Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[chickengr]

Update on Using the Pallet Wood Bits and Pieces Turned Into Woodchips

Since I chipped up a 5-gallon bucket (plus another 1/3 bucket) full of pallet wood bits and pieces, I filled my chicken coop nest boxes with the fresh wood chips. What you see here is enough nest box material for about 4-6 months for me...

View attachment 3763959

I don't know if the hens like harder wood chips, or not, but they are still laying eggs in the nest boxes. In the past, I have used lots of mostly free nesting material including dried grass, leaves, pine shavings (not free), wood chips, shredded paper, and most recently shredded cardboard. It all seems to work but my favorite nesting material is the shredded cardboard.

Again, I was just experimenting with different ways to (re)use those leftover bits and pieces of pallet wood. Turning them into wood chips takes some time in my small woodchipper, so I don't think I will do that again. I did like the suggestion from @ChicksnMore of just using the pallet wood bits and pieces in planters. So, I might be dumping a few buckets full of pallet wood off cuts into the new pallet wood raised beds I built this winter when I set them up this spring as hügelkultur raised beds. That's a better use of that material then burning them in the backyard fire ring.

I avoid cardboard as they make perfect housing for mites. not sure if it is shredded.

 

[gtaus]

I used a couple of these dollies to make rolling bases for 30 gallon galvanized trash cans. Since the crosspieces are wood I could cut them and sister them to make the dimensions larger or smaller as needed, then I put a wood block at each corner to hold the barrel in place and a square board in the center for the trash can bottom to sit on. I find that if I don’t put that last piece underneath, the bottom of the barrel bows downward under the weight of 150 pounds of feed. I’ll see if I can get a good picture tomorrow.

I bet those dollies work good for that 30-gallon trash can filled with feed. At a 150 pounds full, I would not want to try lifting the trash can to move it.

I transfer my feed from the 50 pounds bags into two 5-gallon buckets, which weight 25 pounds each when full. That makes it really easy for me to pick up and move around as needed.

But you have given me a good idea that I could use. I have a bunch of older plastic rectangular trash cans that we don't use for trash anymore...

What I have been using them for is storing my pallet wood after I break down the pallets. When full, they can get pretty heavy. I think I will try putting one of those HF dollies under a trash can and see if it works/holds without any modifications. That would really be nice to make those pallet wood storage trash cans mobile.

The older I get, the more I appreciate things with wheels on them!

We used to use all those garbage cans for trash, but now I am using them mostly for storage. They are great for pallet wood. I have some filled with 2X4's, and others filled with pallet planks. At about 3 feet tall, the 4-foot-tall pallet wood 2X4's stand up perfectly in them without falling over. Same for the pallet wood planks that I am able to remove at full length.

A little diversion as to why we have so many empty garbage cans now...

Bonus Tip on Reducing Garbage/Trash for the Landfill

Dear Wife and I have almost totally eliminated all our trash being sent to the landfill! I shred almost all our paper and cardboard products and use the shreds in the chicken coop as deep bedding. That gets tossed into the chicken run every 6 months for composting. Paper used to be the bulk of our trash.

Then we put all our metal, glass, and plastics into a recycle bag for the recycle bin. Again, lots of bulk eliminated from the trash can.

Most of our kitchen scraps, leftovers, and old food that we don't want gets fed to the chickens. So, we have eliminated almost all our "wet" garbage that used to go into the trash can. Food that I cannot feed to the chickens will end up in my pallet wood compost bins.

Over a number of years, we went from about 3 bags of garbage per week to about 2 bags per month. That was really good for us because we live out in the country and don't have garbage pickup. We have to haul our trash to the town's transfer station.

About 8 months ago, I took a close look at what little we still had as trash to be sent to the landfill. There was not much in the bags at that point. But I discovered that it could all be easily burned in our backyard fire pit. So, Dear Wife and I have an agreement that only burnable stuff will be tossed into our kitchen trash can. Mostly, it's plastic food wrapping, paper towels, an empty food container that is not recyclable, etc... but not much more.

I discovered that the large checkout bags at Menards fit perfectly into our kitchen trash can....

Now I just line the kitchen trash can with a large Menards checkout bag. When full, I take it out to the fire pit, toss some junk wood from lawn clean-ups on top of the bag, and just burn everything. I have not had to go to the transfer station in town for the past 8 months! I have not needed one trash can outside for the past 8 months!

Every once in a while, we might have something like a burned-out lightbulb or empty spray can that is non-recycable and non-burnable. We just put it in a small bag and drop it off at any one of the local big box stores that have a big garbage can outside as we go in to the store to shop.

I guess that bonus tip has little to do with pallet wood projects, per se, but it's all part of my current lifestyle in reducing personal waste on one hand and making useful stuff out of pallets (and other things) that would otherwise also be sent to the landfill. I have been burning some of the pallet wood bits and pieces, and some boards if they were broken and not useable for anything. But I just finished building two more pallet wood raised beds and a number of planters, so I think all that trash pallet wood will now be used as filler in the raised beds and planters rather than burning it.

