Landis 30 splitter parts?

[Deanwalker151]

Does anyone have a line on folks that have scrapped out any Landis 30 splitters?  I'm in need of the plate that the blade attaches to.  At some point mine got broken and then got brazed back together.  I'm thinking that it's flexing and throwing off my splits.

 

Thanks!

Dean 

[mbnaegle]

Not sure about a replacement blade holder, but In the past I've found on 6" crank splitters if the blade is flexing or seeing lots of downward force, it's usually a combination of being adjusted too far forward (towards the feed rollers) and/or not being sharp enough.

[Deanwalker151]

Well the sharp part I think I've got down but the space between the roller and blade I'm just guessing at.  Right now I have it set to about the width of a credit card.  Should I open that up?

[mbnaegle]

There should be a couple of tabs that stick up about 3/16" on top of the bottom roller bearings and these serve as reference marks for your blade position, separate from how high or low the roller itself sits. If you are splitting softer leathers, you would want the blade just touching the tabs, but if you are splitting harder denser leathers (shoe soles for example), you'd want maybe 1/16" or up to 1/8" gap between the tabs and the blade edge. This is because those denser leathers don't bend up over the blade as easily as they cut. If the blade is set too far forward, the material binds up as it cuts and puts extra pressure on the blade, while if it's too far back it might split easily but not accurately as the material can float and bend too much as it's cutting. You might have to do some trial and error, but it's not something you'll mess with often unless you are doing really precise work, and typically you just have to find a general area for the type of material you are seeing (softer or denser) and put the blade back at that same position whenever you take it off to sharpen. Most of the time I'll start with the blade shaving-sharp and adjusted all the way forward, and if the material dosn't want to go through or tires to bend the blade, I know to move it back a little and try again.

Once you have the blade locked in place, then you can adjust the bottom roller using the studs and nuts under the bottom roller that go through the springs. Ideally, you want the roller as close to the blade as you can get it without the two touching. Some guys set it by looking at the visible gap between them and others will use paper or a feeler gauge to see that they are not hitting. This can be a little tricky since these rollers have the heavy saw-tooth like serrations, but it's better to error on having too much of a gap then to risk the two hitting. Too much of a gap just means it might "eat" really thin materials, which most don't use the 6" crank splitters for anyway.

It's also worth noting that the bracket that the blade bolts too (the piece on yours that was broken and brazed) often has slots where it mounts to the frame. This is for balancing the blade to the top roller so that it splits evenly right to left, and can also help fine tune it to split 10 oz. when you set the dial to 10oz. I'll typically split one wide piece, or a small piece on either side at the same time, measure the result and adjust if as necessary, but afterwards you need to re-adjust the gap between the bottom roll and the blade. For many of these adjustments you'll have to go in circles checking and adjusting things over again, but each round it's closer to splitting easily and accurately. My experience with most splitters is that whatever dial or read-out the machine has to set thickness is a general reference, and you'll want to use a drop gauge or similar measuring tool to check your work and adjust the split thickness to compensate accordingly, because different materials compress differently than others as they feed through the machine. Adjusting the spring pressure on the bottom roller can also help with this.

To be clear, I don't have any Landis literature to cite, but just experience working with different fixed blade and band knife splitters in general. I find the principals of blade position, feed roll position, and other adjustments all work the same. The parts, movements, and methods just vary between different models and manufacturers.

[Deanwalker151]

Dang!  Thank you.  I'll play with it a bit and see what happens.

Dean