Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

Sale on Black & Decker Workmate 125 at Menards - Final Price $9.99!

Today, I got an email notice that Menards is having a sale on the Black & Decker Workmate 125. Final price after rebate is $9.99. That's a pretty good deal.

I already have 3 of these folding type workbenches. I have used them for years. They hold up to 350 lbs, so it's not a heavy-duty workstation. But you can really do a lot of things with them just the same. It's like a lightweight sawhorse with built-in clamp.

One nice thing I have always liked about these Black & Decker folding workstations is that they only weight about 15 lbs and they fold up pretty flat to hang on some hooks.

I made a big to do about the Harbor Freight "Jawhorse" clamping workstation I recently bought for $99.99 on sale. It's really nice, but they normally sell for $149.99 and maybe that's a bit more than some people want to invest.

I'm just passing along this info in case someone is interested in these types of portable workstations. Later....

 

[fuzzi]

Sale on Black & Decker Workmate 125 at Menards - Final Price $9.99!

Today, I got an email notice that Menards is having a sale on the Black & Decker Workmate 125. Final price after rebate is $9.99. That's a pretty good deal.

I already have 3 of these folding type workbenches. I have used them for years. They hold up to 350 lbs, so it's not a heavy-duty workstation. But you can really do a lot of things with them just the same. It's like a lightweight sawhorse with built-in clamp.

One nice thing I have always liked about these Black & Decker folding workstations is that they only weight about 15 lbs and they fold up pretty flat to hang on some hooks.

I made a big to do about the Harbor Freight "Jawhorse" clamping workstation I recently bought for $99.99 on sale. It's really nice, but they normally sell for $149.99 and maybe that's a bit more than some people want to invest.

I'm just passing along this info in case someone is interested in these types of portable workstations. Later....

I like my folding workbench, but I got it at Aldi's, it's not a Black and Decker.

 

[gtaus]

I like my folding workbench, but I got it at Aldi's, it's not a Black and Decker.

There are a number of brands of folding workbenches. They are more or less the same in operation, but built to different standards for lightweight, medium, and heavy-duty use.

FWIW, I stopped into Menards this afternoon to check out the Black & Decker folding workbenches on sale, and they were all sold out.

Sounds like somebody came in and bought them all up. Must have been a better deal than I thought. I guess I don't have anything to complain about because it's first come first purchased, but sometimes I wish the stores would place a limit on how many of those special purchase items you can buy. The salesman at Menards told me that lots of people wanted to buy one of those folding workbenches, but some guy came in a bought them all up.

Like I said, I already have 3 of those type of folding workbenches, so I did not need another one. But it's too bad that the store will let one person buy out their entire stock and nobody else gets a chance at the good deal. Chances are, it could be someone buying them up cheap and reselling them at a higher price online. Lots of that stuff going on these days.

 

[fuzzi]

There are a number of brands of folding workbenches. They are more or less the same in operation, but built to different standards for lightweight, medium, and heavy-duty use.

FWIW, I stopped into Menards this afternoon to check out the Black & Decker folding workbenches on sale, and they were all sold out.

Sounds like somebody came in and bought them all up. Must have been a better deal than I thought. I guess I don't have anything to complain about because it's first come first purchased, but sometimes I wish the stores would place a limit on how many of those special purchase items you can buy. The salesman at Menards told me that lots of people wanted to buy one of those folding workbenches, but some guy came in a bought them all up.

Like I said, I already have 3 of those type of folding workbenches, so I did not need another one. But it's too bad that the store will let one person buy out their entire stock and nobody else gets a chance at the good deal. Chances are, it could be someone buying them up cheap and reselling them at a higher price online. Lots of that stuff going on these days.

People buy everything and then sell them online, with a mark-up of course. I read how some people were buying up all the chicks at TSC.

It might be legal, but it's inconsiderate of others.

 

[gtaus]

New YouTube video on mini raised bed made from one pallet.

Here is an interesting YouTube video latest release on making a mini raised bed out of one pallet by James Prigioni who has a gardening related YouTube channel that I have enjoyed for a number of years.

