Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Sally PB]

Custom fit baskets sound like a possibility.


Part of my problem is stuff like a turkey. Or a loaf of garlic bread. Or the bucket of sour cherries I got at the orchard last summer. (I need to thaw that enough to part it out into 2 cups worth in ziploc bags...)

But wow, do I find some things when I empty it out if we get a 10 F degree day. And, that taught me that I will NOT be able to tell what that blob is, and I really DO need to label stuff.

 

[fuzzi]

Yes, baskets help with organization but at the expense of losing room in the freezer. With just Dear Wife and myself, it was not a problem. But you can certainly get more food in the freezer if you just keep everything in individual small bags and let them pack up the freezer.

I was suggesting that some stacking pallet wood baskets, fit to size for the freezer, might not waste as much space as baskets that don't quite fit right.

And it's a dandy idea.

 

[gtaus]

And it's a dandy idea [custom fit crates].

I got a nice pneumatic nailer/stapler last year at Harbor Freight but have yet to use it. My plan was to get some long staples to make some pallet wood crates. But I had to wait for about 3 months before they got the staples I wanted for the gun. It takes 5/8 inch to 1-1/2 inch staples, or 5/8 inch to 2 inch brads nails. By the time I got the staples on backorder, it was already into winter and I don't have a heated shop to work in. So, everything got put away. And then other things just became more important and the pallet wood crate building idea never made it to the top of my list.

Here is the nailer/stapler I got from HF...

I still have the pallet wood crate project on my long list. But I just wanted to make the crates for fun, more than to fill an immediate need.

I pretty much just get done what I need to finish, and then if I have any time (or energy), I will work on other things. Things low on the list have a hard time making it all the way to the top. Seems like other things are always more important.

If I finally do use my HF nailer/stapler, I will give it a quick review on this thread for others to consider. As you can see, it has pretty good ratings from others.

 

[chickengr]

I think any gloves are better than no gloves. I have some of those nitrile-coated gloves as well. I use them for light gardening working, like potting up plants, etc... Dear Wife uses those type of gloves almost exclusively.

I was in Menards yesterday and noticed that have bins full of these gloves on Clearance..

View attachment 3697681

In the store, they were marked down to $0.49 per pair. I'm sure that would be a great deal for many people.

Dear Wife has had her nitrile-coated gloves for a number of years. She does not wear them out. She is more likely to misplace or lose her gloves long before she wears them out.

For the type of yard work I normally do, and with handling pallets specifically, I prefer the split leather gloves. Even so, I wear out a good 3 or 4 pair of leather gloves every summer. But I'm a sensitive guy and wear gloves all the time. As well as hearing protection and eye protection. It's just the way I was taught. Personal safety always first in mind...

Just remembered... I often wear a pair of those tight-fitting nitrile-coated gloves underneath my big cold weather winter leather mittens I use for snow blowing out in the bitter, blowing, cold. The nitrile-coated gloves offer some waterproof protection if I have to take off the big mittens to work the small controls on the snowblower. So, maybe I should pick up a few pairs of those Clearance gloves at Menards when I go into town this week. You can never have too many gloves...

the cheapest nitrile-coated gloves I found here were 1,5 eur/pair in a chinese shop.

 

[chickengr]

Have you been officially diagnosed with CRS?

(can't remember "stuff")

as I keep away from doctors and hospitals I am unofficially CRS.

 

[chickengr]

With buying gloves in 5-packs, for example, you can just leave a pair of gloves in the pickup, in your coat and jacket, on the work bench, and by door, etc... That's what I do, anyways. So, in most situations where I might have forgotten to grab a pair of gloves, I usually have a pair handy wherever I need them.

Oh, I also have a 5-gallon bucket full of hand tools that I use for pallet breakdowns. I always have a pair of gloves in that tool bucket as well. I have just about everything I need for pallet breakdowns in that one bucket. Looks something like this...

View attachment 3697785
I guess I have extra gloves all over the place!

my problem is that I live in an unfinished house. so I put things wherever they fit. I have to finish my house first then get organized. this situation drives me crazy but I cannot do a lot so far.

btw, I need suggestions for turkey pen. I thought about pallets but my land is sloped and it gets too windy so 2 pallet height is out of question. I don't want it to be lifted by a wind. the "animal" area is fenced so I am thinking of taking advantage of a corner: 2 sides fence and 2 sides pallets that would be attached to the fixed fence (concrete base). as for the geese roof skeleton must be made of iron (we do get snow).

