Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[StinkyAcres]

I bought all my trigger clamps at Menards, on sale, playing the rebate game. Every once in a while they had great sales on them and I would buy a few more. Mainly, I have their house brand MasterForce trigger clamps...

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They have gone up in price a lot since I purchased my trigger clamps pre-COVID. Still, you might find special sales on them from time to time. I don't have any complaints about those trigger clamps. They hold fine. But for the past couple of years I have been buying the F-Style bar clamps from Harbor Freight....

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As you see, the HF F-Style 12-inch clamp costs a whole lot less than the 12-inch MasterForce trigger clamps at Menards.

One of the main reasons I now use the F-Style clamps is that I can tighten them down much better than the trigger clamps. Maybe my hands are not as strong as they used to be. In any case, I almost always reach for the F-Style clamps for general use, and always when I need more holding power.

Having said that, if you intend to do large glue ups and need a strong bar that will not bend, then the Harbor Freight F-Style bar clamps are not the answer. Many woodworkers state that the HF F-Style bar clamps are good up to that 12-inch bar, but after that, they will start to bend under pressure.

FWIW, most of the clamps I use in my pallet projects, and my favorite clamps, are the 6-inch F-Style bar clamps which I picked up on sale at Harbor Freight for less than $3.00 each...

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Thanks much!!

 

[gtaus]

If you don't have any heavy duty thread handy, dental floss works well in its place.

Dear Wife had some strong tan thread that I doubled up. I sewed the rip up free hand with a needle. It looks much better than I thought it would. However, the problem is with the leather in that spot. It was about as strong as tissue paper - no joke - which makes me wonder how that got past any quality inspection. Probably no quality inspection, I'm guessing. I don't know how long that mend will hold, but if it rips again, I have a better plan.

I watched a number of YouTube videos on how to do a proper mending of leather gloves, so my next step is to learn how to use the sewing machine. I kept my old leather gloves so I should be able to use bits and pieces off them to make future repairs. The trick, of course, is to replace the ripped leather with a patch of good, solid leather.

When I was young, boys only took shop class and girls had Home Economics where they learned how to cook and sew, etc... I'm glad that I have shop skills, but I sure do wish I also had some cooking and sewing skills as well. Learning those skills on your own at my age is a bit of a challenge. But I am trying.

Finally, although I was not happy to see my new glove rip already, I got to thinking better to have that ripped glove than a ripped finger. So, maybe it did its job, and I just did not notice. Certainly, better to sacrifice a glove then to mess up my fingers.

 

[Molpet]

Dear Wife had some strong tan thread that I doubled up. I sewed the rip up free hand with a needle. It looks much better than I thought it would. However, the problem is with the leather in that spot. It was about as strong as tissue paper - no joke - which makes me wonder how that got past any quality inspection. Probably no quality inspection, I'm guessing. I don't know how long that mend will hold, but if it rips again, I have a better plan.

I watched a number of YouTube videos on how to do a proper mending of leather gloves, so my next step is to learn how to use the sewing machine. I kept my old leather gloves so I should be able to use bits and pieces off them to make future repairs. The trick, of course, is to replace the ripped leather with a patch of good, solid leather.

When I was young, boys only took shop class and girls had Home Economics where they learned how to cook and sew, etc... I'm glad that I have shop skills, but I sure do wish I also had some cooking and sewing skills as well. Learning those skills on your own at my age is a bit of a challenge. But I am trying.

Finally, although I was not happy to see my new glove rip already, I got to thinking better to have that ripped glove than a ripped finger. So, maybe it did its job, and I just did not notice. Certainly, better to sacrifice a glove then to mess up my fingers.

Most sewing machines can't handle heavy material or leather.

In the early 90s the neighbor moved in with a chipper that took 3 inch limbs. Same issue with blades, biggest pain in the ... Also sparkplug kept fouling, but that might have been the gas/oil they were using.

 

[gtaus]

Most sewing machines can't handle heavy material or leather.

I'll have to check into that. Certainly, it would much less expensive to replace the old, torn gloves than to purchase a heavy-duty sewing machine. Especially when I use a pair of gloves for about 2 years on average. Thanks for the head's up on that.

In the early 90s the neighbor moved in with a chipper that took 3 inch limbs. Same issue with blades, biggest pain in the ... Also sparkplug kept fouling, but that might have been the gas/oil they were using.

Yep. I have a larger gas chipper that takes up to 3-inch branches. Like you said, problem is with the bad gas fouling the system. My gas chipper is hard to start, but once started, it runs OK. I bought the smaller electric chipper because I was tired of fighting with the gas chipper trying to get it started. But, alas, the small electric chipper is so slow and only works for branches up to 1-1/2 inches.

Google picture of my 25-year-old gas chipper model...

'That woodchipper sells for $1,300.00 or more, so it's not a small investment. Just before COVID hit, I brought that chipper into the shop for a complete tune-up which cost me about $100.00 at that time. But they did a pretty good job and it ran good for a few years. Then it started to have the hard starting issues again. I'm sure it is mostly related to our crappy gas which goes bad in no time. Even though I only use expensive non-Oxy gas and even add fuel additives, our gas today is just not very good.

