Just happened to check the masonite racks at home depot today- 1/8″- EMPTY!!, 1/4″- ONE SHEET LEFT!!! AND I HAULED AWAY BOTH OF THE SOUTH AMERICAN HARDWOOD PALLETS!!! A beautiful pink wood- the sales associate who helped me load them into my truck said he snagged the last two and suspects they’re mahogany. And as an added bonus- I actually need a couple big pallets for the next six months or so, so they won’t just be taking up space until I can use them for a higher purpose.
Thanks to whoever tipped us all off a few months ago!
mitch
Replies
Mitch, how do you dismantle them? I picked up a dozen or so pallets at Lumbermen's this summer, mostly for firewood, but wow what a pain to get apart or cut up! I had two hardwood ones, but the pieces without nails were so small, I couldn't figure out what I'd use them for.
Congrats though, glad you got something special you could use.
forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Jamie -
Get yourself a ripping bar and/or a crowbar and the world is your pumpkin!
...........
Dennis in Bellevue WA
[email protected]
No pumpkin for me. Those weird nails they use are killers! I'm gonna get Nick to work on 'em with his chainsaw.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
Ditto on the Sawzall - I just bought a new Orbital Super Sawzall for demo work. With either a Torch or Axe blade it will go through just about anything and quick too. I toasted my chainsaw chain cutting up a bunch of scrap with nails in it. Use a wonder bar to open up the joints a bit then whack it with the Sawzall.
for pallets i suggest a long renovator's bar that Lee valley carries, i got the longest one they had. It has a better hook than a crow bar and can get under an edge and then pry up board. Better still is let them get some rain on them and the wood swells and usually the nails are easier to pull out. Some times the nails are so deep the heads are buried, have to be careful driving them out as they bend. I just got a pallet with 8 pieces of cherry, 4' long , 6 " wide and 4/4. gonna rip into strips and start a few segmented bowls, the nail holes don't matter. Have found walnut, red gum and birch, most of the time its maple or oak. Good Hunting.
Well, since the sig-o just bought a new bar for the chainsaw, I guess I'd better not set up a situation where the thing's going to go belly-up. Thanks for the warning!
Have to say, though, I was thinking it would be fairly easy to avoid the nails in the pallets. Hmmmmmm.forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
F.G. I use pallets and reclaimed wood almost exclusively. I've made all sorts of furniture from salvaged wood. I'm not in business so I don't have the potential "junk wood" problem. I see it as a challange to use salveged wood so it doesn't look like salvage.
Each pallet has its own method for dismateling. The stratagy for the pallet used under masonite is as follows. (No special tools are needed. I can take one apart in less than 5min. I have been around this block many times) 1st, get a rough cut 2x4 or 2x6 and place on edge under the long boards alongside a center stringer. (there are 4 in all, (2x2-1/2") one on each end and two in the middle.) You go after the middle ones first because there is only one nail per board. Take another rough 2x4 or something HEAVY like one of the stringers from a previous pallet ( oak hickory green wet pine etc.) and bang the top of the stringer right next to the board, driving it down. if your suport board will lift the stringer a couple of inches off the ground, you can get the nail completly out of the stringer. After the two center stringers are out, go after one of the ends the same way with your support board on the inside of the stringer, not the outside. The outside boards have two nails each so they are harder to get started ( if you want to cut the boards away from the stringers at this point, go for it. You'll only loose about 6" on each end of the 8' board) once you get one end stringer off, you can take the boards in hand and push one up and the adjacent one down and pry them off the last stringer using the full 8' length of the board as a lever. Once the nails are loose you can BANG them like before with a support under the stringer. As for the nails, one of two things will happen. Either they will pull out of the stringer and stay in the board or they will pull through the board and stay in the stringer (DUH) The nails in the boards are a 'no brainer', the nails in the stringer are a different matter. This is where your new big long wrecking bar comes in. With a large pair of 'vicegrip' plyers, get a really TIGHT grip on the nail. Leave enough room to slip your bar under the jaws of the vicegrips, and pry as usual. Again, one of two things will happen. Either the nail will pull out of the stringer,or it will break off. About half to a third will break. If one breaks, you're no worse off than if you cut it with a Sawsall.
I can dismantal one in the parking lot in less than 5 min. loaded and on my way home. Happy "dismateling" (Pardon the spelling gotta run)
Jamie: a Sawzall works great on them,this way if you hit nails and we all know your going to you can just toss the blades when your done.. they are very destructive to a chain saw blade..
