Grow Your Own Magazine

General alloting often requires wood for things like compost bins or currently for me a chicken coop.
Being a scrooge I refuse to pay for wood.
I guess I might get some via the re-cycle web, "wood" need to look into that in the future.

Anyway, I usually get my wood from recycled pallets.
I often spot them when driving around. I always ask if I can have them as some have deposits!

They vary in construction but usually use serated nails and are very difficult to dismantle without destroying them.
I aquired two short crow bars (Jemmys) from the pound shop, cost me a pound each, bah-humbug.

With a bit of care and a lump hammer you can get them appart but usually the nails pull through the wood.
Giving each nail a thump before you start sometimes helps. Even though it might drive it deeper it loosens its grip.

You can usually get the nails out the main timber with a crow bar nail remover.

I recently tried a new ploy. An old rotary lawn mower blade and a lump hammer. The blades are very hard. With a bit of work you can get the blade between the wood onto the nail and then give it a good thump with the lump hammer. This cuts the nail clean and doesn't rip the wood. It has the disadvantage the the nail bits are left in.
But it seems more successful.

I recommend thick gloves !

Anyone any other ideas

Thanks
Jim

Hey Jim, I absolutely agree! I recently built a new garden fence out of pallets (12ft long by 6ft tall), only had to buy fence posts. Saved myself a lot of money, not to mention the planet.

My local bathroom supply store usually have a pile of broken pallets at the back and are always happy to give them away. They are a pain to pull apart but the result is well worth it. The wood is nice and sturdy as well.

What i do is i have 2 big wooden wedges wider than the gap between the top and bottom of the pallet stand the pallet on it's edge and drive the wedges in the gap and they part enough to be able to use crow bars in it works for me the easiest way i have found yet jacob marley

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What lies behind us,And what lies before us,Are tiny matters compared to what lies Within us ...
Ralph Waide Emmerson

ive made my greenhouse staging out of pallet wood. i also made some wooden troughs from them

Put the pallette on end and wallop the 'feet' with a lump hammer, they usually come off pretty easily, then you can knock the nails through the thinner wood of the top of the pallette.

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http://www.weltaf.co.uk/
Why keep a dog when you can bark yourself !

Can you post piccies of your fence please? We need to renew our garden fence and we are on a zero budget so ways to build a 6 foot high fence from pallets would be great.

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

Come on, you must be able to dream up a fence from pallet wood.

Generally the outer wood is nice small planks and the centre wood is chunky lengths ideal for short posts.

The basic idea "wood" be to nail the planks onto the posts to produce the fence you require. However more snazy designs could be possible, look round you estate for inspiration. Diagonal planks or what ever takes your fancy.

Use wood preserve and possible leave each post standing in the tin over night !

And if you don't like them they were free so dismantle and start again.
Note if you want to do this use screws not nails !

The best pallets to use for fencing are the double size ones. I used these to make my double bay compost bin and you get lots of wood off them. Admittedly they are a right pain to get home as they don't fit in the car (!). We carried about 8 back from the town centre over the course of a month when a shop was being refurbed there - a distance of approx a mile and a half. Lot of effort but worth it in the long run.

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Even aliens garden!

Roof rack ??

Decking for a chook run!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Haven't got a roof rack Jimmy. Also the big pallets are probably almost as long as my little car! Mr Policeman may not have been happy to see us driving through the town centre with something that big on the top, even if it was only a five minute drive.

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Even aliens garden!

Castors ?????

Basically after pulling the pallets apart, I ended up with planks of two different lengths, some were around 4ft while the others around 3ft long. I then nailed them in an overlapping pattern. Because of this I had to use four transverse planks instead of three.

(The section behind the shed is yet to be completed)

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I have a good supply of pallets and will attempt (with nothing up my sleeve!) to make a pig house from pallets.
(I will also attempt to show you the results--much more difficult!)

That's really pretty good Alexx! I bet you went through quite a few pallets though?

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

Thanks Snadger.
I had to do three car trips so my estimate would be around 15 pallets.

Crowbars and lawmower blades are all very good but I still find I damage quite a lot of planks.
Just did another one and this time I hacksawed through the nails.
A little persuation with a wedge and you can get your hacksaw in. Once the hacksaw hits the nails they soon give up.
Lots of perfect planks. But no free nails!
Jimmy

Thanks for that Alexx. Need to find lots of pallets now - around 100ft of fence required!!

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Happy Gardening,
Shirley

http://www.honeyjukes.co.uk

I have worked in several factories and warehouses; pallets seemed to fall apart when you least wanted , but were difficult to take apart when you wanted to. Many pallets now use serrated nails

Pallet wood is generally poor quality and roughly finished so always wear gloves. I knew a 16 stone warehouse foreman who always wore gloves when handling pallets, and no one tought he was soft!

I found the best tools to take pallets apart were an 18'' crowbar and a 2lb lump hammer. You can sometimes get a car scissor jack between the top and bottom layers of a pallet and use that

You could proof the wood with creosote or other 'proper' proofer; but old sump oil is free, if smellier

NBice one geoff! I like the car scissor jack idea!

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My Majesty made for him a garden anew in order
to present to him vegetables and all beautiful flowers.- Offerings of Thutmose III to Amon-Ra (1500 BCE)

i find lots of pallets on my local freecycle, they are excellent for repairing raised beds. Also helps recycle !

I use an old axe head & lump hammer...

Geo..

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Hi,i always use another bit of wood as a lever to prise them apart,a bit of 2x2 about 4ft long works well for me.