New Toy Gloat: wood splitter
October 30, 2010
I’d been cruising Kijiji on a quest for a block splitter, and on a whim I changed the language of my search, typing in “wood” instead of the more American “log”. Fifteen minutes earlier someone had posted a short ad for a 3 pt hitch wood splitter, so I was off on another wild goose chase with trailer and navigation system to a community an hour and a quarter to the west.
This one turned out to be a solid, Mennonite-built unit which the current owner had bought at an auction only to discover it ran too slowly on his new Kubota 35 hp. Seems the dealer wanted $2000 to install a set of remotes on the tractor, so he hooked it to the loader. This particular loader has very small hoses, which impeded the splitter’s performance. He decided to replace it with a gas-powered model.
I didn’t know if my TAFE 35DI’s “tipping lever” would do any better, but I decided to try. It has a three-way splitter for hydraulics which has quite a learning curve, but my neighbour Peter Myers has a testing hose and the pressure was fine once we found the correct settings. To produce a continuous flow to the splitter he locked the tipping lever open with a chunk of scrap metal and I tore into a pile of elm rounds with my new toy.
Peter has the same model and he thinks it runs pretty slowly on the TAFE (he’s a John Deere man) but it works for me and without breaking a sweat I split my way through a significant pile of firewood in an hour.
The piston moves slowly, but there is no hesitation and it does a great job.
TAFE 351 fuel consumption
June 13, 2010
Without a bulk diesel tank at the farm I run down the highway to the local service station for tractor fuel. Out of curiosity I measured the TAFE’s consumption over a week of bush hogging around 20 acres of seedlings. Note at the end of the article I built in a correction for tach hours.
1995 Tafe 351DI fuel consumption observation
June 9-13, 2010
5′ medium-duty rotary mower, trimming long grass, medium density to light on moderate slopes
8.5 km paved road surface transit
hrs observed 424.5- 412.8 = 11.7
tank topped 28.31 litres
consumption rate 2.41965812 litres per hour at PTO speed
According to the charts I found on the Internet, it must be using between 16 and 18 hp to do its thing with the 710 lb. cutter, loader, loaded tires and all.
Here’s the lastest raw data. Again I was mowing medium to light hay and grass, though I ran the TAFE in high range, first gear today to see how the new mower would cut at a ground speed of about 6 mph. No problem. That’s not a misprint below: the thing seems to use $2.00 worth of diesel per indicated hour at June, 2010 diesel prices in Ontario.
| june 29/10 | 436.6 | hr | filled at | 436.3 | |
| 0.929 | 25.4 | litres | 11.8 | hours | |
| 2.152542373 | litres per hour at PTO speed | ||||
| Cost of fuel per hour | $2.00 | ||||
UPDATE: The manual states that the tach/hour meter measures at 1500 rpm. Pto delivers 604 at 2000 rpm, so that means it runs at 1788.07947 to deliver 540 pto rpm. So if you multiply the consumption rate by 1.19 you’ll get a more accurate figure, somewhere between 2.5 and 2.8 litres per hour. Still good, but not unbelievable.
july 18/10 449.3 449
30.88 12.7
2.431496063 litres per hour at PTO speed
Corrected, that’s 2.89 litres/hour for this interval.
| august 9/10 | 468.8 | 468.5 | ||
| 32.64 | 19.5 hours on this tankful | |||
| 1.673846154 | litres per hour, at 1500 rpm | |||
| loader work, highway runs, limited mowing with pto | ||||
| corrected consumption: | 1.991876923 | l/hr at mixed speeds | ||
| for PTO at 1870 rpm | ||||
| That’s an honest 2 litres per hour. | ||||
the Walnut Diary 