Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

I like the idea of using car lift jack. never thought of it. hope to be able to work longer with it's help. I usually get tired fast.

I would love to hear how well a car jack works for you for pallet breakdowns. From the video, it looked like most boards were splitting and cracking at the ends using that car jack. That's the same problem I have with using my pallet buster bar on most pallets.

I had high hopes for my pallet buster bar, but I maybe only use it on one of those "perfect" 1 in 10 pallets that I find. For the other 9 pallets, I use a circular saw and cut off the planks rather than splitting the wood.

If I need the full length of a pallet plank, I use a reciprocating saw with a demolition blade to cut off the nails, then punch out the nail heads if I need the board de-nailed.

But I am open to other methods and means of pallet breakdowns. I have found knowing various methods has allowed me to save more usable wood. After breaking down many pallets, I have a pretty good feel for which method will work best with the pallet on hand for breakdown.

 

[gtaus]

It's starting to get pretty cold here in northern Minnesota. Got down to 25F last night and this afternoon still not above freezing yet. I have been cleaning out my garage, moving lots of my processed pallet wood to storage outside for the winter. I have to make room for my cars in the garage for the winter.

Already spent over an hour this morning moving pallet wood into winter storage, and probably have another couple of hours left to go. I had a lot more pallet wood to move than I thought. Well, that, and I don't work as fast in the cold.

Of course, as I am moving the wood, I'm thinking about new projects that I would like to do next spring. I don't know if I will make many projects in the garage this winter, but I did get the garage floor heat fixed last year so I can work on projects this winter if I want. That is nice having heat in the garage again.

I have been watching a number of YouTube videos looking for future pallet projects. If I find something new, or interesting to me, I'll post it here. Other than that, I will be mostly in hibernation for the winter, at least in terms of building stuff. Hope some of you guys in warmer climates can post some inspirational photos of your projects. I always enjoy hearing what other people are doing. Thanks.

 

[chickengr]

here is opposite. too hot and dry to work outside. no rain for months.

 

[gtaus]

Updated Review of Split Leather Work Gloves

One of my favorite gloves, in the past, has been the split leather work gloves which were always of decent quality at an affordable price. They are sold in many stores. I use them all the time when working with pallet wood. The leather protects my hands from nasty splinters which are so easy to get with pallet wood. I always recommend wearing a good pair of leather gloves when working with pallets. Those cotton knit gloves Dear Wife uses for gardening won't prevent you from getting bad splinters from the pallet wood.

I bought a few 6-packs of these gloves at Menards, on sale, last year and paid around $1.00 per pair. I thought that was a great deal. Unfortunately, it was not.

The quality of those work gloves has really gone downhill. Almost half the gloves had rips and/or tears in the glove as I pulled it out of the package. I had never seen that before. Some of the gloves had leather so thin that you could see light through it. Even the gloves that were not damaged as I took them out of the package only lasted a few weeks whereas before I was getting months and months of use out of them.

It's possible I just got a bad batch. But I find it hard to believe that gloves with rips and tears in them before being used make it into those 6-packs. Seems like they knew to hide those quality rejects into the multi packs where you cannot try them out until you open the package.

I don't mind having to replace my gloves after they have provided good service for a few months, but when they are no good when you take them out of the package, that is really disappointing. At least I have been able to mix and match a good left glove from one pair with a good right glove on another pair. But you should not have to do that.

Just wondering what others are using for inexpensive work gloves, as I will be looking for other options. I do have some higher quality leather gloves, but they also cost a whole lot more. I save them for more serious work. In the past, these inexpensive split leather gloves were the best choice for most of the work I do. I am just really disappointed in the quality of the gloves that I purchased in those 6-packs.

 

[Molpet]

Updated Review of Split Leather Work Gloves

One of my favorite gloves, in the past, has been the split leather work gloves which were always of decent quality at an affordable price. They are sold in many stores. I use them all the time when working with pallet wood. The leather protects my hands from nasty splinters which are so easy to get with pallet wood. I always recommend wearing a good pair of leather gloves when working with pallets. Those cotton knit gloves Dear Wife uses for gardening won't prevent you from getting bad splinters from the pallet wood.

View attachment 3984325

I bought a few 6-packs of these gloves at Menards, on sale, last year and paid around $1.00 per pair. I thought that was a great deal. Unfortunately, it was not.

The quality of those work gloves has really gone downhill. Almost half the gloves had rips and/or tears in the glove as I pulled it out of the package. I had never seen that before. Some of the gloves had leather so thin that you could see light through it. Even the gloves that were not damaged as I took them out of the package only lasted a few weeks whereas before I was getting months and months of use out of them.

It's possible I just got a bad batch. But I find it hard to believe that gloves with rips and tears in them before being used make it into those 6-packs. Seems like they knew to hide those quality rejects into the multi packs where you cannot try them out until you open the package.

I don't mind having to replace my gloves after they have provided good service for a few months, but when they are no good when you take them out of the package, that is really disappointing. At least I have been able to mix and match a good left glove from one pair with a good right glove on another pair. But you should not have to do that.

Just wondering what others are using for inexpensive work gloves, as I will be looking for other options. I do have some higher quality leather gloves, but they also cost a whole lot more. I save them for more serious work. In the past, these inexpensive split leather gloves were the best choice for most of the work I do. I am just really disappointed in the quality of the gloves that I purchased in those 6-packs.

I have old Wells Lamont (I think) that looks like those.
I bought a bunch before I decided to retire in 2012

 

[chickengr]

Updated Review of Split Leather Work Gloves

One of my favorite gloves, in the past, has been the split leather work gloves which were always of decent quality at an affordable price. They are sold in many stores. I use them all the time when working with pallet wood. The leather protects my hands from nasty splinters which are so easy to get with pallet wood. I always recommend wearing a good pair of leather gloves when working with pallets. Those cotton knit gloves Dear Wife uses for gardening won't prevent you from getting bad splinters from the pallet wood.

