Putting the RuggedMade Log Lift to the Test

Welcome back to RuggedMade. I'm Jared. I'm Nick. When folks are talking to us about the 300 and 700-series log splitters, one of the things that clearly is very important to them is the fact that they have a log lift. The hydraulic log lift is one of the real differentiators between a machine like this 700-series and some of the machines you'd see at your typical Big Box store. There are a lot of advantages to the log lift and we thought we'd just do a video today and show you what some of those advantages are.

The log lift saves me a ton of time and it saves my body while splitting wood. Yeah. The main thing is, however big the logs are that you're splitting, not having to lift them up by yourself or get some other implement like your tractor to get them into position to split just is really a convenience and it takes a lot of the unpleasantness out of splitting, makes fun and efficient, so we're going to throw some logs up here and show it in action.

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So, we just split a few logs there. One nice thing about the log lift is, you don't have to just lift one log. If there's room for two or three, it can really kind of serve as a feed and you can just split a whole bunch of logs in a row. And, it also works as a nice resplit table. Sometimes, you’ve got a bigger log. You [have] got to flop it back over, set it aside, break up some smaller pieces, and then you're not dropping stuff on the ground and having to pick it back up again and again.

As a table, the log lift works really well, also. Yeah. One question we do get from time to time is, “How long will it stay up?” Now, this hydraulic system doesn't have a check valve so it's not meant to stay up indefinitely. But, over the course of a normal splitting session, like we were just doing, this will stay up so the log lift does go a little bit above horizontal. So, you saw I didn't really have to work hard to get them into position; they roll with just a little bit of encouragement. So, we did some of the, you know, typical smaller-size logs. We do have a couple of big logs. Why don't we just pop over and use our big floor scale to see just how heavy they are? We'll show you the dimensions. Because, they really highlight how great a log lift can be if you can get a log that big up onto your beam without having to lift it yourself. So, let's go weigh those.

We've got three of the heaviest logs that we're going to be splitting today and we thought we'd find out exactly what they weigh and then we'll tell you their dimensions.

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So this guy weighed 289 [pounds]. Rough sizes, we’ve got 23 1/2" x 23”. So, we picked that one because it was just under 300 pounds. I think that weighed 289 [pounds]. It's about 24 inches long and depending on where you're measuring, is between 22 and 24 inches in diameter. We knew it was stringy and it had a bit of a knot in it, so that was just a great example of where you're going to have to split that sucker a few different times. And, we never really had to pick any pieces up off the ground, I think, after that initial half that fell off, and then we just had this as the work table and just keep getting our resplits. It's nice to be able to tackle something that big and that heavy and that awkward, really with just only getting it up onto the platform once. It's definitely convenient.

The machines are designed to be at waist height so there's really as little bending over as possible which is, you know, the most unpleasant part of splitting. We do have another big one; I think we had one that weighed 288 [pounds], so let's throw that one on there as well and that gives a good idea of what it can lift. Now, we rate it conservatively for 300 pounds. We do that, we have a bipod leg that gives you nice stability. The stance of the tank and the axles also gives it nice stability. We have gotten some really great pictures from customers showing them lifting logs that were way over 300 pounds, and we love to see that. So, we know it's capable of that but, again, we conservatively rate it for a max lift that we know it can do thousands and thousands of times. Let's throw this next 288-pound log on there just to show a log that I want to get up there but I sure wouldn't want to lift myself.

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This hydraulic log lift is really one of the defining features of the RuggedMade log splitters. This is a 737-24, one of our 700-series, but the same log lift is available on the smaller 300-series, the RS-322. We work really hard to make these features available at a more affordable price point.

The log lift is definitely efficient and definitely helps save your back. Yeah. So stop lifting those heavy logs. Thanks for watching. We'll see you in the next one.