table held the chunk of wood, the flywheel with the wedge swung around and clobered the chunk of wood. the wedge fit between the two chunks of steel, but the wood couldn't. The flywheel never stopped so they would walk up and throw the chunk of wood, and run away as the wood gernaded into orbit. Every year someone got hit with a flying chunk, but all wound healed eventualy I guess. Grandpa said it never found a chunk that it couldn't split, nor a skull for that matter. He did mention that regardless of the out come it all happened very fast. Judging by the size of the wood pile in the picture, the dumb thing must have been real popular. One of my first questions was why not have a long chute to roll the chunks down, or at least set a few fence posts to duck behind. Grandpa said yea that probably would have been a prety good idea. As I think back at all the saftey features we don't even pay attention to.
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