ToolDoc
I intend to use a cat's paw, pry bar, etc. However, the person who originally called our attention to this heretofore overlooked lumber source cautioned that these pallets are built with green wood. Therefore, the nails are a b i t c h to pull due to the wood shrinking as it dries and often break because the green wood has rusted them, too. Unless you're going to cut out every section that had a nail (which will eventually be the case anyway), I would strongly recommend going over it well with a metal detector- which is probably a good idea for any odd source lumber.
have fun!
mitch
I have probably ripped apart 50 or more pallets to use the wood to build something. I did it primarily in the beggining when I didn't have any money to buy good lumber and pallets were plentiful at work. Then I kind of liked the idea of turning something like a pallet into something really nice. I have built several tables out of them as well as corner shelve units. Some I have painted and some I left natural with an oil finish.
They are an absolute pain to dis-assemble. I also used a cats paw to pull the nails and still most of the time destroyed the boards trying to pull them out. Breaking off the nails is also very common. Everytime I did it I swore I would never do it again, then I would forget the pain and do it again. The other issue I ran into was once the boards were surfaced you did not have 3/4'' material, so alot of laminating was necessary. I have done this off and on for the past few years now and I think I have finally decided not to do it any more. It really is not worth the time involved.
The only thing I will say is really cool is when you make something really nice and you tell people what you made it out of the reaction is always the same, utter dis-belief. I am not trying to discourage anyone from doing it, just stating what my experience has been. I have not tried the sawzall approach, but it sounds like it might be the way to go verses trying to pull them out.
i would never go through the brain damage for the wood in a run of the mill, garden variety pallet, but as someone revealed in a post some months ago, some sheet goods are shipped on pallets built of fairly decent tropical hardwoods. specifically, ipe, mahogany, and suspected bubinga, among others.
happy hunting
mitch
Unfortunately, all I was ever exposed to was the typical run of the mill pallets. If I were to find some made from what you are describing I would probably go back to building stuff from them again. As I mentioned, its the taking them apart that is miserable , but, if a reasonable way was found then you have a great source for wood.
The sawzall sounds the most feasable, once the nails are cut free, then they can be easily removed without damaging the surrounding wood. All you are left with then is a nail hole witch would not be hard to deal with. When I did it with the cats paw just the act of pulling the nail out could/would destroy the wood. If the nail head was below the surface, which was very common, then I had to dig down so I could get a bite on it which messed the wood up even more. Trying to pry the the board from the back side almost always shattered it, so I stopped doing that .
I would really like to know what you find, or if you find some unique way of taking them apart that preserves the wood, the way I was doing it just wasn't working for me. Good luck.
If your I'm just using them for firewood, they're easy to cut up.
I use a circular saw. Crosscut all the top and bottom boards next to the vertical support boards. This gives you several short pieces of nail free kindling. Then I use a miter saw w/ an old blade to chunk up the vertical supports. Easy to miss the nails, and w/ a construction blade it's ok if you hit one occasionally. I just burn these w/ the nails in. All goes in the trash when I clean out the ashes. Usually throw them in after the fire is going good so I can just close the door and forget it.
Only takes a few minutes to cut up a pallet and stack it for firewood. Plus, most pallets are hardwood, which is nearly impossible to get for firewood in Idaho. All the forests around here are softwood.
Enjoy your posts.
Work safe
Hi Billy, thanks for the post. Unfortunately, the technique you describe (which I have used in part) is handicapped on my end by a 8-1/4" miter saw. Haven't been able to justify getting a new miter saw simply to cut up firewood, LOL! forestgirl -- you can take the girl out of the forest, but you can't take the forest out of the girl ;-)
That's all right, any saw will work, just I think the miter is the fastest, and safest if you hit a nail. Most pallets I've cut up just have 2x4 stringers, so the miter saw cuts should work w/ a smaller saw. I've also used the circular saw for this, but it was slower, and not as safe.
Just for fun I was figuring it out. I make 4 cuts top and bottom w/ the circular saw. Usually 8-10 top boards and 4-5 bottom boards. Get 2 pieces of firewood out of each top & bottom board. So, 24 to 30 here. Then 2 cuts for ea. stringer gets me 9 more pieces. Pretty quick wood. Probably less then 5 minutes.
Now before I realized there was no reason not to burn nails and pulled them all...Well that was nuts.
I've never used pallet wood to build anything, though I've come acrost an occasional pallet w/ really nice wood. I just run out of room. Last year I finally just cut up a bunch of 3/4 oak and maple scraps I'd always intended gluing together into panels. Just tired of tripping over it. Been real nice not to have it in the way, but still hate to burn some of it. Now I have a planer, some of it gets planed down for scrollsaw stuff. Got a dewalt one for Christmas last year. Best gift I ever got.
Maybe I should pick out my own gifts more often.
Like I said before, really enjoy your posts. Haven't been here long, but really notice you Boss Hog and Piffin, and that Phil guy who likes to argue.
Work safe and have fun
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