Hydraulic wood splitters provide an easy and relatively safe alternative to chopping firewood with an axe or using a dangerous screw-type wood splitter. While they are not necessarily as fast or powerful as screw-types, they are generally far safer. They are also sometimes significantly cheaper, though obviously far more expensive than the humble axe.
Hydraulic wood splitters operate on a scientific law known as Pascal's Principle. The science behind this is fairly complex, but it is the exact same technology that drives hydraulic jacks. One interesting thing about these splitters is that they can operate from a variety of power sources. They can be commonly found running on both gas and electric motors, and there are also manual models that are driven by human force.
The gas and electric models are usually operated by a simple lever or button. The user places the wood in between the hydraulic ram and the chopping wedge, and then activates the machine. The machine automatically pushes the log with the ram, forcing it against the wedge with multiple tons of pressure. This can easily split most logs, though wood splitters built for home use may have trouble with thicker, knottier wood. Additionally, each splitter is built with a certain range of log lengths in mind. If a log is too long, it may not fit.
Manual hydraulic wood splitters work the same way, except the user must manually push or pull a lever to move the ram, just as you would a hydraulic jack. This requires a bit more muscle from the user, but it can still put out enough tons of force to chop almost any piece of wood.
