Showing posts with label untreated pallet wood. Show all posts
Showing posts with label untreated pallet wood. Show all posts

DIY Sack Truck Hand Trolley for 1 dollar/euro/pound - Repurposed Pallet Wood.

Vested Interest - Snowman and co trade up to a hand trolley.

How to make a medium duty sack truck from repurposed materials, pallet wood, old (lawn mower) wheels, screws and brackets, total cost of materials:coach bolts, screws and a little glue $1. 






Our old wheelbarrow pictured above has done sterling service. It's metal tray wore out years ago but I relined it with pallet wood and it's still going strong. Every now and then however, it would be useful to have a sack truck for moving heavy items and in particular because the wheelbarrow is often in use elsewhere in the garden.







Making the back rails and shaping the handles





 
To make the handles/back of the truck, select a suitable length of pallet wood timber 100mm x 50mm (4x2). We used one measuring 120cm (just under 4ft).









Cut in half to produce the two pieces.








Sketch an outline of the handle profile you would like.









Cut outside curve to shape and make vertical saw cuts to the line of the inside curve. 








This will allow for the easy removal of surplus wood with a chisel. However, if you have one, the profile can be cut straight out with a band saw.    






After using the saw to reduce the handle width so that it fits better in the palm of the hand, the final shaping is done with the spokeshave.   








Making and fitting the forks 







Cut the forks from a piece of pallet timber of 50mm x 50mm (2x2). I cut these with a circular saw and tapered them, so they were thickest where they were to join the back rails.







Cut the forks to length. I made mine 350mm long (14"). I sized to the fruit crate dimension because this is what I use for stocking my fire wood.





Using a sheet of plywood approx 13mm (½"), recuperated from a low-grade pallet, cut a reinforcing 'plate'. Use the rail and fork as a pattern to mark the shape of the plate.
Alternatively, you can use steel angle plates to act as the reinforcement. You could possibly also repurpose shelf brackets to do the job.   







Drill clearance holes in the plates and also through the back rail.











 
Screw backrail to fork to make sides. Just ensure that the outside angle is at 90°.

  










Glue and screw plates to truck sides. I use a waterproof PVA glue.










I made sure that the plates were on what was to become the inside face of each side.












The truck is now beginning to take shape.



   


Making and assembling the back and base panels

 


 


We are now ready to cut and assemble the three plywood panels, which form the back and base. These come from the same piece of plywood as the corner plates.









Drill screw-clearance holes in the corners of each panel.













Position, glue.....











and screw into place.




 



Fitting the Wheels






The recuperated lawnmower wheels had already been used in a small trolley to transport the roof panels for the hen house. I had recuperated some steel angle brackets from a rather ugly piece of furniture which had outlived its usefulness. 






I only needed to drill an additional hole, the diameter of the wheel mounting shaft, in the side face of each bracket. 







The wheels were attached to the brackets which were then held in place on the truck with G-clamps. This was so that the wheel positions could be checked before the bolt holes were drilled. Just check that the truck can pivot easily on the wheels when the trolley is tipped as when in use.




Remove the wheels so as to allow through holes to be drilled for the mounting bolts. Two bolts in each bracket were enough for load bearing.......






 



and a screw in the third bracket hole resisted any twisting movement but a third bolt could have been used.
I noticed that any wide load could scrape against the wheels - longer wheel brackets would have prevented this. These brackets not being available, I screwed two spacing timbers to the trolley face so that any load would be held clear.



 

Testing, Testing..........




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


Until next time.

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

DIY Pallet Wood Hen House Chicken Coop Part 4 - Assembly contnued and Finishings

Natural Finish - A piece of buddleia branch trimmed to make way for the Hen House is used to fashion its doorknob.

