Mechanical wood splitter

A mechanical wood splitter comprises a weighted cutter which is raised on a support column by means of a winch and cable drive, and then allowed to drop, in order to split a log of wood positioned thereunder into segments, by uncoupling the winch drum from a drive shaft through a clutch mechanism. The cutter has a cruciform blade arrangement and can be rotated through 45 DEG so that, a log may be split into four segments using a single pass of the cutter or into eight segments using a double pass and rotating the cutter blades between the passes. The apparatus further includes a resilient log gripping assembly for positioning the log under the cutter and accommodating the impact of the cutter with consequential expansion of the log.