pallets

[Greg in Maryland]

Hi

I have the ability to pick up some pallets at work for free and I was wondering if this is a good source of reclaimed wood? If it is, what pitfalls should I be on the look out for?

Thanks.

Greg

[Crash2510]

pallets are a good way to pick up some nice (free) wood.

the biggest problem is nails especially in pallets that have been re used and rebuilt if the long supports are full of nails it may not be worth your time

[LCHIEN]

depends where they come from. domestic pallets are usually made of cheap wood like pine and lowest grade at that.
Foreign shipments coming in on pallets sometimes have nice hard wood in them but its hard to tell. Depends on the location of origin - wood factories supplying flooring often ship on pallets made of the same wood the flooring is made of.
Nails, esp. hidden ones that broke off are always a problem Ruining a few expensive blades is a quick way to cure you of pallets, I suspect. I would say a hand-held metal detector would be your friend here.
Sometimes the long skid members that support the cross boards, is made of a largish piece of wood useful for legs and such.

[eezlock]

pallets?

Be careful of the pallets you pick up for wood useage. If they are foreign
made they may be made of any kind of junk /scrap/ trash that they can find to use for making pallets out of. The wood usually has to be fumigated
with strong chemicals before they can be exported to U.S. to keep foreign
wood bugs under control. These chemicals most likely can and will be dangerous to your health...especially if you cut or plane them down for use,
these woodworking processes will release some dangerous dust that you don't want to breathe in. If you decide to use them for wood, stack them outside in the sun, and spray them with a bleach/ water solution and let them
"cure" for a couple of months after exposure to the elements , then the risk of any dangerous chemicals should be greatly reduced. eezlock

[Martin]

Salvaging Pallet Wood

When I was working in 1994, we set up a new shop in Fort Worth. I was able to get a lot of pallet wood which appeared to be Texas oak. Sometimes, the nails were difficult to pull, but I did get a lot of long boards over 7 feet which were clear.

On another occasion, the govt. shipped a crashed single engine airplane back from South America. One of the lead men got most of the good wood, but I got some long 2x3 inch pieces of Ecuador mahogany.

[gwyneth]

If this is likely to be a continuing source, you may want to track down "Woodworking With Scraps" by Percy W. Blandford, which has extensive info about techniques and pitfalls of turning pallets into useful wood for woodworking.

Another, though oriented to non-experienced woodworkers and very 70-ish, is "Crate Craft" by L. LaBarge.

[dkhoward]

I heard a rumor that the pallets and boxes that Kubota ships their tractors and mowers in is made up mostly of teak, but I have not been able to confirm it yet.

[LinuxRandal]

When I used to be a gaurd at AGCO, there were several people who grabbed the boards that the steel was seperated by. Mostly Oak. The Engine pallets went back and were reused mostly.


Always heard about pallet wood, but how moist is it, and how long does one need to let it dry?

[sparkeyjames]

I work in the printing business we get large cut sheets (25"x38" or larger) on pallets all the time. I would not even give them a second look except as a place to store something on that you don't want on the floor of your garage/workshop. The wood is the lowest grade and sometimes lower than that.
I have however seen 1/4 inch or even 1/8 inch luan plywood used as the top so you never know. Most of the time it's not even worth cutting up to burn in a fireplace unless your desperate. I suspect that the jigsaw glued up pine panels you see at lowes and HD are made from recycled pallets.

[John Hunter]

I was lucky, a friend gave me a bunch of 4 X 4's off of pallets that are walnut!

[JoeyGee]

I went trough a phase of trying to use pallet wood. I figured it was free, and I kept it from a landfill. It's A LOT of work to get nails and staples out, plus cutting away bad parts, etc. It's just not for me. Of course, if I found one with good straight pieces out of decent hardwood, I would not be above doing it again.

I have also heard jet ski/motorcycle dealers are a good place for "exotic" wood pallets, as a lot comes from Asia. I don't know if that's true, but if you have one near, check it out.

[schloff]

I tried that, too (for a while). Didn't last long. I was able to contact the supplier of the pallets (local to me), and found that the moisture content was not acceptable, and I wasn't about to build a kiln for "scrap" wood.

It was some pretty wood, but WAY too green to plane. If I had some patience, I could have stacked it and air dried it. He offered me some clean pieces to try out, and after I planed it down, it checked so bad that it was completely unusable.

Younger and dumber times for me.

[pierhogunn]

friend of mine used to work for one of the plywood plants in the foothills of NC, he once got some foreign wood, orange and purple in it if I remember correctly, he cut it, and got the worst case of poison ivy in his life, said he had to bury it, was afraid to burn it...

Be very careful of what you get.

[dlminehart]

I've heard that European-made machinery ships with very nice hardwood pallets. Printing industry still has some Euro stuff, for instance. If you see mention of a printer buying new equipment, check it out.

[sparkeyjames]

I've heard that European-made machinery ships with very nice hardwood pallets. Printing industry still has some Euro stuff, for instance. If you see mention of a printer buying new equipment, check it out.

The last new printing press we bought came from Germany. The crates were lousy chip ply and 1/2 inch construction grade plywood with 2 or 3 grade 1/2"x4" as framing. This was a half million dollar printing press. No hardwood shipping crate panels for you.