How to dismantle pallets to obtain free carpentry wood.

Once you have your pallets (see Where and how to collect pallets if you have had trouble locating them), then the next stage is to dismantle them so as to obtain the maximum amount of quality wood for carpentry. In the following article I will be looking at how to do this in different ways depending on the type of pallet and the fixings used to put it together.

INTRODUCTION

The following is a list of tools I use to dismantle pallets.

Tools:

Claw hammer

Lump hammer

Flat-bladed screwdriver

Awl

Bolster chisel

Wrecking bar/ pry bar

Crowbar  130cm

Crowbar    90cm

Lengths of  timber approx 50mm x 75mm

Hacksaw

Nail punch

Pliers

Note: I tend to carry the wrecking bar and the 90cm crowbar in the back of the car when I’m out looking for pallets because I frequently find pallets with vertical backs attached, used for the transporting of glass, bathroom and general furniture and these obviously need to be removed from the pallet so as to fit in or on the car.

Safety wear :

Work gloves

Safety boots

Safety glasses

METHOD

Block Pallet aka Four Way Entry Pallet

 

The first thing to do with your pallet when you’ve got it out of the car is look underneath it and see if the nails attaching the planks are visible - if they aren’t, great!

This means that the planks (top deckboards/slats) are attached with short nails and should prise off quite easily. If you can see nails they will invariably be hammered flat to the underside of the stringer board. This means you’ll have to straighten the nail before prying the slat off - this will require a little more effort but if the wood looks good quality, it’s worth the effort.

For the former (straight nail) pallet you need to turn the pallet right way up and put the flattened tip of your prybar under the edge of the slat as near to the nails as possible, if  you have the longer crowbar then use it as a fulcrum by laying it on the pallet behind the prybar otherwise use a piece of timber. If you don’t use an introduced fulcrum then as you prise the slat off, your crowbar will be resting on the adjacent slat and may dent it or at worst, break it.

I will not try to prise the outermost  and centre slats using this method as these are nailed into the blocks and are much more likely to break. For these it is better to lay the pallet on its edge and use the bolster chisel between the block and the stringer board. 

When the chisel is hit with the lump hammer, you may feel the nails ‘give’ and the end of the wrecking bar may be inserted in the gap produced to prise the block away.  This will only happen on your ‘butter-side-up’ days and if you are fortunate to have this happen you will end up with the nails sticking up dead straight. 
 

You should then be able to knock these nails back through the slats so as to be able to use the claw hammer or the wrecking bar to grip the nail heads and pull them out.

If you are unsuccessful with the above method, then you will need to use a hacksaw to saw through the nails. Keep the saw blade against the face of the block so as to leave the rest of the nail protruding above the stringer board face. 

 

Thus, when all the blocks are removed, the nails can be hammered on their sawn faces through the wood to raise the heads above the slat surface for the claw hammer. If the nails are not proud enough to be hammered through, then they can be driven through using a nail punch against the sawn face.

A more brutal method I have sometimes found effective is, with the pallet on its edge on firm ground, strike the lower edge of the block with the lump hammer, this will often move the block away from stringer board face, I have found this to be particularly effective when confronted with blocks made from composite (they look like chipboard). These composite blocks go to the tip/dump and should not be used in any project (or fire for that matter) as they are bonded with toxic adhesives.

Finally, the protruding nails on all of the planks need to be removed using the claw hammer.

With the pallets having the bent over nails holding the top deckboards in place, you need to straighten the nails using the awl and the screwdriver. 

  
Push the point of the awl beneath nail and using the screwdriver as a fulcrum, you can lift the free end of the nail away from the wood. 

 

Straighten it further with pliers or tap it vertically with a hammer. The nail can then be driven out from the underside until the head is clear enough for the claw hammer or pry bar to finish the job.

Because the stringer boards are so heavily nailed and of shorter length, I very rarely consider keeping them and that is why they are the surface against which I use the bolster chisel and the hacksaw..

Now, the only things left nailed together are the blocks to the bottom deckboard. Often these bottom deckboards are in poor condition as they are the workface when the pallet is moved around and hence are often split and dirty and not suitable for most projects.

   



I have found that the block can be moved enough to provide a gap for the pry bar by the simple expedient of striking it on the side with the lump hammer. Alternatively, if you have a workbench with a vice on it, you can clamp the block within its jaws and using the deckboard as the lever, lift it off the block. I find this technique particularly useful when collecting the nail-free blocks I use in the insect houses.

 

 

 You can find this project 'An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover' here

 

Stringer Pallet aka Two Way Entry Pallet

The stringer pallet is often much easier to dismantle as the top deckboards are nailed into the stringers normally with shorter nails than those into the blocks of the block pallet. 

