OWC Member Offers Log Splitter Tips

By Karen Karger

In 1992, while looking for a small acreage on which to live and raise a horse or two, Sandy and Lyal Purinton stumbled across 41 acres of severely over-cut forest with a run-down farm house. Reminding Sandy of her childhood home, the purchase of the property was inevitable. The first few years were spent reforesting the property and making the house livable. The farm has grown over the years and now encompasses 120 acres. With the help of their sons, Justin and Collin, the farm has been managed with a desire to create a sustainable forest that will provide wildlife habitat and a legacy for their grandchildren.

Lyal has belonged to OWC for over ten years and has always appreciated having access to consultants and other knowledgeable individuals who provide forest management skills to help new members. The OWC is now a distributor for practical forest tools from LogRite® and SuperSplitter® and offers a substantial discount for members.

Lyal runs a custom sawmill business and sells firewood through the OWC. "Now that the kids are grown, it's often a one-man operation," says Lyal, "so finding tools and equipment that can make the process more efficient is really important." For example, a log arch enables Lyal to haul larger logs- up to 4 feet in diameter- with a tractor. "With the log arch I can pick up the front end of a log and pull it straight through the woods. It takes less power, the log is more stable, and it doesn't drag the log through the dirt, which would dull my saw. When I have clean logs, I can cut all day- otherwise I have to sharpen every couple of hours." LogRite also has smaller arches that can be pulled by an ATV or by hand.

Lyal also uses a LogRite peavey and hookaroon to speed his operations. 'The peavey has a longer handle and is made of lighter but stronger aluminum so I can throw bigger logs around on the sawmill. Something about the angle on the hook makes it bite better than any other peavey I've used -just one whack and it's solid. With the hookaroon, I can reach out and grab a board on the sawmill and pull it toward me. I can pull rounds of firewood to the splitter, too. It saves me miles by not having to walk around my equipment all the time."

Lyal uses a gas-powered SuperSplit kinetic splitter to process logs for the firewood business and his family's personal use. "The SuperSplit works at least three to four times faster than a hydraulic splitter," remarks Lyal. "The wide work table holds the split wood and the pusher clears it into the bin, which means I don't have to manually pick it all up and move it. That saves me a lot of time." Lyal says the SuperSplit is remarkably frugal on gas, too. "I can split two and a half to three cords of wood on a tank full of gas," he adds, "and that's only three quarters of a gallon." An electric version of the SuperSplit is also available.

"I like that all of this equipment is made in the U.S., too," says Lyal in conclusion.
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(Originally published in Forest Forum, newsletter of Washington Co. Small Woodlands Assoc.) 

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