Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

you were lucky to have someone to teach you. I needed to find it out myself. nobody wanted to teach a girl "men's" job.

Yes, I was lucky my grandfather and my father taught me lots of things us guys need to know to be useful. However, I never learned any homemaking skills such as sewing or cooking. That was strictly for girls when I was growing up.

Dear Wife and I have those separate skills that we brought to the marriage. So, together, we have made it work. Having said that, I am happy to hear some schools today are teaching life skills (traditional male and female roles) to boys and girls equally. I think that's even better. I know I would have been better prepared for life had I known a bit about sewing and cooking, and my sisters could have used a bit of knowledge of swinging a hammer or sawing some wood.

 

[Smokerbill]

I had never thought of that! Genius. It never occurred to me that I could make my own washers from using pennies. Even better, you could drill in the perfect sized hole to fit your screw you are going to use.

I wonder if the penny washer, outside in the elements, would rust out? The washers I buy are all galvanized steel and pretty much rust proof.

Pennies before 1982 are solid copper, after that they're made of zinc coated with copper. Neither would rust but they'd probably cause dark streaks when the copper corrodes. Or they might turn green.

And the solid copper pennies are worth 2 or three cents each because of the copper content, so probably best not to drill those.

And from what I've read (Treasury Dept) I guess it's legal, depending on your interpretation of the law.

 

[gtaus]

Oh, I know what you mean! [Seeing how little money I need to make a pallet project] It makes me giggle, sometimes.

Yep, I got into pallet projects a few years ago when a 2X4 stud cost as much as a car and 1X4's cost as much as your boat you towed behind that car! I think you all remember those bad COVID-19 lockdown days and how the price of lumber went through the roof.

Well, I wanted to make some raised garden beds and the lumber list alone at that time was well over $100 for the least expensive lumber in the store. No redwood, not even treated wood anywhere near that price. So, I stumbled into picking up pallets and making my own raised beds. I like to mention that my current 16-inch high, 4X4 foot pallet wood raised bed v2.0, costs me less than $2.00 in hardware screws and nails because I have been salvaging both the free pallet wood and screws/nails and reusing them.

Well, actually I use my 18v brad nailer with new nails to nail the sidewall pieces of wood on to the 2X4 framing. The brad nails cost very little and they save me a lot of time and effort. So, it still comes out to less than $2.00 per raised bed. If I used the old pallet nails I saved from my pallet breakdowns, I could brag about making a raised bed for ZERO dollars, but the build would take me significantly longer.

The older I get, the more value I put on tools and stuff that save me labor time and provide a faster return on my investment. I have some good tools and I love to use them to build stuff. I guess it keeps me off the streets and getting into trouble!

 

[gtaus]

Pennies before 1982 are solid copper, after that they're made of zinc coated with copper. Neither would rust but they'd probably cause dark streaks when the copper corrodes. Or they might turn green.

And the solid copper pennies are worth 2 or three cents each because of the copper content, so probably best not to drill those.

And from what I've read (Treasury Dept) I guess it's legal, depending on your interpretation of the law.

I do have some Harbor Freight step bit drills for soft metal that would be easy to put into the drill press and make holes in some pennies.

I found a couple bags of washer this afternoon when I was cleaning/organizing my garage, so I would not need to drill out any pennies anytime soon. But I like your idea using a penny as a washer because I could drill out any sized hole I would need. It costs me about $10 to make a trip to town and back. Now I have other options if I find myself short a washer. Thanks.

 

[chickengr]

Yes, I was lucky my grandfather and my father taught me lots of things us guys need to know to be useful. However, I never learned any homemaking skills such as sewing or cooking. That was strictly for girls when I was growing up.

Dear Wife and I have those separate skills that we brought to the marriage. So, together, we have made it work. Having said that, I am happy to hear some schools today are teaching life skills (traditional male and female roles) to boys and girls equally. I think that's even better. I know I would have been better prepared for life had I known a bit about sewing and cooking, and my sisters could have used a bit of knowledge of swinging a hammer or sawing some wood.

although cooking is supposed to be a girl's job the best cooks all over the world are men.

 

[ChicksnMore]

although cooking is supposed to be a girl's job the best cooks all over the world are men.

Shhhh.... don't tell my husband that. He already hogs the kitchen!