Removing the top deckboards is the same as previously described except, sometimes, I have found that no matter how careful you are, the nail heads pull through the deckboard and remain in the stringer. 

Remove the nails from the stringer using the pry bar. For some reason I frequently find the nail heads shear off when trying to remove them. If this happens and you still want to use the wood, then clamp each protruding shank of  nail in the jaws of the vice and use the stringer as the lever to pull the nail free. All but the most stubborn nails will succumb to this.

That is all there is to it! You end up with loads of useful wood at a fraction of the cost. I will just repeat what I said in my previous post on choosing pallets, for your own benefit you should only use non-chemically treated pallets.

One note of caution: I have needed to smooth the surfaces of the planks for certain projects and I have sometimes found tiny pieces of wire around the nail holes which can foul the plane or tear the belt in a sander. These pieces are from the pallet manufacturing process where the nails in the nail guns are held together with a wire which comes adrift in the nailing process. So, it is always worthwhile to visually check the wood and then go slowly at first with your tools until you’ve established there is no such contamination in your wood.

Now if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film: 

Thanks for dropping by and please feel free to share this article, comment, ask questions and if you'd like to be assured of getting the next post, then sign up to follow this blog.

All the best, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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An Insect Hotel as a Utility Box Cover. Part 1 - Design & Construction

A friend of ours is restoring a 300 year-old stone-built longère or long house. The electricity company brought power to the property but sited the ubiquitous supply box right in front of the house. Not surprisingly, she is unhappy with the incongruous nature of such a utilitarian container and asked me to come up with something to disguise the box..
 

It was Sue who came up with the idea of constructing an insect hotel to hide it. She thought that just covering the box with a wooden or stone structure would look incongruous growing out of the front lawn near the flower beds but siting a bug house there would be ideal. I think it is a concept that could be used to encourage insects and camouflage an eyesore, wherever and when ever one may occur.

To give the design a very personal touch, we took an old and very beautiful section of dead tree branch from the property to use in the box. We also collected a variety of cones from the nearby pine forest that skirts the sea shore.

 

Design

Apart from the aesthetics, the very practical reason to cover this utility box was because such installations have a propensity to become car 'magnets'. Sited as they often are at the front of houses and unexpectedly mushrooming up from nowhere, they are habitually backed into by drivers. So the design was made imposing enough to be visible and out of any 'blind spot'.

I decided to make the hotel/cover in two parts: the box (including the insect hotel proper) and the roof. Our friend had some roofing slates left over from last year's major works and I thought it appropriate to have a pitched slate roof  protecting the insect hotel. This would then match the house and add to the harmony of the design within its surroundings aka the genius loci. The accommodation for the insects was to be on one side only, that is the southern elevation. Two doors on the western and east elevation would permit access to the electrical boxes when required.

Finally, the whole was to be held in place by using steel anchors at the four corners embedded in concrete. The ‘free’ ends of the anchors were to fit into pre-drilled holes in the corner posts. The use of these anchors had a further advantage, that is the wooden corner-posts could be held clear of the ground without compromising the stabilty of the hotel, thus limiting the contact with damp during the Winter months. Concrete is not normally a material I use but as it was available here, leftover from another job and as I would be using so little, I opted to use it.

 

Construction

After measuring the minimum interior size needed for the enclosure, I first cut the four wooden corner posts from some 35mm thick pallet wood. 

 


The anchors were made of rebar welded into a cross, the end going into the corner post needed to be round in section so I welded a length of 12mm diameter mild steel bar  to this. They bore an uncanny resemblance to the turn-of-the-century funeral crosses you see on nuns' graves around this area. Albeit a little less ornate.

 

In order to ensure the 12mm hole was drilled centrally up the corner post, I used a small drill press and clamped it to the workbench such that the 12mm bit was over the edge of the bench. I positioned the corner post, and clamped it to the workbench leg so that the centre of it was directly beneath the tip of the drill bit. The post had to be aligned with the vertical axis of the drill press. 

 



Once all four posts were drilled, they were cut to length.
 

 

For the hotel side of the cover, I made square cut-outs at the ends of the upper and lower pallet wood planks to fit the posts., the vertical side walls were nailed to the posts and also nailed into the end grain of the top and bottom planks.

 

The stapling of 10mm thick tongue and groove panelling to the rear of the rectangular frame forming the walls of the hotel stiffened the entire structure.

The north wall was much simpler, with the posts nailed to two horizontal rails and with the wall planks nailed to these. The substantially longer nails were bent over on the inside of the wall and hammered flat.

Prior to the fixing of the wall planks, two additional wooden planks were cut to fit the gap between the rails and were nailed to the posts.
 

