Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[fuzzi]

Tool Alert!

I picked up a nice little 48-piece project kit of screw bits, drill bits, and multitool blades at Home Depot today. It comes with a nice plastic case to keep everything organized. It is one of those value kits that claims over $90.00 of stuff if you purchased them separately. These kits were on sale at Christmas for $20.00, but are now on clearance for $10.00. It has basically all the accessories I use on my pallet projects, which I use and wear out, so I bought this kit to refresh my supply of accessories.

The screwdriver bits are impact driver rated. So, that was a nice bonus on a kit at this price. What really caught my eye was that there are 2 multitool blades in this kit. I checked the "normal" price of these blades and they were selling for about $7.00 each. Definitely a better deal buying them in this kit.

For the veterans out there, I was able to get my 10% military discount in addition to the clearance price. So, I only paid $9.00 plus tax for this purchase.

Bummer, we don't have a Home Depot anymore, only two Lowe's.

 

[fuzzi]

Since this thread is called "Show Me Your Pallet Projects" if anyone is interested I have a thread about my coop and run project, still in the planning stages. I'd love input and suggestions: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/fuzzis-chicken-journal.1550586/

 

[gtaus]

Bummer, we don't have a Home Depot anymore, only two Lowe's.

We don't have a Lowe's, so I cannot compare the stores. I see many YouTube videos posted on special tool sales at Lowe's, but I don't personally watch them because we don't have that store in our town.

I imagine a person can online order lots of these items. I know I online order about 1/4 of my Home Depot purchases because they don't carry that item in our local store. Of course, the advantage to having a store locally is that I can have items shipped for free to the store and returns are also easy at the store. I think you have to have a minimum order of about $50 to get free home shipping on most items. But it depends on the sales promo they having going on at the time. I recently got a $35.00 purchase from Home Depot online shipped free to my home. Saved me the trouble driving into town.

 

[gtaus]

Since this thread is called "Show Me Your Pallet Projects" if anyone is interested I have a thread about my coop and run project, still in the planning stages. I'd love input and suggestions: https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/fuzzis-chicken-journal.1550586/

Thanks for the link. I added a number of comments to your thread that I hope might be helpful. I know this thread is getting long, but it has lots of great suggestions on pallet wood builds and, IIRC, there are some nice pictures of pallet wood chicken coops somewhere in here.

If not, here is a picture of a simple design....

Or, check out this chicken condo complex...

I gather from your thread that you do not want to build your own coop. But it's still fun to look at pallet wood coops and what other people have built.

Thanks for stopping by and for the link to your thread. Hope you get more suggestions for your new setup. Good luck.

 

[fuzzi]

I'll probably do something like that, or this.

 

[gtaus]

I'll probably do something like that, or this.

Chickens don't need a fancy coop. They just need a safe place out of the wind and rain, or snow where I live. If you end up scoring some free pallets and making a coop for them, I'm sure they will love it.

Best thing about using free pallet wood is that you can always modify it later if you want, or just build something more suited for your needs. You really don't have much money invested in the project using free pallet wood. On the other hand, those pre-fab chicken coops can cost a fortune, and the one's I am familiar with would only be good for 3-4 chickens max.

Anyway, good luck on building your coop and run.

 

[Knobby]

Best thing about using free pallet wood is that you can always modify it later if you want, or just build something more suited for your needs. You really don't have much money invested in the project using free pallet wood. On the other hand, those pre-fab chicken coops can cost a fortune, and the one's I am familiar with would only be good for 3-4 chickens max.

You hit the nail right on the head there gtaus! I don't feel too bad about having to tear down and/or modify something that I didn't have much invested in...other than time. I now know that my current coop, that I built using pallet woods, could use expansion and I plan on tearing down one wall and adding more space.

 

[gtaus]

You hit the nail right on the head there gtaus! I don't feel too bad about having to tear down and/or modify something that I didn't have much invested in...other than time. I now know that my current coop, that I built using pallet woods, could use expansion and I plan on tearing down one wall and adding more space.

Glad to know I'm not the only one that feels that way. I enjoy building stuff, so I guess it's not a big deal for me to build something and then discover I should have, or could have, done it differently. Using free pallet wood or reclaimed wood gives me more freedom to experiment without breaking the bank.

 

[gtaus]

Project idea: Simple folding (and interlocking) sawhorses made out of pallet and scrap wood!

OK, you can never have too many sawhorses. This guy made some sawhorses out of pallet wood and scrap wood which caught my eye in the title. When I watched the YouTube video, he offers at least 3 interesting ideas I think were worth posting on this thread.

1) He shares a tip on removing nails from the pallet wood which might make your pallet breakdowns easier. Worth checking out the video for that nice tip alone.

2) Shows you how to make folding sawhorses from pallet wood.

3) Made the sawhorses so they can interlock, meaning you can stack one inside the other and bring the tops close together when you only need a smaller work area. That is something I have often needed and his system works while keeping the sawhorse tops even/square with each other. None of my store-bought sawhorses can do that!

Here is a link to the video, less than 10 minutes long, and I have a few afterthoughts on his build....

Truth be told, I have about 5 sets of sawhorses already. So many, in fact, that I have some just stored outside in the snow. My oldest sawhorses had fixed legs and cannot be folded to take up less space in the shop/garage. So, they sit outside because they take up so much space.

This guy really went all out with milling (cutting and planning his pallet wood boards to perfection). He mentions in the video that you don't really need to do those steps, but he wanted to practice his woodworking skills. If I make these sawhorses. they will be cut to length and width for consistency, but that's all. I personally would not spend any time with the extra milling effort for a pair of sawhorses. But that's me.

The other thing that is not needed is manually cutting out half-lap joints for the bottom support piece. I think the half-lap joint makes his project better, but you can easily just attach the bottom support with screws and not mess around with the half-lap joints at all.

If you wanted to make half-lap joints, there are much more efficient/easier methods, such as running your circular saw successively over the width of the joint, at the correct depth, and then knocking out the remaining slices. Or, you could use a table saw with a stop block rig and make successive cuts to dado out that half-lap joint. He mentions in his video that he could have used his band saw but that would have been "cheating." It's not cheating in my shop!

Well, he wanted to use a hammer and chisel to show off his woodworking skills, but I am all for getting the job done with whatever system works best for me.

The main advantage I see to his half-lap joints is that the folding sawhorse will fold up just a little bit flatter. I'll let you decide if all that extra work is worth it.

Well, the best thing for me was how he made the second sawhorse the same width on top, keeping everything square/even, but the support legs on the second sawhorse are narrower, so the sawhorses can interlock and be brought in tight together. None of my store-bought sawhorses have this feature. So, I thought this video was worth posting just for that concept alone!

Hope you find some value in his ideas. I know I did.

 

[gtaus]

Scrap Wood Idea - Making Square Paper Seedling Pots - Quick, Easy, and Biodegradable

I'm currently making seedling pots out of all kinds of materials, like empty toilet paper and paper towel rolls. I have some plastic containers that I might be drilling holes in to see if I can make some air-pruning seedling pots out of them. Just experimenting with anything I have around the house and shop that might be good for planting seeds.

Tangentially connected to Pallet Wood Projects, this following video uses a couple scraps of wood to make a form/jig used to fold the paper pots. It's kind of a two-fer in that it's another pallet/scrap wood project plus you can make square paper pots for early planting of seeds. Since this thread originally spun off the gardening thread, I hope someone here might find this video useful. Here it is...