Yeah, I like that video too, especially the part where Bubba uses his leg to force the screw tip into the wood....
A screw type splitter can be very safe and extremely fast and efficient IMO though, with a little refinement and a little less truck. I am partial to this one myself:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP5M6ErNWncBut for quite a few years now I buy my wood already processed. There are so many firewood processing machines around now that I have not been able to find log- length wood cheap enough to make it worth bothering with; if a cord is $200, then they want $150 or so for the log- length wood which is 14' to 20' long, and up to 20" in diameter. Just way too much work in bucking and splitting a cord of wood for $50 IMO.
Funny thing but the odds of having an industrial (machinery based) accident go up like 10,000 times when TWO people are involved in operating the same machine, and it usually happens exactly like you describe with your father.
This one time, at band camp, a company I was working at was making a machine to put the ferrules on the end of wood handles to make file handles. The machine was not feeding correctly (in the process of R&D) and so the owner was tinkering with the insertion mechanism (Easy Boys!) with another guy cycling the machine when told to do so. It went something like this:
"Cycle it".
John single cycles the machine.
"Cycle it"
John single cycles the machine.
"Hold it"
John single cycles the machine, and it did a pretty good job of actually putting the ferrule on the end of the owner's index finger. And I have to say that that machine did its job putting the ferrule on much, much faster than the surgeon did taking it back off. And the installation was free too, unlike the removal.
Back to the wood: new stove doing very well, wood consumption seems to be down quite a bit. I am currently working on an automation system for the stove though 'cause everything works better with a little electro- mechanical help. And some things work a LOT better with a little electro- mechanical help. :-)
Brian
Hey BDF, don't forget the other "Wheel Splitters" that were similarly unsafe...lol:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=En47S7LM9zE
You have to watch all 2:40 to see where the operator forgot about the advantage of leverage in the equation...lol. Hydraulic splitters are for sissies anyway. (Says the guy who buys all his firewood pre-split now).
PS: My old man's wood-splitter is powered by a twin-cylinder horizontally opposed gas refer engine from an old milk truck. We used to be pretty fast (when I was a kid and was forced into childhood slave labor...lol). However, I once dropped a block into place just as he hit the forward lever. Now, my hand wasn't on the blade end of the block, but it was between the block and the pusher plate on the end o the hydraulic ram. It flattened the tips of three fingers, and they squirted the insides out like little fountains...LOL. Ahh, my childhood...lol, it all seemed so normal at the time. I hear they're talking about banning toboggans now....too dangerous...lol.
Rem