 

Two pallet planks were screwed to the upper faces of the north and south walls so as to form the other two sides of the structure. Narrower planks of the same length were screwed to the lower edges of the walls, thus forming the rectangular faces of the East and West aspect.

  

Doors were made to fit these faces and were attached.

In the next post, I  continue, with the construction of the roof and the fitting out and finishing of the Insect Hotel the link is here.

Thanks for dropping by and if you have enjoyed this post please share and feel free to comment, ask questions or relate your own experience of the de-uglification of utility boxes.

All the best from sunny Normandie, Andy 

© Andy Colley 2014

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Home-made shadow box or memory box for Box Assemblage Art

Box Assemblage in its original expression is an artistic grouping of two and/or three dimensional collage made up of found objects placed within the confines of a box.  Often the box and its objects contain a specific narrative, pay homage to an idea or person, or pictorially represent a memory.  The most famous of the Box Assemblage artists was the New Yorker, Joseph Cornell (1903-1972), who created 'worlds within boxes', initially just to entertain both himself and his brother. Using pallet wood and discarded window glass to create the box within which to assemble the objects, seemed to us a great way to continue the theme of reuse, repurposing and recuperation, which lies at the very heart of the genre.

This like many of our projects is a joint adventure in which Sue and I pool our resources, this time to create an assemblage box for a gift. We've made several of these for our own house too, in particular the alternative to the bathroom cabinet  and the rather whimsical triptych on our rural seaside life.

We store up ideas in cardboard boxes, for use later - usually in Winter, when we actually live in the house rather than the garden and/or workshops! Below is an idea with the working title Our Bird Box, which will feature some of Sue's collection of cock's eggs and moulted feathers she has collected over the years.

If you are interested in the roots of Box Assemblage and the life and work of Joseph Cornell there is a great documentary Worlds in a Box narrated by the late Tony Curtis, himself an aficionado and artist of the genre.  You can find it on Youtube.

A word about using old glass

In our box design we incorporated glass from windows we source from a local joiner. Much of this collection has been used to glaze our house and make greenhouses. In the older windows, the glass contains imperfections of manufacture, ripples and bubbles, features which only add to its appeal for use in artistic projects. This does however, make it more difficult to cut, so in the true spirit of Box Assemblage, the size of the glass dictates the size of the box and thus creates the restrictions of the 'world' in which to assemble the found objects. Assemblages are often on-going projects, so starting with the glass and then slowly building up a collection can make for an organic process and a very satisfying final effect. Similarly, we incorporated a hinged lid, which could allow for opening and adding to the project.

Preparation of the planks

Select planks of the same thickness, which are the best looking and the least damaged.  For the back of the box we used some tongue and groove, which had been thrown out at one of our neighbouring DIY stores but pallet wood would be fine. Some of the pallet wood I had selected for its appearance was warped, which is quite a common occurrence with pallets.

I started by planing the upper and lower faces of the pallet wood plank. Once I had the smooth planed face of the wood, I could then proceed to deal with the warped edges.

I attached a straight edge to the planks and ran them through my home-made router table. The straight edge ran along a guide after which I could then remove the straight edge, turn the plank over and use the new straight edge of the plank against the guide to repeat the process on the other edge.

Construction of the lid

I removed the glass from the window and cleaned the putty from the edges with a sharp knife.

On measuring the glass thickness, I found that my circular saw would cut a groove of adequate width to fit. I then cut the groove in two of the planed planks and then cut strips from them to make framing material.

 
The sawn edge of the grooved strips was 'cleaned' using the router.

The strips were cut to length to fit the glass and I decided to have mitred (picture frame) corners, so I used my home-made hand sander to tidy up the cut ends.

The frame was glued together around the glass and I used a frame clamp to hold everything together whilst it dried.

Assembling the box and the box assemblage

The walls were assembled using butt joints, glued and nailed. The rear face of tongue and groove was stapled in place thus reinforcing and stiffening the structure.

For the box assemblage we used found objects, plus I fabricated certain others from scrap metal, pallet and fruit-crate wood and bamboo and Sue also made items in modelling clay, which she painted with ecological paints and water colours. The assemblage was then first planned and then finally glued with hot melt onto the back wall of the box, which had firstly been lined with selected papers and sheet music. The whole idea was to  create an amusing, eclectic composition with a dash of surrealism.

As you will no doubt have guessed the box was made for someone who is a hunter-gatherer and who has also been an artisan baker with a prize recipe for a traditional  regional dish. He is also a fellow devotee of pallet repurposing!

I fitted two recuperated hinges and a catch fashioned from a piece of wood and the box was ready for its lid.







 


And now, if you'd like to, sit back and watch the film:

Thanks for dropping by and feel free to comment and/or share this article. Hope to see you next time. Cheers, Andy

© Andy Colley 2014

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