It looks like I'm going to be getting a weekly windfall of oak pallets and 4"x8"x8' oak timbers. Any suggestions for what I could build with them?

-- Lynne (boodad@us.inter.net), August 02, 2001

Answers

Response to Uses for oak pallets and timers

Furniture. While my dad was out of work years ago he had a guy bring him oak and exotic hardwood pallets from Asia. They were all rough sawn. He took them apart, cut off damaged ends and hand planed them to a good finish and then used the wood to build furniture. He had more time than money so did all the work by hand. With a table saw, planer and joiner, you could make short work of those pallets and make some beautiful furniture, tables, shelves, flooring, interior house trim???

-- Skip in Western WA (sundaycreek@gnrac.net), August 02, 2001.

Response to Uses for oak pallets and timers

there has been other posts,, on building building, sheds,, fences, gates and sucj with pallets. Worse comes to worse,,, your set with firewood all winter

-- Stan (sopal@net-port.com), August 02, 2001.

Response to Uses for oak pallets and timers

Mike and my father just used one as a base for a chick pen. The whole thing cost us $11.00 with tax(that was for hardware cloth). Hey what a deal!!!!Now we have a nice size pen to raise "bitty's" in and when they get too big we will put some rabbits in the pen.

We used scrap lumber we had around the place for the covered part and left over chicken wire for the sides and some metal roofing that my dad got for free for hauling off!!!

-- Sandy(FL.) (REDNECKGIRL32@prodigy.net), August 02, 2001.

I'm thinking of trying some timber framing, maybe a small shed or milking barn for the goats with the timbers, but I don't know much about it.

-- Lynne (boodad@us.inter.net), August 02, 2001.

Pick over them. Some will be badly damaged, some will be nearly perfect. Save the good ones for later decision, throw the bad ones into outdoor or rough construction or firewood.

-- Don Armstrong (darmst@yahoo.com.au), August 02, 2001.

Keep the best wood for later construction and/or crafty type projects. The sorrier looking stuff is good firewood. I heated my house for three years on discarded hardwood pallets. I'd buy one carbide saw blade a year and just rip them into chunks small enough to shove in the stove without taking the nails out (cut between the nails, of course).

={(Oak)-

-- Live Oak (oneliveoak@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

I use the planks for making all kinds of crafts, like birdhouses. They make great gifts. I use the waste for firewood.

If you plan on making furniture, however, make sure that the wood is dry. You wouldn't believe how much some of the green wood will shrink after you use it.

There may be a market out there where you could resell the pallets or the wood.

-- clove (clovis97@yahoo.com), August 02, 2001.

You could do some nice timber framing if you get enough of them. The floor joists in my log home I'm building are 4"x8""s. And if your not sure what to do with them, set them off the ground and in the dry. I saw a pallet, at work, that contained a piece of Chestnut. I coudn't believe it! We also have been burning pallets for a few years after we ran out of dead wood. Nice to meet a fellow OAK! OAK

-- OAK (StrugglingOak@aol.com), August 02, 2001.

Gates. We use 2 pallets for our gate to the barnyard. Works very well, though not purty. But who cares for purty, when you can save money?

Am also concidering a hog pen made of those things. If I would plant good sturdy posts between every second pallet, and wire it together with heavy guage wire... I'm thinking cheap pigpen. Also, it seems to me that a three-sided enclosure for shelter for the oinkers could be constructed out of those freebies.

-- daffodyllady (daffodyllady@yahoo.com), August 03, 2001.

Lynne, what kind of pallets use 4x8's? That's rad.

One other suggestion is to build an octagon, or a building with more than eight sides, if you want it larger. Lay the timbers flat, lap them at the corners. It'll give you a very strong, fairly well insulated (R 8 or so), very distinctive looking building.

JOJ

-- jumpoff joe (jumpoff@echoweb.net), August 03, 2001.

Joe

The 4x8's are part of BIG pallets, made with 4x8's, sometimes 4x4's and 2x12's. They end up about 4'x8' in size. Big (and mean really big) engines (Catapiller's, Wakashaw's, etc) used to power big natural gas compressors are trucked on them. My husband's a welder and builds the tanks for the compressors.

-- Lynne (boodad@us.inter.net), August 03, 2001.

Many years ago my grandfather and father took wooden beer cases, took them apart, and built an entire garage from them. Lasted for years and was stronger than those built from kits sold now.

-- Sandra Nelson (Magin@starband.net), August 03, 2001.

Those pallets have so many uses. Lets start with the best way to take them apart. You can use a reciprocating saw with a bi-metal saw blade and cut the pallets apart where the thin slat boards are connected to the thicker runner boards. This process will give you tons of good, useable boards for almost no cash. This is the way many small pallet builders recycle the old pallet wood into new pallets. One blade should cut down between 10-15 pallets before you bend it and break it. You can then use a nail punch and hammer to pound out the tops of the nails from the thinner slat boards. I would think that you could use these thinner boards for flooring, wall sheathing or covering inside walls. You could use a planer to make the wood a uniform thickness. Then you could use the runner boards to make "built-up" studs by nailing four pieces together and cutiing them to your standard 8' lengths. I would think this could make very strong studs for very little money. And, if all else fails you can use the wood to make crafts, furniture, and anything else you need without spending money on store bought lumber. All it takes is some time, and thats easier to find than money sometimes!

Larry

-- larry (karlog@rocketmail.com), August 20, 2001.