Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

Alternative Pallet Site Saved My Trip!

Since I had to sell my old Ford Explorer to the junkyard for scrap value, I have not been picking up pallets as much as before. That car was perfect to toss in 5 or 6 pallets each time I went to town. I can't do that with the family SUV's because I don't want to scratch or rip the back cargo area or the back seats which I would have to fold down.

Yesterday, I was at Harbor Freight picking up a free 5-gallon bucket. I noticed they had a few nice ~6-foot-long pallets outside for free pickup. They were in great shape, so I decided to hook up my utility trailer today and go back there and pick up those pallets.

Unfortunately, someone beat me to those pallets at Harbor Freight, and everything was gone, including the normal sized pallets that I would have taken in the load. That was a little disappointing, but not totally unexpected. Free pallets don't last long around here.

So, I got another free 5-gallon bucket at Harbor Freight today and then took a swing by one of my other sources of pallets to see if they had anything.

I got lucky. I was able to pick up three 6-foot-long pallets, one of which was all 2X4's including the top planks. I like those all 2X4 pallets because they are usually the easiest to take apart and save all the wood. I also picked up one 8-foot-long pallet that I tossed on top of everything. Nice full length 2X4's on that long pallet. Here is a picture of that...

When I check out pallets, I always look to see if any of them have any special hardware that I can take off and reuse. One of the 6-foot-long pallets had three 10-foot-long black cords with a metal snap at the end. Here is what they looked like...

I already have a couple ideas of how to put to good use. So that was a nice find.

Then I found another 6-foot-pallet with square head (Kreg-type) screws and large fender washers. I don't know what the pallet was used for, but here is a picture of those square head screws and fender washers...

Quick estimate is that I probably have 28 sets of those. I'm sure they will come in handy on a future project. The 2X4's on that pallet were good, but the planks were not the greatest. Anyways, I took that pallet mainly for those screws and fender washers with the 6-foot-long 2X4's as a bonus.

Finally, I was going to butcher some chickens today but got rained out. While I was loading up these long pallets into my utility trailer, I found this small 24X30 inch solid top pallet that should be perfect for a temporary butchering table...

In the end, I think I got lucky and probably got a better load of pallets than I had planned. It's good that I have a few places I can check for free pallets because you never know what might be available.