 

[gtaus]

I avoid cardboard as they make perfect housing for mites. not sure if it is shredded.

That's a good point. I don't use straw for that reason. However, most of the cardboard I have comes from food packaging boxes. It's just a heavy paper and not the double sided cardboard packing boxes with the hollow insides where a mite could live.

Having said that, I have purchased a power cutter that lets me cut cardboard packing boxes into strips that I can put through my paper shredder. But those shreds are pretty slim and i don't know if they would be hospitable to mites. I'll have to look at that closer next time I shred packing cardboard boxes.

 

[gtaus]

But you have given me a good idea that I could use. I have a bunch of older plastic rectangular trash cans that we don't use for trash anymore...

Just a quick update on that idea...

Here is a picture of the rectangular trash can(s) that I am storing some of my pallet wood in the garage along with the Harbor Freight Dollies I bought yesterday...

That trash can is too heavy and bulky for me to move around the garage by itself. So I had to drag it across the floor. But now, with that dolly underneath it, I can move the trash can full of pallet wood with a single finger!

Thanks to @avjudge for the idea of using a dolly underneath the garage can for feed storage which works great for my pallet wood storage.

FWIW, the HF Dolly is a perfect for my rectangular trash cans. No modifications required. Here is a closeup of the dolly and the trash can...

 

[gtaus]

Using Leather Gloves To Prevent Getting Pallet Wood Splinters

It's important to wear good gloves when working with pallets and pallet wood. They are full of potential splinters. Here is a picture of my old leather gloves which I retired this morning alongside my new (same brand) gloves. I got about 2 years out of those old gloves...

Check out the blown-out second finger rip on that left-handed glove. Guess which finger I got a pallet wood splinter in last night?

I bought the new gloves in a 5-pack, which saves some money up front on the cost per glove pair. Since they are all the same, I hope to maybe save some more money by keeping that old right-hand glove, which is still in good condition, and using it to replace a right-hand glove from another pair that might rip in the future. Dear Wife says I am cheap that way, but I don't mind if I reuse one good glove from each pair. All I care about is protecting my digits from those nasty splinters.

 

[chickengr]

Using Leather Gloves To Prevent Getting Pallet Wood Splinters

It's important to wear good gloves when working with pallets and pallet wood. They are full of potential splinters. Here is a picture of my old leather gloves which I retired this morning alongside my new (same brand) gloves. I got about 2 years out of those old gloves...

View attachment 3764931

Check out the blown-out second finger rip on that left-handed glove. Guess which finger I got a pallet wood splinter in last night?

I bought the new gloves in a 5-pack, which saves some money up front on the cost per glove pair. Since they are all the same, I hope to maybe save some more money by keeping that old right-hand glove, which is still in good condition, and using it to replace a right-hand glove from another pair that might rip in the future. Dear Wife says I am cheap that way, but I don't mind if I reuse one good glove from each pair. All I care about is protecting my digits from those nasty splinters.

I have always kept good gloves. sometimes I had red glove on one hand and yellow glove on the other

 

[gtaus]

YouTube Just Saved Me $50.00!

I have a 30-year-old worksite table saw with stand that I bought at Sears (remember them?) when I was fixing up my parents' house. At the time, I think I paid something like $300-$400 dollars for it. It's not the best table saw by today's standards, nor even back then, but it has been all I needed for my modest projects. I have no complaints.

Google picture of my old table saw model...

Well, I wanted to use it to rip some boards for some upcoming projects I have in mind. Last time I used the table saw I thought my blade was getting dull and should probably be replaced. I have a spare blade ready to put on the table saw.

Unfortunately, I have misplaced the 2 arbor nut wrenches that are used to change out the blade. I'm sure the table saw arbor wrenches are somewhere safe in my garage, but for the life of me I cannot find them. I spent almost 2 hours the past few days looking for those wrenches in the most likely places they should have been stored but I came up empty.

Yesterday, I went into town and talked to the local Ace Hardware that sells Craftsman products. They looked up the parts. But, as you might expect, the parts are considered obsolete and there are none in stock for replacement. The tech was able to find the correct part number for the wrenches, so I had him write that down for me so I could look online at maybe getting some used.


I thought maybe they would cost me about $10.00 for the pair because they are just some cheap metal wrenches. I found a couple sellers on eBay that had the wrenches but they both wanted over $50.00 shipped to my house. Frankly, I don't want to invest $50.00 in that old table saw because nothing - and I mean nothing - is up to today's standard measurements. That includes the blade arbor size, the saw track guides, the fence, the dado stack used, etc...

Anyways, I found a YouTube video that shows you how to replace the table saw blade if you lost your arbor nut wrenches from your 30-year-old table saw or if you bought an older used table saw and it came without the wrenches. All you need is a piece of board and a standard wrench, you don't need the custom made wrenches that originally came with the table saw.

I don't know if anyone else here needs this info but it saved me $50.00 so I will link the YouTube video here for anyone interested...

 

[Molpet]

YouTube Just Saved Me $50.00!