Basically, I have not used either chipper for the past few years. After I found out that I could get free wood chips by the trailer from our local county landfill, it just did not make any sense to spend all that time, effort, and money (blades, maintenance, etc...) on those chippers. It takes me only 20 minutes to fill up my 4X8 foot utility trailer with free wood chips, It would take me days to chip up that much wood at home with my chippers.

Given all that I just said, yesterday I did sharpen up my electric SunJoe woodchipper blades (7 pairs) and put a fresh pair into my chipper. Today, while walking around in the yard, I picked up a few small branches off the ground that fell down over the winter. Just a little clean up. Got maybe a half pail full of small branches and twigs that I took into the garage and fed them through the electric chipper. The freshly sharpened blades are working much better and it chewed through those small branches pretty fast. I think that is about all I can expect to get out of that small electric chipper. Just small jobs. On the plus side, the wood chips it makes are excellent as nest bedding for the chickens. Also as fine as pine shavings.

My intention is to use that SunJoe chipper only for those small chipping jobs and then using the wood chips for nest bedding in the chicken coop. That's about the best use I can get out of that chipper.

I think I will be using most of those small branches, twigs, etc... along with my pallet wood bits and pieces as organic fill for my hügelkultur raised beds and planters. No use to chip them up if I am going to use them as fill in the raised beds.

Picture of a pallet wood hügelkultur raised bed v2.0 being filled with logs last year...

Then added a layer of finer organics such as branches, twigs, wood chips, grass clippings, etc...

After that, the raised bed is filled with a topsoil/chicken run compost mixed 1:1 for the top 6-8 inches. That works well for the stuff I plant. Every year, I add another 1-2 inches of fresh chicken run compost to the raised bed to compensate for the breakdown of the wood and organics in there.

I already built another two of those pallet wood raised beds v2.0 in my garage over the past few weeks. So, I am looking forward to getting them set up in the backyard in a month or so. In the meantime, I might build one or two more pallet wood raised beds because I certainly have enough pallets on hand.

 

[UrbanHomesteadTX]

Jumping in here with a crappy temporary run for my pullets! Had plenty of extra pallets laying around and needed to get my four week old Leghorns out of the house until I can get the new pen built. Just slapped this together in a couple of day using completely scrap and reused materials.

The pallets had been scavenged from some dumpsters, the chicken wire had been thrown out by my neighbor after a failed garden, the extra wood was from the old fence I'd torn down in the days before (I even reused the nails from that fence where I could ). Also used some old outdoor shade mesh from the top from a project a few years back, and feed bags to add a little bit of waterproofing shade. Yes, I'm a redneck, and I just wanted to get this project done. Lol. The actual coop and pen I'm building will be way more sophisticated and planned out.

(That extra panel of new wood was set there as a rain and wind bock from the storms the day before, not actually part of the build )

 

[gtaus]

Jumping in here with a crappy temporary run for my pullets!

No need to apologize for making something useful for a short time. Some of my best pallet projects were slapped together in a hurry just to get me on to the next step. I think temporary pallet projects are fantastic and I would love to see more of them posted here. Please post whatever projects you can!

The pallets had been scavenged from some dumpsters, the chicken wire had been thrown out by my neighbor after a failed garden, the extra wood was from the old fence I'd torn down in the days before (I even reused the nails from that fence where I could ). Also used some old outdoor shade mesh from the top from a project a few years back, and feed bags to add a little bit of waterproofing shade. Yes, I'm a redneck, and I just wanted to get this project done. Lol.

Well, that's the way to do it. Using, reusing, upcycling, repurposing, is my favorite way to build something. I'm all into using whatever I can dig out of my wood or supply piles. Best to use what I can before it rots out and has no value.

I had to buy some hardware cloth a week or so ago to finish off a project. I had used all my old wire and hardware cloth from my supply behind the shed. A few days ago, while digging through a different shed for something else, I came upon a roll of hardware cloth that is brand new. I don't know what I was thinking when it got stored there, but at least now I know I still have more hardware cloth to use.

It was a beautiful day today here, so I went out for a walk. I came upon a small length of PVC pipe laying on the shoulder of the road. Probably blew out of the back end of a pickup. Anyway, it looks like it came from a sink or something like that. Both ends were broken, but I can get about 12 inches of useable pipe to use as two 6-inch side drainpipes in my sub-irrigated planters. So, I picked it up and took it home with me. Not every day you get to clean up the roadside and come home with something of value for your use! I'll just toss the broken ends in my fire ring next time I start a fire.

 

[gtaus]

Thinking about making a full 4X4 foot bed 9-section tomato trellis system out of pallet wood. Last year I used some wire tomato cages, but they were too short and not strong enough once my tomato plants got over 4 foot tall.

At first, I was thinking of just slapping together a bunch of pallet wood 2X4 stretchers to make the frame. Easy. But then I considered how heavy it would be. If I made everything out of 2X4's, then I would have to build it in place and just decided to never move it.