It's day three of the Assembly of the new Hen House. The chicks have spent their first night in their new home. It's bigger and roomier than their old one, never again will I design or make a hen house which doesn't have space for us to stand upright! I also found that putting a door in both back and front makes for ease of cleaning and is a good way of removing perches and keeping the house aired in hot weather. The house is sited on the far side of the garden and is in the angle of the back wall of a neighbouring longère and the North bocage (raised hedge). In the Winter it receives the sun quite early in the morning, when the rest of the garden is in the shadow of the house, which runs the entire length of the garden, some 50 metres (164 feet). It's  a regular suntrap in the Summer, which is why the fig tree does so well there and the hens, sybarites through and through, love it.





 



Breakfast in front of the New Hen House.  






Raising the Roof










We start the day by putting the gable ends in place. These are temporarily held in position with diagonal supports to the walls, which will be removed once the ridge purlin is in place.










 

Using a straight edge ensures that the wall and gable end are in line so that the ridge purlin brace may be fitted.






The House is now beginning to take shape with both the gable ends in place. We are now ready to fit the ridge purlin.   









The ridge purlin is measured and cut to length once the gable ends are in place.  










The ridge purlin is screwed to the inside face of the gable end apex. Screw holes are drilled through the gable end frame prior to fitting the purlin in place.




Once the purlin is in place, the braces can be fitted to each end of the Hen House. These braces are designed to take the roof load off the screws securing the purlin to the gable end. The roof load is thus borne by the side walls and floor. 





Once the ridge purlin and brace have been screwed together, the temporary diagonal supports may be removed.








 


Furring strips are now fitted to the ridge purlin. 









The roof is now ready for the panels to be fitted.





The panels are screwed to the walls and gable ends from the inside and from the outside to attach the ridge purlin.
  









The most expensive part of the Hen House, a good quality tarpaulin, can now  be fitted.










The surplus material is trimmed off and battens cut from pallet wood are used to fix the tarpaulin to the underside of the roof panels.









The open sides of the pallet base are sealed with planking, nailed to the wooden blocks.










The decoration with découpage is made from paper napkins.







The building inspector calls to assess the job. He's a white-laced buff crested and bearded Polish, one of three brothers who are joint heads of this house.







If you want to see our Polish chickens in action:


There is another post here, which shows how I used butt joints to construct the roof panels of pallet wood too. This makes the house even cheaper for those of you who don't have left-over or recuperated tongue & groove cladding.

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

DIY Pallet Wood Hen House Chicken Coop Part 3 - Assembly.

The little touches that count and just give the Hen House a feel of home.

It's day two and the Chicks have still to try out their new home. Now the foundations are down I'm hoping all will go well. The big question you may be asking is how do I know all my workshop fabricated kit will fit together? Quite simply because whilst it was pouring down with rain outside and there was no chance of erecting it, I did this....


Set the whole thing up in the Kitchen! It's something I did before, though not indoors, when I made the roof structure for the Tiny House in the Garden. It's a really good idea if you can just do a trial run fitting a project together somewhere you can easily get all round access  rather than waiting until the project is in situ.











It also means I can check the alignment of bolt holes in the corners and mark them up for ease of assembly. After all, who knows how long the dry spell of weather will last.














The pallets are laid onto the prepared foundation blocks. Providing they are standard pallets, all four should be at the same height.










The rear wall and one section of the side wall are assembled to make a self-supporting structure, to which the other walls may be attached.










Andy's Handy Handling Hint

 









To get the roof panels up through the forest garden without causing damage to trees and bushes and for ease of manoeuvre. I made this simple pallet wood bogey. I used wheels recuperated from an old lawn mower.







It also means that the project can be handled by a person working on their own.












As the night comes down, two roof sections form a temporary cover, secure enough to allow the hens to spend their first night in their new home.






The time was ripe to build this new house because this year Sue has launched us into Cochin Pekins (twelve new babies in all) and seven of them have just been left by their Mother so they are ready to enter a group. As chicks with a mother hen, they have had the right to pass throughout the garden but left alone they need to be attached to a house so as to establish territorial rights. A brand new house, which is new for the whole group makes it much easier for the established flock to accept the chicks because territorial possessions such as the house and perches have changed. If you want to see the new chicks in action:



The next part of the assembly is quite involved so needs a post to itself to complete and it can be found here

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