One of the things I really like about his design is that he has the corner supports and the mid-length supports for the wood on the outside of the framing. That way, when you fill the raised bed with soil, it pushes the sidewall and end piece wood into the framing support. I have seen too many wooden raised bed videos that have the framing on the inside of the raised beds, and the sidewall and end piece wood tacked on to the outside. After a few years, the constant pressure of the raised bed soils pushes out the outside wood pieces and you have a blowout. That's why I think the better design is to have the framing on the outside for the raised beds.

I make my pallet wood raised beds a little differently, but the concept of having the strong framing on the outside is something I discovered is a real benefit years ago. For example, here is one of my pallet wood raised beds under construction, not yet filled with hügelkultur wood and soil.

There are a couple of concepts that I would like to point out in this design.

First of all, like I mentioned, you can see that my 2X4 framing is on the outside of the raised bed. The pallet wood planks are attached inside the frame. That way, when the raised bed is filled with soil, the pressure of the heavy soil pushes the pallet wood against the sturdy 2X4 frame. If you have the pallet planks on the outside of the 2X4 frame, then you risk a blowout after a few years from the constant pressure of the soil in the raised bed.

The second advantage of this particular design is that I am using the shorter 16-inch-long pieces of pallet wood planks, attached vertically, that I have cut off from between the pallet wood 2X4 stretchers. If you use the very fast circular saw method of pallet breakdown of cutting the pallet planks between the 2X4 stretchers, you end up with plank pieces that are usually 17-18 inches long. I cut my plank pieces down to 16 inches after that for most of my projects.

Third bonus, notice that the 2X4 framing allows you to use lots of other plank pieces that you might have laying abound that are only 13, 14 or 15 inches long. All I do is make the plank flush to the top of the raised bed. You don't need exactly 16 inches of plank to fill the frame from top to bottom, A 13 inch long plank will still sit flush on top and give you a good 1/2-inch overlap on the bottom 2X4 frame. Good enough to hold in the raised bed soil. I used up lots of shorter "scrap" plank pieces that way on one of my pallet wood raised beds.

Fourth reason, you can use pallet plank pieces of any thickness if you attach them to the inside of the frame. You don't have to have pallet planks of the same thickness on this design. You just attach them to the inside of the frame and they all automatically are flush on the outside where you see them. You don't care if the boards are different thicknesses on the inside. That will be covered up by the raised bed soil. Don't sweat the small stuff, use any thickness pallet planks and you will be good to go.

Fifth benefit - If you don't care about having the pallet planks flush with the top of the raised bed framing, you only need plank pieces that are long enough to cover the 9-inch-high void in the frame (in my 16-inch-high design). So, you can even use shorter scrap pallet plank pieces in that case. Why would you do this? Well, you might decide that you don't need the pallet plank wood to be flush with the top of the 2X4 frame because you intend to fill the raised bed to the top with soil. Or, you might want to add some top boards to the frame to sit on, which would hide any non-flush pieces of wood planks below.

Here is a picture of some pallet wood planters that use top boards for decoration...

You can see that these top boards, on a raised bed, would hide any non-flush pallet planks inside and underneath the top board.

There are lots of ways to successfully make raised beds. I hope some of these comments from my experience make sense to you. It works for me in terms of have a solid structure and it allows me to use shorter pieces of wood in the build by taking advantage of the framing system to cover up boards of not all the same length. You would never know in this design that there are lots of shorter scrap pieces used in the build.

More than happy to response to any question or comments. Later...

 

[chickengr]

happy easter!

 

[ChicksnMore]

happy easter!

Happy Easter for you too!

 

[ChicksnMore]

New YouTube video on mini raised bed made from one pallet.

Here is an interesting YouTube video latest release on making a mini raised bed out of one pallet by James Prigioni who has a gardening related YouTube channel that I have enjoyed for a number of years.

