Very wellHow does that work? I was considering doing one on a 50 ton h press i got, would give me another excuse to get it going. I have to rebuild/replace the ram, and was thinking about adding power hydraulics so i could use it for more stuff like forging, ironworker tooling, broaching, and now possibly splitting wood. That's almost a long enough list to be able to convince the wife that I'm actually doing important stuff out there and not just having her watch the kids!
@Trains I got better at hydro splitting it but it’s also easy to slice the rind with the saw and the inner parts split with half power 6lb swings
Oh, I know...I have a lot of stuff that's been down decades. Some is deteriorated, some is still very intact. The first swing tells the tale. I have found if I cut it into rounds and leave them a year or two it helps...seems a bit stringe since they've already been down so long. Half green..forget it!Your fortunate that you can do that, even pieces 10" dia can be impossible to split with a hand maul, its hydraulic only territory, it just tears the fibers apart as it splits due to the wavy grain of the timber and its hardness.
Duh! A plate roller could do it!I'm sure there's a way.
I've heard of "hammered" oak being used as fence boards, and apparently lasting a very long time. From what I was made to believe, they'd run the board through a blacksmiths trip hammer, and kinda compress it. My father salvaged a few boards, and made a chair from one, I'll have to get him to photograph it for me. Anywho, he said you can't hardly drive a nail into it it's so hard, has to be worked with titanium tools.
Also anywho, I'd imagine a machinist could rig together a roller press or some such to pressure finish wood...
No, as a finish process bud, he's after the smooth, hard, shiny finish he mentioned from the forks in the picture above.Don't you need to heat seriously the crunched wood to "glue back" together the fibers (melting the lignin) while under pressure?
I can see enhancing the density by collapsing the vessels, but that means too a dislocation of the cell's walls and the loss of the cohesion, unless with either the add of resin or a heat treatment.
We went back and forth and ended up on plastic cuz the wood is poky and dirty and people put it in their cars. Also less skill required to wrap/tie. If i was doing it, yeah twine.It kinda bugs me seeing firewood wrapped in plastic. If I were selling there's no way I wouldn't use sisal twine unless I was recycling poly twine from hay bales. I'd have to play with it to see if it would work, but soaking sisal twine in wax or oil might make a good firestarter for some added value, and no waste.