I have a 30-year-old worksite table saw with stand that I bought at Sears (remember them?) when I was fixing up my parents' house. At the time, I think I paid something like $300-$400 dollars for it. It's not the best table saw by today's standards, nor even back then, but it has been all I needed for my modest projects. I have no complaints.

Google picture of my old table saw model...

View attachment 3765860

Well, I wanted to use it to rip some boards for some upcoming projects I have in mind. Last time I used the table saw I thought my blade was getting dull and should probably be replaced. I have a spare blade ready to put on the table saw.

Unfortunately, I have misplaced the 2 arbor nut wrenches that are used to change out the blade. I'm sure the table saw arbor wrenches are somewhere safe in my garage, but for the life of me I cannot find them. I spent almost 2 hours the past few days looking for those wrenches in the most likely places they should have been stored but I came up empty.

Yesterday, I went into town and talked to the local Ace Hardware that sells Craftsman products. They looked up the parts. But, as you might expect, the parts are considered obsolete and there are none in stock for replacement. The tech was able to find the correct part number for the wrenches, so I had him write that down for me so I could look online at maybe getting some used.


I thought maybe they would cost me about $10.00 for the pair because they are just some cheap metal wrenches. I found a couple sellers on eBay that had the wrenches but they both wanted over $50.00 shipped to my house. Frankly, I don't want to invest $50.00 in that old table saw because nothing - and I mean nothing - is up to today's standard measurements. That includes the blade arbor size, the saw track guides, the fence, the dado stack used, etc...

View attachment 3765864

Anyways, I found a YouTube video that shows you how to replace the table saw blade if you lost your arbor nut wrenches from your 30-year-old table saw or if you bought an older used table saw and it came without the wrenches. All you need is a piece of board and a standard wrench, you don't need the custom made wrenches that originally came with the table saw.

I don't know if anyone else here needs this info but it saved me $50.00 so I will link the YouTube video here for anyone interested...

Yes this is how we did it at work. We had old but reliable stuff. Then a new boss said it wasn't safe and got new that kept breaking

 

[Smokerbill]

YouTube Just Saved Me $50.00!

I have a 30-year-old worksite table saw with stand that I bought at Sears (remember them?) when I was fixing up my parents' house. At the time, I think I paid something like $300-$400 dollars for it. It's not the best table saw by today's standards, nor even back then, but it has been all I needed for my modest projects. I have no complaints.

Google picture of my old table saw model...

View attachment 3765860

Well, I wanted to use it to rip some boards for some upcoming projects I have in mind. Last time I used the table saw I thought my blade was getting dull and should probably be replaced. I have a spare blade ready to put on the table saw.

Unfortunately, I have misplaced the 2 arbor nut wrenches that are used to change out the blade. I'm sure the table saw arbor wrenches are somewhere safe in my garage, but for the life of me I cannot find them. I spent almost 2 hours the past few days looking for those wrenches in the most likely places they should have been stored but I came up empty.

Yesterday, I went into town and talked to the local Ace Hardware that sells Craftsman products. They looked up the parts. But, as you might expect, the parts are considered obsolete and there are none in stock for replacement. The tech was able to find the correct part number for the wrenches, so I had him write that down for me so I could look online at maybe getting some used.


I thought maybe they would cost me about $10.00 for the pair because they are just some cheap metal wrenches. I found a couple sellers on eBay that had the wrenches but they both wanted over $50.00 shipped to my house. Frankly, I don't want to invest $50.00 in that old table saw because nothing - and I mean nothing - is up to today's standard measurements. That includes the blade arbor size, the saw track guides, the fence, the dado stack used, etc...

View attachment 3765864

Anyways, I found a YouTube video that shows you how to replace the table saw blade if you lost your arbor nut wrenches from your 30-year-old table saw or if you bought an older used table saw and it came without the wrenches. All you need is a piece of board and a standard wrench, you don't need the custom made wrenches that originally came with the table saw.

I don't know if anyone else here needs this info but it saved me $50.00 so I will link the YouTube video here for anyone interested...

Haha! I have the exact same table saw! I misplaced the wrench set years ago too, and remember using a standard wrench to change the blade. I've since found the wrenches.
It's a pretty good table saw for its cost.

 

[gtaus]

Yes this is how we did it at work. We had old but reliable stuff. Then a new boss said it wasn't safe and got new that kept breaking

I know that table saw is old but I don't use it very much. So, even though 30 years old, it still has plenty of life left in it.

Haha! I have the exact same table saw! I misplaced the wrench set years ago too, and remember using a standard wrench to change the blade. I've since found the wrenches.
It's a pretty good table saw for its cost.

I know I would find those arbor nut wrenches a week or two after I made a non-refundable $50.00 purchase to replace them! No doubt in my mind. Those wrenches are somewhere in the garage because I would have never thrown them away. When I finally find them, I'll say to myself "that sure was a safe place to put them!"

That table saw was pretty good for its cost. It has lasted me over 30 years. At my age, I really don't care to buy another 30-year table saw. I don't know how many more years I have of table saw use in me, but I doubt I'll be working into my mid-90's. So, I was really happy to find out I can change out the table saw blade without those custom made arbor nut wrenches using tools I already own... plus a piece of wood!