Anyone have a wood splitter attachment on the hoe?

I have seen these wood splitter attachments that attach to the hoe once the bucket is removed. I split a lot of wood each year and I fell in love with watching these work! I have a traditional wood splitter but as I get older wrestling log sections onto or under the splitter gets harder each year. The kind I have seen mounts in place of the bucket and the wedge mounts to a thumb. The action of the bucket curling pushes the log end into the wedge on the thumb and it splits the wood. The thing that makes it attactive to me is that there would be no wrestling of the large round heavy log ends rolling or lifting them under or on a traditional splitter. The Side Tool company www.sidetool.com sells some mainly for mini excavators but they will make one for a backhoe. I like the thought of splitting wood with the hoe and not having the physical issue of wrestling with large cuts of wood. Curios if anyone has one, this picture is for an excavator but the principle is the same

That's cute as hell but when I hit 65 I started buying my firewood. It's cut and split by somebody who's young and dumb.
How much wood do you use a year and what would it cost if someone else did all the work?
Looking at that thing I see you still cutting down trees and hauling them to your yard and then splitting the rounds.
Pay the young and dumb for that grunt work, they need the money and why the hell would you want to do all that?
They'll even stack it for a little more.
Joe H

My 88 year old contractor friend has a wedge about 8" longer than the bucket teeth that he pins over the center excavator bucket teeth. He uses his thumb to lay a piece of H beam against the front of the tracks. Then he simply used his wedge on his bucket and slides the rounds against the plate to split them. I was surprised at how fast he could line them up and split them like that. By dumping the bucket enough to point his wedge downward it was east to move the pieces into place or reposition one without the rest of the bucket pushing them all around. When he gets cluttered he scoops them up with the bucket and dumpes them in his trailer to take to the stove. He does mention that they warm the body one less time that way, but that he is OK with that. He uses a 40,000 lbs excavator but thinks a much smaller one would work fine.

wife showed me a FB video of a splitter somebody welded up, so it pinned on the center tooth on a 12~20 ton excavator. It split the round 6 ways, and the rounds and the ground were frozen solid. The wood just exploded! He'd float over it, chop, and you could see how frozen the wood was. It was slick but only useful in the frozen north.

Cute but looks like just as much work as any log splitter and a lot of wear and tear on your machine for what?
Joe H

I've only split wood a tiny bit, with a standard horizontal/vertical splitter but this looks much preferable to me! I don't heat my house with wood so much but something like this would make it much more reasonable to do so.

I have a traditional hydraulic wood splitter, and I just use the backhoe with a hydraulic thumb to set the big heavy rounds up on a stand that I have on the side of the splitter. Not perfect, but it sure helps the more I get geezed up.

My splitter is anything but traditional...LOL
I do not use my equipment to split wood at all. I do use the loader to carry it tho.

My splitter is home made. It has a log lift that I LOVE. I previously made a splitter with a crane to lift the logs, but the log lift is the bomb!
My splitter has a 3 cylinder Briggs& Stratton (Daihatsu) diesel engine taken from a Toro mower
The axles are from a jeep, and the rear drives the machine via a hydraulic motor (ross)
Steering is controlled by an electric solenoid valve
Again, anything but traditional, but can shear a log at just above idle...It is a beast.

I really see no need for a splitter on my equipment at this point...just me tho.

I use an axe lol

an axe, somehow connected to a diesel engine...rite???...LOL

Would probably be a little more efficient with a better operator but a lot more work with a chainsaw cutting the pieces short enough to fit the splitter.

If I was to invest in a firewood attachment, it would be one of those units that mount on a skid steer that picks up a log, cuts to length and then splits the wood. Some of those are now sold for under $10k. I've thought about one of those modified to fit the excavator but I really don't burn enough wood to justify it.


I've thought, many times, about a firewood business with a processor but then that takes employees and I just don't want to deal with those kind of issues. The best thing that I've found for firewood is slabs sold at the local sawmills. All I have to do is make passes with the chainsaw to cut it to the length I want it. Usually no need to split anything unless it was a huge, wide slab. Easier to pick up for the wife, usually easy to stack in the stove. Maybe a bit messier than split rounds but I stay warm for cheap - usually $15 for a large bundle (roughly 4' diameter x 12' long) of mixed hardwood without hickory. Hickory brings $20/bundle. I can usually heat my place for 2 bundles per winter during the coldest periods with wood while the heat pump works everything from 35 degrees and above. I have yet to find an easier or cheaper source of ready to burn firewood than slabs.

This might be what you have in mind for a splitter attachment

If you were to sell firewood, I do not think my design would be the best. I have seen some of the skidsteer processors work at a dizzying rate, and as stated above, they eliminate the need for cutting the log to length.

I use my machine for my wood burning stove, as well as to supply firewood to an outdoor fire (you can see it in my 3rd pic). For the wood stove I keep the lengths short. When splitting for the outdoor fire, I make the logs about 30".