One of the things I really like about his design is that he has the corner supports and the mid-length supports for the wood on the outside of the framing. That way, when you fill the raised bed with soil, it pushes the sidewall and end piece wood into the framing support. I have seen too many wooden raised bed videos that have the framing on the inside of the raised beds, and the sidewall and end piece wood tacked on to the outside. After a few years, the constant pressure of the raised bed soils pushes out the outside wood pieces and you have a blowout. That's why I think the better design is to have the framing on the outside for the raised beds.

I make my pallet wood raised beds a little differently, but the concept of having the strong framing on the outside is something I discovered is a real benefit years ago. For example, here is one of my pallet wood raised beds under construction, not yet filled with hügelkultur wood and soil.

View attachment 3460805

There are a couple of concepts that I would like to point out in this design.

First of all, like I mentioned, you can see that my 2X4 framing is on the outside of the raised bed. The pallet wood planks are attached inside the frame. That way, when the raised bed is filled with soil, the pressure of the heavy soil pushes the pallet wood against the sturdy 2X4 frame. If you have the pallet planks on the outside of the 2X4 frame, then you risk a blowout after a few years from the constant pressure of the soil in the raised bed.

The second advantage of this particular design is that I am using the shorter 16-inch-long pieces of pallet wood planks, attached vertically, that I have cut off from between the pallet wood 2X4 stretchers. If you use the very fast circular saw method of pallet breakdown of cutting the pallet planks between the 2X4 stretchers, you end up with plank pieces that are usually 17-18 inches long. I cut my plank pieces down to 16 inches after that for most of my projects.

Third bonus, notice that the 2X4 framing allows you to use lots of other plank pieces that you might have laying abound that are only 13, 14 or 15 inches long. All I do is make the plank flush to the top of the raised bed. You don't need exactly 16 inches of plank to fill the frame from top to bottom, A 13 inch long plank will still sit flush on top and give you a good 1/2-inch overlap on the bottom 2X4 frame. Good enough to hold in the raised bed soil. I used up lots of shorter "scrap" plank pieces that way on one of my pallet wood raised beds.

Fourth reason, you can use pallet plank pieces of any thickness if you attach them to the inside of the frame. You don't have to have pallet planks of the same thickness on this design. You just attach them to the inside of the frame and they all automatically are flush on the outside where you see them. You don't care if the boards are different thicknesses on the inside. That will be covered up by the raised bed soil. Don't sweat the small stuff, use any thickness pallet planks and you will be good to go.

Fifth benefit - If you don't care about having the pallet planks flush with the top of the raised bed framing, you only need plank pieces that are long enough to cover the 9-inch-high void in the frame (in my 16-inch-high design). So, you can even use shorter scrap pallet plank pieces in that case. Why would you do this? Well, you might decide that you don't need the pallet plank wood to be flush with the top of the 2X4 frame because you intend to fill the raised bed to the top with soil. Or, you might want to add some top boards to the frame to sit on, which would hide any non-flush pieces of wood planks below.

Here is a picture of some pallet wood planters that use top boards for decoration...

View attachment 3460850

You can see that these top boards, on a raised bed, would hide any non-flush pallet planks inside and underneath the top board.

There are lots of ways to successfully make raised beds. I hope some of these comments from my experience make sense to you. It works for me in terms of have a solid structure and it allows me to use shorter pieces of wood in the build by taking advantage of the framing system to cover up boards of not all the same length. You would never know in this design that there are lots of shorter scrap pieces used in the build.

More than happy to response to any question or comments. Later...

I put my braces on the inside when I built my pallet beds years ago. Yep, the sides caved outwards a few years later. Good info!

 

[gtaus]

I put my braces on the inside when I built my pallet beds years ago. Yep, the sides caved outwards a few years later. Good info!

I never gave this issue much of a thought. But I have watched many YouTube videos where the people put the framing on the inside of the raised beds, and the build looks really good. So why not?

Well, I watched one YouTube video that a young lady built a raised bed using the framing inside the bed. When done, the raised bed looked really good. However, she linked a 2 year follow up video on her raised bed build - mostly "What I did wrong" type of video. In that follow up video, she mentions specifically that the sides of her raised beds were getting blown out from the outward pressure of the raised bed soil. She should have had framing on the outside instead.

