The Power of Pallets

My interest in Pallets all started when I had couple of acquaintances tell me the various ways that they had  been able to put these throw-away lumber treasures to good use.  We had also recently read an interesting book called appropriately enough "Build It!.....With Pallets" by Joe Jacobs (checked out from the Library).  From this I found that there were all kinds of things that could be built from this big box scrap lumber, including bird houses, chairs, tables, poultry houses, planters, and much much more!   These instigators kept me thinking about the various pallet stacks that we all see sitting around at the end of an inventory delivery.  Finally, I went into a local retail/hardware store that always seemed to have a mountainous pile of pallets stacked by their back door.  After checking with a couple managers and assuring them that I only wanted to grab a few here and there, I was OK'd for the occasional run!  I only picked up four pallets to start and took apart the first one with a claw hammer and flat screw driver.  The results weren't bad, but for the second one I sprung for a $2.99 pry bar...and oh what a difference!  I'm now getting 3/4 to all of the boards removed with very little to any damage, where as before it was more of a 50/50 split.  The trick is patience--you can't get in a hurry with these guys.  I don't plan on wasting ANY of the boards, busted or not.  There is at least some usable wood being taken from every single board.  Anything that is simply too damaged to be used will be thrown in the stove this next winter, as these pallets have not been sealed or painted.  I'm even salvaging as many of the pulled nails as possible, and straightening all that can be saved.  There is an entire sub-culture of folks who are out there building any number of things with this otherwise wasted and often free for the taking lumber.  All you have to do is Google "building with pallets" and then sift through the results.  Once you've done this, you may be like us and say "count me in"!!!