IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SPLITTING OR RENDING WOOD FOR LATHS, RAILS, FIREWOOD, AND OTHER PURPOSES
Year: 1877

page_text: PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION left by William Edward Gedge at the Office
of the Commissioners of Patents on the 15th March 1877. A communication
from abroad by Hyppolite André, fils, of St. Pancras (Vaucluse), France.
WILLIAM EDWARD GEDGE, of No. 11, Wellington Street, Strand, in the County
of Middlesex, Patent Agent. "IMPROVEMENTS IN APPARATUS FOR SPLITTING OR
RENDING WOOD FOR LATHS, RAILS, FIREWOOD, AND OTHER PURPOSES."
munication from abroad by Hyppolite André, fils, of St. Pancras (Vaucluse),
France.
A coin-
The most powerful apparatus of this Invention is unquestionably that of a
triangular form, and set upon a cast-iron framing, as shown at Figure 1 of the
accompanying Sheet of Drawing. It has at each of its angles a steel roller or splitter,
of a circular form, and convex in its breadth. The outer diameter of this roller
ends in a knife edge.
The rollers are intended to receive the laths or pieces of wood which it is desired
to split, no matter what may be their shape, and to divide them into three or four
parts, according to the number of rollers in the apparatus; in fact, this improved
apparatus may be either quadrangular or triangular, and consequently carry four or
three rollers.
On the accompanying Sheet of Drawing Figure 1 is an elevation, Figure 2 a
longitudinal section, and Figure 3 a cross section of an apparatus of this Invention
of a triangular form.
A indicates the framing; B, the steel rollers or splitting discs; C, axles of
rollers B; D, keys for fixing the rollers B on their axles; E, sockets to receive
wooden supports when it is desired to fix the apparatus in a horizontal position;
F, flanges forming feet to support the apparatus in a vertical position; G, holes
intended to receive bolts to fix the apparatus vertically; I, lubricating holes.
This new tool may be used very advantageously in splitting the hoops of casks,
props, or poles, stakes, posts, and rails for railway and other fencing wood for hurdles,
also for splitting wood for burning and blocks of any size, even to the splitting of old
railway sleepers, and a variety of other purposes.
Action of the apparatus :-To split wood for general use the apparatus
should be placed vertically; this being done it will only be necessary to
present the smallest end of the wood to be split to the cutting edge of the rollers B,

page_text: and then give a horizontal blow with a mallet on the opposite end of the wood.
The blow of the mallet once given the workman has only to push the piece of wood
in the same direction, exerting no more than the pressure of a man of ordinary
strength.
In the splitting of fire-wood this apparatus should be placed in a horizontal
position.
Fire-wood is usually cut into lengths, and these lengths should be laid vertically
on the cutting edge of the rollers, when a stroke of a mallet given upon the opposite
end of the pieces of wood will suffice to split them through. Blocks or logs and
old railway sleepers may be split in the same manner.
To make this apparatus more generally useful in splitting fire-wood it may be
reduced to a less complex form, being however still based upon the same principle
as that above described.
This simplified apparatus is shown Figures 4to 9 inclusive, Figure 4 being an
elevation; Figure 5, a section at a, b, (Fig. 8); Figure 6, a section at c, d, (Fig. 9);
Figure 7, an elevation; and Figures 8 and 9, plan views thereof.
This apparatus consists of a stem, say, from half a yard to three yards long,
carrying 2, 3, 4, 5, 10, 20, 30 or more wedge-shaped blades, and tipped with a piece
of metal having a pointed end, which entering the billet or chump of wood splits it,
the wedge-shaped blades dividing the billet into as many pieces as there are wedge
'blades on the splitting apparatus.
This apparatus is easily worked by hand; the wedge blades and the pointed end
may be of bronze alloy or other suitable metal.
With this latter apparatus the workman need no longer give a blow with a
mallet, but can drive the tool in with the hand.