Advanced Micro Devices Inc (AMD)

[JLS]

Now I see ...

For my applications, I don't see much value in a grappler like the one you showed on a tractor. But I can see how a road maintenance company could use that type to quickly help clear an area after a storm.

I think grapplers are used most commonly by professional loggers to load logs onto a their logging trucks which carry the logs to the mill. Those grapplers are usually mounted at the end of a very long boom on a track vehicle which can run on really beat up terrain -- so the machine remains at one spot while its boom reaches all over the place and gets the work done. Even where logs are stored at a mill the boom grappler is better because it can reach long distances and accomplish more work and stack logs much higher, all without having to move the machine all over the place.

Wood ready to be split by hand will have splits at its ends created during its normal drying and thermal expanding/shrinking process due to temperature changes -- the wood literally breaths in and out every day of the year due to temperature changes. That causes dehydration if it's not being rained on, and the stresses of the cycle causes the wood to crack. No cracks, it's not ready to split by hand.

Logs can actually internally dry during a very cold winter even though it's wet from snow, or temporarily wet on the surface from rain. Air humidity is a measure of how much moisture the air is holding versus how much moisture the air can hold. The colder the air, the more dense it is because the air compacts (shrinks) and becomes denser and squeezes out any moisture (water). For that reason humidity is more accurately referred to as relative humidity, not just humidity. For the sake of brevity people say humidity when they should be saying relative humidity.

An example: a reference chart will show that air at 40 degrees_C will hold over 5 times more water than air at 10 degrees_C, yet the air has the same relative humidity at both temperatures.

What's that all about? Keep the logs dry on their surface and they'll dry out anytime of the year and it will be reflected in the amount of cracking of the wood. No cracks = hard to split. Got cracks = easy to split. Of course, that's relative to the specie of wood and the direction of the grain, but ...