Was given a 10 ft tractor trailer full of Larch and Aspen and a week later a wqeeping willow from a fishing pond bank that blew down and had been cut up into 8ft logs and draged out the way with an ATV.
The aspen as expected was hard to split it was not dry and yet needed it into Firewood and out the yard.
Spliting it by hand was hard work for this Old decrepit man and even the lads were getting fed up with the graft involved.
I decided to look on market place like you do. and the Electric hydraulic or petrol spliters especialy seemed pricey in my area, but i found a Harbour freight style 10 ton hydraulic manual splitter i decided for £30 to go over and collect from Hadington.
Was In more or less as new condition was Slow compared to mates electric spliter, but it was getting the tough stuff split and thicker logs than the 8 inch sugested too. the ram is short with not much throw but with a block of scrap steel as a spacer with a handle welded on it and houghtfull use of the hydrailic valve tap, i could do ok on time wih the big pump handle getting the ram out then the small one splitting the log, it works, it was cheap and simple and localish.
I can split in the shed in the rain sat in a chair hardest part is loading the logs , the daughter sat with me the other day loading logs i split them she threw then in the barrow , we did all the aspen and Larch in one sitting. It might not be as fast as the ukraine Spring arm idea, but its here now doing it indoors on rainy days and for those logs that wont yeald to me and my girl sized old fellas 5lb mall its having them done no noise and no electric, and its not super fast ok but its not super tyring either.
I will make a splitting spring arm at some point but i feel i have a place for the manual hydraulic too, not forced to suit you are wqhat you are doing, and i still use the maul, but the non yealding spen logs its a blessing. IMO.