 

[chickengr]

Yes, baskets help with organization but at the expense of losing room in the freezer. With just Dear Wife and myself, it was not a problem. But you can certainly get more food in the freezer if you just keep everything in individual small bags and let them pack up the freezer.

I was suggesting that some stacking pallet wood baskets, fit to size for the freezer, might not waste as much space as baskets that don't quite fit right.

even in my upright freezer I sometimes use supermarket bags to get organized: a bag of chicken (small packs), a bag of spinach, etc.

 

[ChicksnMore]

I tried to do that with our chest freezer, but I don't think that idea lasted an entire week! No, Dear Wife said just get an upright freezer where you open the door and can (mostly) see everything in it without having to dig through everything.

Best system I could find that was actually somewhat useful for us with our chest freezer was to put similar items in plastic freezer baskets....

View attachment 3697773

So, maybe a basket of frozen veggies, a basket of French fries and onion rings, a basket of seafood items, another of meat, etc... Then you just take the basket you think might have what you need. As long as you don't throw that bag of frozen peas into the fish basket, you can find most food pretty fast.

Given that this is a pallet wood project thread, maybe a person could make pallet wood stacking freezer baskets to custom size for your chest freezer...

View attachment 3697776

Building some pallet wood crates has been on my long list for a while now. It just has not moved to the top of the list. But I have a nice brand new pneumatic stapler and staples ready to use to make some crates. Maybe next summer....

We have a chest freezer too. We used plastic grocery bags to group things. Not as tidy as bins but works pretty well.

 

[gtaus]

Not too much going on here lately. It's pretty cold outside, so I spend lots of time inside the house. Watching lots of YouTube videos...

My old 1993 Ford Explore broke down a couple months ago. That's my main working vehicle for pallet pickups, towing the utility trailer, hauling garbage out to the dump, etc... I had it towed to a guy I know who works out of his garage. He's a great mechanic, just not very fast. He has always fixed my cars at a reasonable price, and sometimes much, much less than a shop would. Took him 6 weeks to fix the old Explorer, but it's running great again.

I took it into town to fill up the gas tank and run a few errands. Pretty much got skunked on things I was going to look at. But on the way back home I stopped and picked up some free pallets at the AutoZone lot. Threw them into the back of the Explorer and brought them home. Not the greatest pallets, but OK.

When it comes to pallet hunting, sometimes you are just glad to get what is available. I'm not doing much in terms of pallet projects in the winter, but these will be added to my stock for the spring.

One thing I really like about the old Ford Explorer is that the pallets are under a roof, so when I get them home, I don't have to immediately off load them. Today, I broke down a couple of those pallets and stacked up the wood. I tried to take my time and save the entire length of the pallet planks, but no joy with those darned spiral pallet nails that are so hard to get out. After splitting a few boards, I decided to take out the circular saw and cut the planks off, saving most of the wood.

I keep experimenting with pallet breakdowns, trying different methods and different tools to see how much wood I can salvage. But, so far, I only find I can spend a lot of time and not get much more wood for all that effort. That's the lesson I (re)learned this afternoon. I did manage to save a few long lengths of board, but it was slow going.

My favorite method is still using the circular saw, cutting the planks into about 18 inch lengths between the 2X4 supports, and then you are done in only minutes. If you are lucky to get a pallet with higher quality wood, and not those spiral nails for the pallets, then you have a better chance of saving the entire board.

Last summer I picked up a few pallets that used screws instead of nails. Boy was that easy to take apart using my drill and/or impact driver. Those screws came right out, ready to be reused in another project, and the wood was metal free and ready for cutting for the next project. It's rare for me to find a pallet with screws instead of nails, but I got lucky a few times this past summer.

BTW, I used my new Bauer Clamping Workstation from Harbor Freight to hold my wood as I worked on it. They are on clearance with limited stock. I am NOT recommending you get one of these HF workstations. I had one this summer and it broke after only a few weeks in use. There is basically only a 90-day warranty from HF on these units.

I want to get a RockWell JawHorse with a 5-year warranty, but those are around $230 and I am waiting for a good sale on one of those. So, for the time being, I got another one of the HF workstations (on clearance) again but this time treating it with kid gloves so as not to break it. I love how these JawHorses/Clamping workstations work, but the HF model is just cheaper metal. However, they sure are nice to work on and hold your material.

 

[chickengr]

I found out that it is much easier to breakdown pallets after rain when they are wet. I keep them outside.