She made a number of other "rookie" building mistakes that caught up with her a few years later. IIRC, one of them was butt nailing the corner ends of the boards together and expecting them to hold for any length of time. Again, it looked good in the initial build, but it had no lasting holding strength and the corners of her raised bed were coming apart.

Her follow up video was basically about 20 minutes of telling everyone what she had done wrong and how she was going to build differently in the future. I thought it took some courage to lay it out there and show everyone all her mistakes. So, I took a few minutes to comment on her video that I think many people will appreciate her honesty and showing all her shortcomings in the build.

Although I am not a professional builder, I have been building stuff with wood for about 50 years and have learned a few things that work and many things that don't. I don't mean to put anyone down for making learning mistakes. I've had my share of mistakes, to be sure. When I watched that young lady's first video on how to make a raised bed, I found myself "yelling" at the TV not to do it that way. At the end of the first video, she had a nice-looking raised bed, but I was telling myself that it would never last very long. Sure enough, the follow up video 2 years later, proved me right and she went step by step on all the mistakes she made.

I hope some of the information I try to pass on in this thread will help someone not make those same mistakes. It's great to make projects out of free pallet wood, but sometimes a small change in design build might make the difference between something lasting 2 years with less than good building concepts or 5-6 years with the same wood using better build practices.

 

[gtaus]

Got a little pallet disassembly work done today in the garage. We hit an unexpected high of 65F today, so I opened up both garage doors and let the warm air fill the garage. Tore apart 3 pallets and de-nailed most of the boards while listening to a radio program. Getting lots of pallet wood ready for use for when the snow melts.

My chicken coop took a beating this winter. I'll have to replace a number of trim boards that rotted out. I have an egg collection panel on the outside of my chicken coop and the trim board around that has rotted out so much that the hasp pulled off yesterday. All that trim board will have to be replaced.

Fortunately, I just got a pallet with some solid 5/8 inch decking boards used for the planks. I'll cut that down to size, paint it, and replace all the rotted trim boards around the egg collection access panel. The only bad thing about the pallet wood decking planks is that they are full of nails that would take me far too long to get out. The decking boards were used, and used again by the looks of it. The old nails had been sawed off and new nails were shot into the board on the pallets. Lots and lots of embedded headless, cut off nails in that wood.

So, I'll have to cut those decking boards with my circular saw with a demolition blade in it to get through the nails if they fall on a cut line. Other than that, I'll just have to paint over everything on the board and it will look like new. Sometimes you have to consider the time it would take to remove all those nails and if it is even worth the effort considering everything will be painted over.

Normally I de-nail all my pallet wood, but I came across a pallet today that had many embedded nails in the 2X4 stretchers. They must have cut off the planks from the 2X4's, leaving the bottom half of the nail in the 2X4s, and just used those 2X4's to rebuild another pallet. The only way I know how to remove those headless nails embedded into the 2X4's is using a slide hammer nail puller. It's a lot of work....

Anyway, I have one of those slide hammer nail pullers in my other shed, somewhere, that was passed on down to me from my grandpa. When the snow melts, I'll have to see if I can find it.

Having said that, I will always try to find a use for those 2X4's with nails in them in some build where I don't have to worry about the nails I cannot easily take out. Preferably, I won't even have to cut it at all. If I have to cut any wood that might have nails in them, my plan is to scan it with my Metal Detector Wand I bought at Harbor Freight last year. It does a good job finding metal in the wood that you cannot even see.

With the metal detector wand I can scan the wood and mark the location(s) of any hidden nails and then determine if I want to cut the wood at that spot or not.

I love making pallet projects, but sometimes you can spend too much time and effort just getting out all those darned nails. If you can use the wood without having to remove all those nails, that's a better way to go on most of my projects. You certainly don't want to ruin a $30 miter saw blade cutting through some pallet or reclaimed lumber.