Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

When you have a really big piece of trunk wood to split, don't go for splitting it in half. Take a chunk off the side, where the distance you're splitting is thinner. Once you have taken the "round" out of the log, you've also take a lot of its strength, and it'll split easier.

Yes, that's what I meant when I said splitting off chunks of a large round. Of course, how much your log splitter is able to handle will depend on when you can split a round in half or when you have to split chucks off the sides.

Also, if you have a round with nasty knots in it, you often have to split off the sides first.

I don't have a wood furnace, so my split wood is only used for the backyard campfires. If I end up with a particularly difficult round to split, I'll just toss it aside and burn it later as is. I don't waste time trying to get everything perfect. But there is very few rounds that even my little 6-ton log splitter cannot handle.

I also have, and maintain, a full suite of manual log splitter tools including a number of axes, wedges, and sledgehammers. I don't use them much anymore, but sometimes I need them. These days, they really only get used to split up a big tree stump that I need to remove. Some jobs just call for brute force. Or a nice tractor with a backhoe - which I don't have.

 

[gtaus]

Just posting a quick picture of my pallet wood storage rack after splitting all the wood from a tree that was about 50 feet tall. As you can see, I still have more than half this firewood rack left to use...

I don't expect to cut down any more trees this year, but if we get a bad storm and something falls down and needs to get cut and split up, I'll have room for another 50 foot tree, and maybe more.

It's a nice, simple, pallet project and if you have split firewood to stack, you might want something like that to store your wood up off the ground. For my purposes, it is fine not being covered. But you could easily make a pallet wood roof over the rack, or just tarp it, to keep out the rain and snow.

 

[Sally PB]

you might want something like that to store your wood up off the ground.

Storing your firewood off the ground helps it to dry and to keep it dry. We burn a lot of wood, and our wood dried much better once we learned this.

 

[gtaus]

Storing your firewood off the ground helps it to dry and to keep it dry. We burn a lot of wood, and our wood dried much better once we learned this.

From my experience, any wood that has ground contact will wick up water and moisture from the soil and get pretty wet. I mean, isn't that the concept for building hügelkultur mounds and raised beds where you want that wood to act like a giant sponge?

Do you cover or tarp your burning wood? My split wood is only for campfires, so I did not care if it was covered or not. But I imagine it might make a difference if you burn wood to heat the house.

For my split wood storage rack, I could easily lay a couple of 2X4's on top of the rack and put another pallet on top of that as a roof. Might even want to make one end higher than the other so the rain/snow slides off. I would not make it removable because it's easier to get the wood if you don't have to duck inside to reach the wood in the back.

 

[Sally PB]

Do you cover or tarp your burning wood?

Oh, we have to. I really like your pallet wood bins. Now, if I could just get some pallets...

 

[gtaus]

Oh, we have to [tarp the split wood]. I really like your pallet wood bins. Now, if I could just get some pallets...

My neighbor has a wood fireplace that they use to heat their house in the fall and spring. They don't cover or tarp their wood. I always was told that you wanted your burning wood as dry as possible, or it just burns at a low output and does not heat nearly as well. Maybe it does not matter too much in a fireplace to take the chill out of the air, but if you want to heat the house, I think it would make sense to cover your wood if stored outside.

 

[Sally PB]

We have to cover the wood. Snow, rain... doesn't matter how well it's stacked. If there isn't something between the wood and the weather, it'll be too wet to burn well. As chief firestarter, I know what a PITA wet wood is.

 

[Knobby]

Oh, we have to. I really like your pallet wood bins. Now, if I could just get some pallets...

I currently have 75 pallets that you are welcome to..hehe

 

[gtaus]

I currently have 75 pallets that you are welcome to..hehe

That would be a nice stockpile of pallets. What do you do with all of them? Would love to see any pallet projects you are working on.

 

[Knobby]

That would be a nice stockpile of pallets. What do you do with all of them? Would love to see any pallet projects you are working on.

Well, so far I've used over 30 pallets to put up a perimeter fencing around all my coops to prevent several coyotes from getting anymore of my hens. I also have plans on building one big coop so I can combine all my flock under one roof. I have 75 pallets left, but have been getting more each day from work.