My design is lacking an output table, which I tell myself I am going to build every time I bend over to pickup the split pieces...the old back!



Not a commercial for the place but there is a site online that sells parts for the splitter called splitez. I purchased the reservoir, pump, valve, cylinder, and plow steel wedge from then. It is a mom and pop type business that actually answers the phone and will talk to you about what you want to do.

With the 5" cylinder, the return could be a little slow, so I added a regenerative valve that will take the returning oil from the blind side of the cylinder and add it to the rod side...really quickens up the stroke!

If I really wanted production, I also could have easily added a 4 or 6 way wedge, but I opted not too...may make a slide-on version so I can release.

The valve that I used is a detent valve, so, I pull the 2 levers and the cylinder goes forward. At the end of the stroke it automatically returns...this is when I am stacking the pieces that just split. I believe this option adds to the quickness of operation, although I am not in a hurry.

With my self propelled design, I drive right up to the logs I am about to split. This minimized the physical work that I must do.

I am going to be building a house soon on 15 acres of wooded land in the next year or two. I will have a pretty decent pile of wood that I could burn. I hate splitting wood by hand. I love that drivable log splitter.

Most of the trees on my land are 18-24" in diameter. No real old growth trees. I am guessing that 100 years ago the land was pasture or at least all the trees were cut for timber.

Once I burn through the pile of wood from building the house and cleaning up everything that has fallen and is good for firewood I will switch to coal. I had a coal stove in my previous house and I loved it. 2500 sq ft colonial and I heated it with the coal stove. I burned just under 2 tons per winter. House was nice and toasty. Only have to shake it down and fill the stove twice a day and empty the ash once per day. Shoveling a ton of coal twice per winter is much less work than cutting trees, splitting wood, stacking and carrying it into the house. Also made way less mess. You can spend more money and buy coal in bags like pellets.

Edgephoto....you are correct, the wood makes a mess for sure...and the wife is always reminding me of that fact But, free heat is a good thing. I have honestly never even seen a coal stove. My mother-in-law had a neighbor with a pile of coal in his driveway every winter, and swore by it. The stores up by my house in PA all have the bags out all winter, so someone must buy it up there. Many up there rely 100% on wood for heat as it is readily available and free. I do not want to be 100% dependent on wood as I am getting older and the body may give out, so, I want some fossil fuel to go along with the free wood.

How big are the chunks of coal you burn? Again never seen a stove in action, and the guy by the MIL always had it covered down.

Swetz said:

Edgephoto....you are correct, the wood makes a mess for sure...and the wife is always reminding me of that fact But, free heat is a good thing. I have honestly never even seen a coal stove. My mother-in-law had a neighbor with a pile of coal in his driveway every winter, and swore by it. The stores up by my house in PA all have the bags out all winter, so someone must buy it up there. Many up there rely 100% on wood for heat as it is readily available and free. I do not want to be 100% dependent on wood as I am getting older and the body may give out, so, I want some fossil fuel to go along with the free wood.

How big are the chunks of coal you burn? Again never seen a stove in action, and the guy by the MIL always had it covered down.

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I have 15 acres of woods so I can burn free wood as long as I am able and/or willing to do the work. Coal is much easier. My current house has no fireplace or wood stove. I miss that nice toasty heat. My hands and feet have both been surgically repaired and my knees are currently getting physical therapy. I may not be able to do that kind of labor down the road so I want to be prepared. My wife has two bad shoulders so she is not helpful for this stuff.

I mostly will be using the stove because I like it vs. free heat. I will have a conventional oil fired system for convenience.

A coal stove looks just like a wood stove except there is a grate you can shake and an ashbox under the grate. You can burn wood in a coal stove. Actually that is how you start a coal stove. You light a wood fire and switch it to coal. Very even heat, nice blue flame, very controllable. Only need to add coal twice per day when running, once per day when throttled down. Shoveling coal is much easier than trap rock because it is slippery. The coal I burned was nut coal. Nuggest are 3/4" to 1-1/2" or so. You can store a ton in a 4'x4'x4' space. My old house took just under 2 tons per year. New house will be smaller and much better insulated so I bet a ton will last most if not all winter.

I would love an automated splitter like those skid steer ones but the cost doesn't make sense for me. Would be cheaper just to buy the wood split.

Thanks for the reply edgephoto! I find the coal interesting, and my look into it going forward. I agree, heating with a fireplace/stove is good heat. And, yes, our bodies are the limiting factor.

Swetz said:

Thanks for the reply edgephoto! I find the coal interesting, and my look into it going forward. I agree, heating with a fireplace/stove is good heat. And, yes, our bodies are the limiting factor.

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When you can't or don't want to do wood I think it is superior to a pellet stove. No electricity needed. They do make some that take pea coal and have autofill hoppers like a pellet stove.

5 or 10 minutes with an axe the odd cold evening.I pretend it is good for me.