View attachment 3984325

I bought a few 6-packs of these gloves at Menards, on sale, last year and paid around $1.00 per pair. I thought that was a great deal. Unfortunately, it was not.

The quality of those work gloves has really gone downhill. Almost half the gloves had rips and/or tears in the glove as I pulled it out of the package. I had never seen that before. Some of the gloves had leather so thin that you could see light through it. Even the gloves that were not damaged as I took them out of the package only lasted a few weeks whereas before I was getting months and months of use out of them.

It's possible I just got a bad batch. But I find it hard to believe that gloves with rips and tears in them before being used make it into those 6-packs. Seems like they knew to hide those quality rejects into the multi packs where you cannot try them out until you open the package.

I don't mind having to replace my gloves after they have provided good service for a few months, but when they are no good when you take them out of the package, that is really disappointing. At least I have been able to mix and match a good left glove from one pair with a good right glove on another pair. But you should not have to do that.

Just wondering what others are using for inexpensive work gloves, as I will be looking for other options. I do have some higher quality leather gloves, but they also cost a whole lot more. I save them for more serious work. In the past, these inexpensive split leather gloves were the best choice for most of the work I do. I am just really disappointed in the quality of the gloves that I purchased in those 6-packs.

the same here: price up and quality down.

 

[Sally PB]

the same here: price up and quality down.

Yup.
Shrink-flation and skimp-flation. Two words I wish I didn't know.

 

[gtaus]

Thanks for the responses. I'm not complaining just for the sake of complaining, I am actually trying to find a solution for my work gloves going forward. I'm an old guy, but in the past, one pair of those split leather gloves would last me pretty much all summer and into the winter. Believe it or not, I went through 6 pair of gloves this summer, mostly because they already had rips and tears in the gloves as I removed them from the 6-pack. It is certainly not that I am working harder these days compared to prior years. It sure is disappointing.

Those split leather gloves are still my favorite general purpose work glove - at least when the quality is decent. I might have to purchase them in the single pairs where I can try them out in the store and make sure they don't have any rips, tears, or thin leather. Buying them in those 6-packs ended up being a big disappointment.

I was able to sew, by hand, a few gloves where the stitching came out around the fingers. I know nothing about sewing, but even I could tell that the quality of the stitches was terrible. I got a few weeks more out of those gloves I resewed, but there is nothing you can do if the leather itself is paper thin.

Dear Wife has an electric sewing machine, but I heard that you need a heavy-duty sewing machine for things like leather gloves. Trying to sew those gloves with her machine would probably just break it. I don't want to have to buy her another sewing machine because I tried to resew a $2.00 pair of gloves!

I have saved all those damaged gloves in a tote. Maybe someday I'll find a way to reuse parts that are good on one glove to repair another glove. I really don't care if I end up with Frankenstein gloves, as long as they work well and protect my hands. I mean, half of those gloves have never been used because they had rips or tears in the fingers, for example, but maybe the rest of the glove was good.

 

[gtaus]

On a more positive note, I was able to finish cleaning out my garage this past week. I moved a lot of pallet wood outside to a storage rack and put a tarp over it. It filled up a 4X4X4 foot storage cube. That's a lot of ready to use, de-nailed, pallet wood. Next year I will be able to pull lots of processed pallet wood off that rack before I ever have to breakdown any new pallets.

I also had a lot of pallet planks cut down to 16 inches in length. I use them to make the raised beds. I filled another 5 big plastic garbage cans with lids with those pre-cut slats. They all got put under some trees in the backyard where they are out of sight. Perfect for storage.

Anyways, I got the second car in the garage a couple days ago. Dear Wife is so happy that we can park both cars in the garage for the winter. That's actually a big deal for those of us that live in northern Minnesota. We are expected to get our first snow next Monday. So, it looks like I beat the snow by over one week this year!

Last winter, I got my garage floor heat fixed. So, if the weather is nice for a period of time this winter, I could back out the car and set up my shop for pallet projects. Just small stuff. But at least that is now an option. I wanted to make a bunch of bird houses last year, but it never got to the top of my to-do list. Maybe this winter?

I'm thinking something like this...

 

[fuzzi]

On a more positive note, I was able to finish cleaning out my garage this past week. I moved a lot of pallet wood outside to a storage rack and put a tarp over it. It filled up a 4X4X4 foot storage cube. That's a lot of ready to use, de-nailed, pallet wood. Next year I will be able to pull lots of processed pallet wood off that rack before I ever have to breakdown any new pallets.

I also had a lot of pallet planks cut down to 16 inches in length. I use them to make the raised beds. I filled another 5 big plastic garbage cans with lids with those pre-cut slats. They all got put under some trees in the backyard where they are out of sight. Perfect for storage.

Anyways, I got the second car in the garage a couple days ago. Dear Wife is so happy that we can park both cars in the garage for the winter. That's actually a big deal for those of us that live in northern Minnesota. We are expected to get our first snow next Monday. So, it looks like I beat the snow by over one week this year!

Last winter, I got my garage floor heat fixed. So, if the weather is nice for a period of time this winter, I could back out the car and set up my shop for pallet projects. Just small stuff. But at least that is now an option. I wanted to make a bunch of bird houses last year, but it never got to the top of my to-do list. Maybe this winter?

I'm thinking something like this...

View attachment 3985320

Cut a square out of an aluminum soda can and then trace & cut a hole in the middle that matches the bird house opening. Attach to outside of the opening. It helps to keep bigger birds from enlarging the hole and evicting the chicks inside.

Sort of like this