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View Full Version : Repurposed: A pile of pallet wood becomes a wood store


Headwave
18-01-2009, 01:36 PM
I made this from pallet wood for fuel and recycling storage. I only bought the hinges and felt. The wood treatment was over form another project.

It's built like a slatted shed in that the wood is not sealed but it is heavily treated to throw water. The pallet wood happened to be in 8 x 3ft panels. It's ideal for fire wood and the recycling.

Bubbles2
18-01-2009, 01:55 PM
That is really brilliant, well done you!!!!

Chris P
18-01-2009, 01:58 PM
Great work, Headwave!

Regards
Chris P
Admin

gillo
18-01-2009, 02:50 PM
Fair play to you! give yourself a pat on the back for a job well done!

mary donnellan
18-01-2009, 03:35 PM
Very clever idea ,but where did you get the big pallats

Headwave
18-01-2009, 03:52 PM
Thanks for your comments.

A mates factory. I'm not allowed to say where as I was slotted into a cue of his employees who all make stuff out of them. I'm not the first to build a shed either. I do however have enough stored up to build a workshop. :D

All I can say is look for companies that use sheet metal. These pallets are 8x3ft but only maybe 4 or 5in deep. The lids are like doors and the bases need the heavier timbers broken off to be useful.
Well, in the case of my shed it is built up off one base so I was working to the size of the materials and had little cutting to do.

unapam
18-01-2009, 04:46 PM
That's a brilliant idea. I WILL be nicking it for myself.

bluecurlygirl
19-01-2009, 09:53 AM
Fantastic job. Well done. You can come down and build one for me!!!

Headwave
19-01-2009, 12:20 PM
I had a similar wish expressed by a neighbour who had a new shed delivered the week I built this one :~

Sinamo
26-01-2009, 11:29 AM
looks fab
fair play to u

Linn
26-01-2009, 11:37 AM
Well done that is a fabulous job and it looks really nice.

bluecurlygirl
26-01-2009, 11:40 AM
Headwave, any chance of telling me how you did it? Our dog kennel is a bit shabby and she's not got tons of room in it (golden lab). Would love to build her a new one (although not 8 ft tall!) Any pallets I've seen have gaps between the planks. Did you just remove them and reattach to eliminate the gaps?

Headwave
26-01-2009, 07:23 PM
They're not your typical pallet or Euro Pallet. They come with the boards close together. Like I say, the lids are like a door. They have 3 lengths of timber holding them together top, middle and bottom.
You'd have to break up regular ones and de-nail them to make stock to work from. However there are pallets that come with their boards one board apart and you could break one and use that wood to fit between the gaps. That or use a table saw to mill the wood to the right width.

bluecurlygirl
27-01-2009, 02:03 PM
Thanks a million. Loads of pallets going at a building site round the corner from me so might just go flutter my eyelashes at the guys there!!! Thanks again.

IRISH_iiiis
09-02-2009, 11:39 AM
Thats an excellant job, nice evenly spaced nails on roof felt... il also be nicking your idea.. well done ......!!!!!!

Headwave
09-02-2009, 10:02 PM
I keep meaning to put a latte of wood all the way round to be sure as the nails on their own may not be enough to keep the felt down.

IRISH_iiiis
09-02-2009, 10:07 PM
ahhhh now your just showing off lol he he

Tahlula
11-02-2009, 08:41 AM
Headwave,
Most excellent project, I'm full of admiration. We've been burning pallets for months now, trying to get rid of them. If anyone else would like to have some of them, probably not as good as Headwave's pallets though. Actually i don't knwo the different types of pallets anyway so I have no idea what I'm talking about...nothing new there :)

In all n anyways, if anyone would like them, pm me.


Tahlula
xxx

Headwave
11-02-2009, 10:08 AM
Cheers,
Here's other uses for people to think about.

Regular/Euro pallets/110s fly together as compost frames! They're heavy and stay put. A few nails or screws and they're up in minutes, brace themselves and need no framing.

I have one pallet outside my shed, at my folks place, as a door step so as not to make a muddy hole at the door and to stop me putting my back out stepping in and out. Reduces mud going in to shed also. Being slatted if scrubs down easy as well. (They can get slippy, you can staple chicken wire over them to compensate).

They make a good temporary filler for holes in your hedge to keep cows out.

You can make a fence real fast with them as well. Stand them up by sledging a fence post down through them as support. Butt them end to end and screw them together as you go. I've not done this yet but with the recession and constant cow incursions I'm thinking of a solid fence around the veg plot. As they are slatted they let the wind through and slow it down, thereby reducing wind shear on the plants.