Second thought was to rip the 2X4's into 2X2's and use that for the tomato trellis. Half the weight, but obviously more work if I have to rip each 2X4. Not too much of a problem after I learned how to easily rip those 2X4's during a previous pallet wood project. I got the ripping the 2X4 in half down with no problem. That still requires a lot of lumber. Considering that most of those pallet wood 2X4's have notches on one side, I really only get 1 full 2X2 each time I rip a 2X4's pallet wood stretcher in half.

Thinking some more. I have moved on in my thinking to using the 2X2's for the main upright frame, but using 1/4-inch lath boards for the cross sections. In theory, I could get a lot of 1/4-inch lath boards if I ripped the 2X4's. I thought that would be a great answer in terms of using less lumber, getting the total weight down, and still providing a strong tomato trellis.

Turns out, ripping 4-foot-long 1/4-inch lath boards/strips from 2X4 lumber is not as easy as I thought it would be. On the table saw, you run into a problem with getting your fingers too close to the blade when ripping the boards. I don't know about you, but my fingers are very valuable to me. So, I would have to make a jig(s) to make it safer. Over the past few evenings, I have watched all kinds of YouTube videos on ripping thin strips using either a table saw or a circular saw. Unfortunately, almost all of them are ripping short 2-foot-long boards whereas I need to rip a 4-foot-long 2X4 pallet wood stretcher.

My idea is to make one complete 4X4 foot trellis system that would have 9 sections - 16 inches square per tomato plant. The closest picture I can find is something like this...

But, in my mind, I just use 1/4-inch lath boards as the cross pieces because my 4X4 foot trellis would be much smaller.

My backup idea is to make individual cages along this design...

Or use that concept to tie everything together to make 9 squares in that 4X4 foot bed.

Anyways, I am kind of stuck on the overall design idea. I am dealing with what I think I want if I had unlimited skills compared to what I think I can actually do. Well, I want to do the project safely and ripping 1/4-inch lath boards is trickier than I thought. If anyone has a good idea on ripping 4-foot-long 1/4-inch lath strips from a 2X4, please let me know. In the meantime, I'm still considering my options and tossing ideas around in my head. Later...

.

 

[chickengr]

Thinking about making a full 4X4 foot bed 9-section tomato trellis system out of pallet wood. Last year I used some wire tomato cages, but they were too short and not strong enough once my tomato plants got over 4 foot tall.

At first, I was thinking of just slapping together a bunch of pallet wood 2X4 stretchers to make the frame. Easy. But then I considered how heavy it would be. If I made everything out of 2X4's, then I would have to build it in place and just decided to never move it.

Second thought was to rip the 2X4's into 2X2's and use that for the tomato trellis. Half the weight, but obviously more work if I have to rip each 2X4. Not too much of a problem after I learned how to easily rip those 2X4's during a previous pallet wood project. I got the ripping the 2X4 in half down with no problem. That still requires a lot of lumber. Considering that most of those pallet wood 2X4's have notches on one side, I really only get 1 full 2X2 each time I rip a 2X4's pallet wood stretcher in half.

Thinking some more. I have moved on in my thinking to using the 2X2's for the main upright frame, but using 1/4-inch lath boards for the cross sections. In theory, I could get a lot of 1/4-inch lath boards if I ripped the 2X4's. I thought that would be a great answer in terms of using less lumber, getting the total weight down, and still providing a strong tomato trellis.

Turns out, ripping 4-foot-long 1/4-inch lath boards/strips from 2X4 lumber is not as easy as I thought it would be. On the table saw, you run into a problem with getting your fingers too close to the blade when ripping the boards. I don't know about you, but my fingers are very valuable to me. So, I would have to make a jig(s) to make it safer. Over the past few evenings, I have watched all kinds of YouTube videos on ripping thin strips using either a table saw or a circular saw. Unfortunately, almost all of them are ripping short 2-foot-long boards whereas I need to rip a 4-foot-long 2X4 pallet wood stretcher.

My idea is to make one complete 4X4 foot trellis system that would have 9 sections - 16 inches square per tomato plant. The closest picture I can find is something like this...

View attachment 3771030

But, in my mind, I just use 1/4-inch lath boards as the cross pieces because my 4X4 foot trellis would be much smaller.

My backup idea is to make individual cages along this design...

View attachment 3771032

Or use that concept to tie everything together to make 9 squares in that 4X4 foot bed.

Anyways, I am kind of stuck on the overall design idea. I am dealing with what I think I want if I had unlimited skills compared to what I think I can actually do. Well, I want to do the project safely and ripping 1/4-inch lath boards is trickier than I thought. If anyone has a good idea on ripping 4-foot-long 1/4-inch lath strips from a 2X4, please let me know. In the meantime, I'm still considering my options and tossing ideas around in my head. Later...

.

too much work. I try to make things simple. I use canes/sticks and nylon climbing vine net.

 

[gtaus]

too much work. I try to make things simple. I use canes/sticks and nylon climbing vine net.

Maybe so. Do you have a picture of what you do for your tomatoes? Thanks.

 

[chickengr]

Maybe so. Do you have a picture of what you do for your tomatoes? Thanks.

unfortunately no. I just make a line with net and plant tomatoes in a zig zag pattern (one seed left side of the net and the next seed on the right side).