DSISD welding students build log splitter

DSISD welding students build log splitter
Posted on 03/06/2019

Local welding students were hard at work this fall and winter building a log splitter. Cliff Danis, a welding instructor at the Delta-Schoolcraft Intermediate School District (DSISD), said the log splitter will be sold to support the DSISD’s welding program.

“We’re hoping to sell it and make a little money,” he said.

The idea of building a log splitter came from a brainstorming session Danis had with his students at the beginning of the 2018-19 school year to come up with a class project.

“We were just kind of spitballing things we could do,” Danis said.

Danis said he felt doing a project on this scale would be a good way to keep his students occupied.

“I like group projects — I like building things, and this seemed like a good thing to build,” he said. According to Danis, the process of building the log splitter allowed his students to put the knowledge of welding they gained in his class to use, as well.

Work on the log splitter began early in the fall, and Danis said it “really got rolling” when the class received all the parts it needed for the project in November. The project was completed in early March.

“It’s not a heavy-duty splitter — it’s a nice, light, general-duty splitter,” Danis said in regards to the end product of these efforts.

A silent auction will be held to sell the log splitter. Bids can be submitted in writing to Danis at the DSISD (2525 3rd Ave S, Escanaba, MI 49829), and will be accepted through the end of March. Funds from the sale of the log splitter will go into the welding program’s general supply fund, helping to fund the purchase of material and consumables for the DSISD’s welding classes.

According to Danis, the DSISD’s welding program was supported by multiple local businesses in its work towards making this project a reality. These businesses included Truck Equipment Inc. of Escanaba, which supplied wheel and hub assemblies; Applied Industrial Technologies of Kingsford, which supplied hydraulic pumps, cylinders and valves; and McCoy Construction & Forestry of Escanaba, which donated hydraulic fluid, hoses and fittings.

Danis said he is interested in doing another class project like this someday.

“I’d like to build more in the future if this goes (well),” he said.