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Harvey, first of all, good luck with the splitter project.
Next thing are those holes, instead of trying to drill 1" pinholes you should try burning them close to the right size then backfill them with an arc welder and small soft rod, it will go MUCH faster.
As for your lift, try using a straight arm with a hinged end plate of about 18" in length. If you make a small travel mechanism in the hinge and hydraulic lift arm the first thing that will happen when you go to lift the block is the hinged plate will move upwards trapping the log in the 'elbow' of the arm instead of rolling away from the splitter.
Best of luck.
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As long as you're not in any hurry a pretty small electric motor will make all the pressure required, it just won't have much volume which equates to speed.
I have seen MANY homemade splitters made from old washing machine motors powering a truck power steering pump, not real fast or real pretty but apparently they were better than swinging an axe.
Best of luck.
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Mark, the splitter head is normally amde up of 3 pieces of steel, sort of a splitting sandwich, except they come together at about a 25-30 degree angle. The center piece protrudes out in front of the two side plates by about 1" which is sharpened to a cutting edge of usually 45 degrees. This center plate is hard steel like that used for B/H buckets, cutting edges on FEL buckets, and wear edges on snowplows. I have a ready supply of them myself from our worn down plow facings.
I believe Northern Tools sells them also, if not any welding shop which does heavy equipment work will have the steel in stock.
Likewise any hydraulic supply shop will handle the cylinders, valves, etc., but IMHO half the fun of doing it yourself is scrounging for parts (it's also cheaper, the farmer in me comes out,  ). Heavy equipment wreckers are good sources for big cheap cylinders. Scrap steel, I mean well seasoned steel, is a good start for the frame, most scrap yards are full of lengths of large H beams (sometimes called I beams) from demolished buildings, normally it sold by the pound for a little over scrap value.
Best of luck.
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Harvey, the boom is a good idea but I think you will find it a little slow compared to a lift-arm concept.
As for that big cylinder in the dumpster, DIVE IN after it. Don't forget if you're running a 2-stage pump it will be making nearly 20 gpm on low pressure, that will move a 6" cylinder surprisingly fast.
If you are going to run with the boom idea there are two tricks that might make it easier or faster to accomplish.
First is to use a fixed boom, accomplish the lift by mounting a peice of barn door track upside down on top of the boom with a long skinny cylinder inside with the fixed end at the far end of the boom and the rod extension travelling towards the 'elbow' then mount a pulley on the end of the rod. The lift cable then runs from the far end of the arm, under the cylinder back towards the 'elbow' over the pulley on the rod and back to the far end where it goes over a second pulley at the tip. This doubling speeds lift/lower times and a 2' cylinder will give you 4' of cable travel.
Second idea is to skip the hydrauics all together and just use a fixed arm and accomplish the lifting/lowering with a hand cranked winch of the type used on a boat trailer or a small electric unit. If you opt for the electric unit the mag. on the engine will likely keep the battery fairly well charged, it also opens up the possibilityof electric start for the power unit.
As a last notion, as weird as it sounds I have seen quite a few splitters on which the pump was chain driven by a motorcycle engine, complete with the tranny and all. It seems there are a lot of bikes with perfectly good engines which are either a few years old, or the victims of "Sudden Horizontal Parking Syndrome". They can often be had for next to nothing and offer all the parts necessary for a first class stationary power plant, fuel tank, gauges, electric start, choke, witring, exhaust, even lights if you're so inclined. All this and mounted on a nifty little tube frame. One fellow even used a pair of small disk brakes like they use on Go-Karts and hooked them to the bikes brake system to keep the splitter from rolling away on uneven ground.
Best of luck.
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Mark, the usual length for a splitter cylinder is 24", however depending on the size of wood you are cutting you can normally get away just fine with a 16" cylinder for 12" or slightly larger wood.
All lengths are TRAVEL measurements, not overall lengths.
As for diameter, that is one of two components that determine both the speed at which it will cycle, and also the force it will develop.
If you are going to make this splitter as an experiment, as sort of ver. 1.0 model, then use almost any pump & motor you can find. If this is a one shot deal, do yourself a favour and go with a good power source. A new 9-11hp motor and a TWO stage pump. If you have access to a reasonably priced machine shop you can use an old PTO-driven pump from a dump truck in the wreckers. They are both high-pressure and high-volume units, in fact a lot of big self-built commercial splitters around here are powered by a 4 cyl. car engine driving a dump truck pump. The fuel tank from the same truck usually makes a perfect reservoir.
The best way to find a local source for parts is to phone either a big hydraulics shop, or a NEW equipment dealer. They will know ALL the good sources for parts locally.
Best of luck.
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Go Harvey!!!
Your comment about a big nasty cylinder reminded me of a rather unique setup I saw on another homemade splitter a few years back.
The guy had also made it with what was available (read: scrounged and therefore FREE) and the cylinder was a dipper cylinder of a full sized excavator, the length of stroke was such that it allowed an enormous amount of travel. Rather than only using a portion of the stroke he merely made sure that all wood was cut VERY square then loaded the splitter with 3 blocks of wood end-to-end for each cycle.
On another note, you mentioned that big 40" cylinder you also discovered. If you go to a good sized power plant you may want to look at putting a compressor in the circuit. There's nothing faster or easier to use for lifting light objects or to kick the split blocks clear. On a lot of production firewood processors they use hydraulics only to cut and split the blocks, the 'man-handling' in & out of the cutter and splitter is done with automated air cylinders.
As for the power plant itself, you can often get a complete (wrecked or terminally rusted) car or motorcycle for less than the cost of a good small gas engine. A big Kohler or Honda can easily cost $1,000 or more, and you still need a pump, brackets, etc., which will cost another $500 or more. A Honda car engine running an old truck PTO pump is more in the $500 range and will run forever.
Best of luck.
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