If you can find the dark reddish ones they are the best. They have the tidiest edges and cleanest planed timber. The slots are very narrow so you get more wood per pallet. They make warmer compost frames as a result. They are some form ofBrazilian hard wood I think. I think it's the softer stuff they don't put in your front door. These pallets last and last in our damp where the white soft wood ones are gone in a few years. The hardwood ones are good to cut and drill also. I made an inkle loom out of one once.

There is a pallet that comes with a very strong timber frame. I've only been given the wood and not seen these pallets whole though. The wood has a really close grain, looks like Ash, and I've turned small items with it on a pole lathe.
The wood comes in good lengths. I'm going to try make a 'waster', a wooden medieval practice sword....one day.

If you keep hens prop one pallet up against another and fix together to make a sun shelter for them.

Extracting useful timber from pallets quickly:
The quickest way to brake a pallet for fire wood is with a chain saw. The quickest way to break it for timber however is with a circular saw. What puts people off using pallet wood as stock is the time it takes to break the pallet.

Most pallets have 3 support rails that the boards are nailed into. There is usually 3 boards spanning these rails. They go on the ground. Mostly you'll want the top boards for projects. Many pallets are fixed together with 'wire' nails that have a ring grip along them. They are a beast to pull apart. If you go at a pallet with a crow bar you'll split more boards than you'll save. So plan to sacrifice an inch or so off each end of the boards i.e. the distance from the end of the board to inside the nail that holds it to the rail. First, from the under side, cut through the 3 boards that go on the floor, anywhere inside the outer edge rails will do and again either side on the centre rail. That's 12 cuts. Put those short boards aside and use as you like. If you want to keep these boards as long as you can don't cut along the centre rail,so that's 6 cuts.
Leave the stubs attached or you'll just end up working on nails as they will likely not come out. Flip the pallet over, topside up.
What you want to do now is cut a straight line across all the boards parallel to the outer edge rail and inside the line the nails take. This is so as you miss them and don't cut into them. NB: You need to set the depth of the blade on your saw to only cut the boards and not into the rail (too much). It'll make it more work and the saw may ride up out of the wood if you cut too deep.
You do this at both ends of the pallet/board ends. The boards will now come away attached only to the centre rail. If is now easier to break the boards away from this and with less damage to the valuable boards. Obviously the boards will have nail holes in their middles but there are plenty of ways to fill them. The rest of the pallet can be cut up for fire wood or you can strip out the nails and try save the rails for framing your projects.

Hope this is useful if not sorry for the data burst. Perhaps JT could set-up a blog/tutorial site on the side!

Sgt_Pepper
01-11-2011, 07:25 PM
Well done on shed! I'd love to have ANY kind of ability when it comes to woodwork or metalwork, but alas my brain just can't picture something visually before I start work on it. Even if I had the plans in hand I'd make a mess of it.

If I could offer a few words of caution to the people on here who burn pallets for fuel - this is something I've been doing for years myself - you need to be very careful.

Some people use pallets for raised garden beds - myself included. The problem arises if the pallets have been treated with chemicals by the pallet makers , or after the fact by their customers to stop them rotting or worse - as an insecticide. The chemicals leech into the soil. If you plan in using pallets for this purpose try to find ones that are marked HT. this stands for heat treated. My understanding is that these are not chemically sprayed as a matter of course - but u should still be observant and exercise caution. On average if I come across a stack of pallets - say 10 or 15 - maybe 2 or 3 will be marked HT. look closely at the pallets and you'll see it stamped somewhere in fairly small lettering. Hang on to these for gardening if you're so inclined. Avoid painted ones obviously as these leech into the soil as well.

Burning pallets for firewood is where you really must be very careful, especially in an open fire. The most important piece of advice I can offer you is NEVER BURN GREEN PALLETS. They've been sprayed with chemicals and when burned release arsenic. I don't see them that often but before I researched it I made the mistake of burning some in my open fire. Headaches, dehydration, nausea set
in after a few mins and I had to open all doors and windows fast. Just as well I didn't fall asleep or have a child in the room.

A few years back a law was passed in the US declaring all pallets coming into America must be sprayed with insecticides/pesticiTdes or else be made of plastic. My point here is be careful where you get your pallets, avoid anywhere that regularly imports/exports from the US for example. Avoid any place that uses Pallets to transport chemicals etc. common sense stuff. Burning painted pallets is also a no no as it's also toxic to you and enviroment. I've loads more to add but I ain't got time tonight.

Chris P
01-11-2011, 07:46 PM
Hi Sgt_Pepper,

Many thanks for taking the time to pass on this important advice.

Regards
Chris P
Admin

galaxy74
01-11-2011, 09:05 PM
Amazing job!! Well done u!!!

melissabell
01-11-2011, 10:43 PM
WOW!!! that's fantastic!!! I've a shed that's about to fall apart if you feel the need to build another one lol ;)