WOOD SPLITTER REVIEW: Champion 25-Ton Hydraulic

In this video I want to give you a product tour of this Champion wood splitter

It happens to be the best-selling splitter in Canada. I've been using it for a while, comparing it to a couple of other machines that I've been using for years

I like it. It's not a perfect wood splitter, but it's pretty good and I want to show you the features

Then you can decide if it makes sense for you. Besides some really beefy overall construction, heavy plate steel, an I-beam, lots of beefy welds everywhere

What struck me first was the ability of this splitter to work horizontally like it is now and vertically

So horizontal is great when you're working with logs that aren't too big and they're pretty convenient to pick up

because you can work right at waist level. But if you're dealing with really big logs that are too heavy to lift

then you can simply pull this pin out here and tip the whole hydraulic ram assembly up vertically

Now you can just simply roll big logs into position, wiggle them into place underneath the wedge, and do your splitting that way

Another thing I like about this splitter is how easily it rolls

I've towed this on the back roads and on some paved roads

It's stable, it rolls well, and it's also easy to move by hand too

It's well-balanced. There's a fair amount of weight on the other side of the wheels

so it's not that heavy to lift and it's got a handle here. Really, the rollability of this thing comes down to these wheels

They're excellent wheels. They're about 16 inches in diameter, and they have serviceable bearings that you can grease, sort of automotive style

with a cap that comes off to let you inspect them. The first thing I noticed when I started using this splitter was how fast the ram is

It's considerably faster than the hydraulic splitter that I've been using for about 10 years now

It works well, and the shape of the wedge is such that it really delivers a lot of splitting power

The wedge is angled back a little bit, so it tends to hold the wood down while you're splitting instead of letting it pop up

And then the back part of the wedge here is very wide, so you start the split easily with the pointy part of the wedge

and then the wood encounters these side wings on the wedge and really just pops that wood apart

Now, if a piece of wood does get stuck on here and it doesn't come off

these two pieces of metal welded on either side of the main beam will push that wood off the wedge

so you don't have to wrestle with it by hand. Now, if you've ever used a wood splitter before, you know that it generates a lot of little bits of bark and chunks of wood and things like that

Now, these support tables are very handy. You put a big chunk of wood on here and you split it in two

There's room to move one of those halves away, so you can split the other one up finer

These tables are made out of narrow pieces of metal, thin pieces of metal

and it means that the bark and the wood chips fall right through on both sides, so it doesn't build up and make a mess, which is kind of a nice thing

Now, there is one thing about this splitter that I'm not crazy about

and that's the location of the wheel in relation to where I want to stand

because where I want to stand, I want to put my leg right about here

I can still use the splitter, of course. If I turn a little bit, I can sit here and operate it properly, and that won't be a problem

but ideally, I'd like to move in a little bit closer. The people at Champion, I brought this up with them

and they told me that that particular part of the machine is being redesigned

so I expect that's going to change. I don't know how. Not a big deal, but just maybe one little flaw in an otherwise excellent machine

Now, as far as maintenance of the engine goes, the way they've got it located here kind of out in the open makes it very easy to get at

and this is the oil drain plug here. There's lots of room for a pan to catch that

Spark plug's very easy to get at. Choke, fuel controls, air cleaner. Nothing's crowded

It's actually a whole lot easier to get at this engine than it is to get at the engine of my old hydraulic splitter that I've been using

Now, this, as with all hydraulic splitters, this is a tank. It holds the hydraulic fluid, in this case, automatic transmission fluid

and a nice feature they've got over here is this sight glass, so you can tell at a glance

I mean, the oil's pink, pinkish red. You can tell at a glance if you've got enough oil and if it's ready to go

so if you're in the market for a wood splitter, I think this one would make you very happy

It looks like quite a machine, well-designed, good value for the money, and lots of versatility