 

[fuzzi]

It got up to 51F this afternoon, so I opened up the big garage doors and let all that free heat into my garage which was sitting at 42F. Finished de-nailing the 6 pallets I broke down yesterday. Lots of good wood saved from that effort.

Yesterday, I mentioned that I cut a slit/hole in a 5-gallon bucket lid for de-nailing boards with my Air Locker AP700. As I mentioned, it was just a bit too short for me. Today, I found a half pallet and used that as a base to lift up the buckets. For me, that was about the perfect height for shooting out those nails. Just about 35 inches tall. No bending over.

The older I get, the more important good ergonomics is for my well being.

After all that work, I took stock of my boards and I now have enough pallet wood 2X4 studs cleaned and ready to build another raised bed. I'll have to see if I still have some long screws to put the frame together. If not, I'll pick up some later this week when I go to town. But I think that will be my next pallet project. Another raised bed version 2.0.

View attachment 3736271

I'm still sticking with that pallet wood raised bed design until I come up with something better. One of the biggest advantages to this design v2.0 is that I can use those 2X4 studs with the cutouts just as they are for the framing. It took me a long time to think of how to use those cutout studs.

I got some plans on making tomato trellises out of pallet wood as well, but I think I might need to use the table saw to rip some wood down to width for that project. My table saw is down in the other garage for the winter. So that project will have to wait.

In the raised bed picture above, you see I planted some cherry tomatoes. I thought they might grow to be about 3 feet tall. I used my old wire tomato cages for support. However, maybe because of all of the black gold chicken run compost I used in the raised bed, my cherry tomatoes grew to over 6-foot-tall last summer and then flopped over on top of the cages. I never had tomatoes grow that tall. This year, I want to build some stronger pallet wood trellises that are at least 5 feet tall for support. I think that will work better.

At any rate, it really felt good to get a little work done in the garage in the dead of winter. Hope we have some more nice days like this early this year.

I know you like to use your pallet wood for projects, but I wanted to interject about how wonderful my cattle panel trellis worked last year for my tomatoes.

Tomatoes in the back

 

[Sally PB]

I really want to get some cattle panel and make some arched trellises. @fuzzi, would it be a problem if they were left in the elements and ground all year? I can see them being a bit of work to get into place. Any harm in just leaving them?

 

[gtaus]

I know you like to use your pallet wood for projects, but I wanted to interject about how wonderful my cattle panel trellis worked last year for my tomatoes.
View attachment 3736876
View attachment 3736879
Tomatoes in the back

I have been considering a cattle panel trellis as well. Lots of YouTube videos on making a trellis out of a cattle panel. They sure do make a nice arched trellis. Thanks for the pics.

Last summer I made a trellis for Dear Wife's bitter melons to climb up on. The framing was salvaged wood and then I used some leftover wire fencing I had laying around next to the shed out in the backyard. I had considered buying a cattle panel at that time, but decided just to use what I had.

Start of year...

Close to harvest time...

It's not that I think a pallet wood trellis would be better than a cattle panel trellis, or even the other way around, it's just that I am trying to use up what I have before I go out and buy anything new. I don't have any cattle panels on hand, but I do have lots of pallet and salvaged wood I should use up.

Another wire option that is inexpensive is using those concrete remesh panels currently selling for regular price of $7.99 each at Menards.

I used one of those flat remesh panels for building a trellis for beans. Worked great. I still have that panel but I don't garden in that spot anymore. I could certainly move it to my raised beds this year.

However, I found a nice wood trellis design that I can make out of salvaged and pallet wood, so I'm going to try that first. If/when I get it built, I will post my pictures. Later...

 

[gtaus]

I really want to get some cattle panel and make some arched trellises. @fuzzi, would it be a problem if they were left in the elements and ground all year? I can see them being a bit of work to get into place. Any harm in just leaving them?

Well, I'm not @fuzzi, but I can tell you that our local Fleet store stores their cattle panels outside all year round. There should be no problem setting up a cattle panel trellis and leaving it outside. Those panels are meant to be outside.

I think putting the cattle panel in place should be relatively easy. It's getting them out to my house that would be a challenge as I don't have an open bed pickup. Unfortunately, the delivery charge to my house costs more than the cattle panel itself. The cattle panels at my Fleet store are 16 feet long.