15, Splitting, big time.

With a large stockpile of rocks to work with I needed to rethink my method of splitting the stone. Up to this point I had been enjoying the old manual method of using plugs and feathers in drilled holes, needless to say, this is very time consuming. In early June we bit the bullet and contracted in some outside help for a few days, we needed some heavy artillery. This came in the form of the massive home made splitter seen in the above pictures. The proud owners of this machine are a family business, based in Anglesea who operate quarries in Aireys Inlet, for sandstone and in Harcourt, for Granite. The splitter was operated hydraulically, a three phase generator on the truck powered an electric motor coupled to the hydraulic pump. Wheels are attached and the machine is lowered to the horizontal position for transportation.
Over the three days we split down about half of the rocks. We produced a nice pile of blocks suitably sized for final dressing and shaping, with an average thickness of about 150 to 250mm.