Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[chickengr]

Well, it's nothing special. Just a rope through some hook eyes. I pull on the rope and the pop door goes up. I have a little loop in the roop at the end that I slip on a hook to hold the door up.

It's nasty cold with rain and snow right now. And I'm under the weather myself. Slept 13 hours and still not feeling great. If you still need a picture, maybe later in the week.

Here are some Google pictures almost exactly the same as my setup.

Rope attached to screw eye on the pop door...

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Use more screws eyes to direct the rope to my door...

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Then have a loop in the rope or a carabiner to put on a hook to hold the door up. It's just that simple.

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thank you.

 

[Smokerbill]

@gtaus , similar to the wooden rollers in your picture...



I just ordered 2 pair of nylon sliding door rollers from Amazon that I'll use to build a pair of double pulleys. One will mount at the top of the door, the other on the rafters.

 

[Smokerbill]

I found this mechanical advantage diagram. If I understand it correctly, lifting the 20 pound door 2 feet will require pulling the rope 8 feet @ 5 pounds of pulling force.

 

[gtaus]

I just ordered 2 pair of nylon sliding door rollers from Amazon that I'll use to build a pair of double pulleys. One will mount at the top of the door, the other on the rafters.

Yeah, for $1 each, might as well just buy them. Probably save a lot of time and effort over trying to make your own.

I like trying to make my own stuff, but really, sometimes you spend more time on making a gadget then it would ever be worth if you paid yourself for your time.

 

[Smokerbill]

I

Yeah, for $1 each, might as well just buy them. Probably save a lot of time and effort over trying to make your own.

I like trying to make my own stuff, but really, sometimes you spend more time on making a gadget then it would ever be worth if you paid yourself for your time.

I'm using 1/4" diameter nails/spikes as the axles, and I was thinking about cutting short sections of 1/2" pex for the rollers, separated by fender washers.

But the pex would've been to sloppy on the shafts, so I think the 4 bucks are well spent. I may need to ream the inner diameter a bit. It's specified to be 1/4", and my spikes are 0.26" in diameter.

 

[gtaus]

I had to run some errands in town today, so I stopped at the industrial park where we have our Bobcat dealership. They have a stack of mainly oversized pallets that you can take. I found a few normal sized pallets that would fit into the back of my Ford Explorer, so I loaded them up. Mostly picked out some pallets that had really dark, aged wood for contrast in my raised bed builds. They will look nice.

To my surprise, I found one heavy duty pallet made entirely out of 2X4's - both the stretchers and the planks - and screwed together using torx head screws. Pallets put together with torx head screws are absolutely the best/easiest to take apart. In no time at all, I will have a nice stack of ~4-foot 2X4's and a couple handfuls of torx head screws that I can use in another project. No sawing, no prying, no pounding or pulling out nails. Just simple disassembly of the pallet with a drill and/or impact driver with the proper torx head bit.

That pallet made entirely from 2X4's was far too heavy for me to carry and load by myself - the normal way. But I was able to put the pallet on its edge and "roll" it over like a square wheel to my car. Then I tilted the front half of it into the bed of the car and then lifted the back end up. Just had to push it a bit to slide it into the car. Not too much of an effort loading it by myself that way.

Well, I managed to get a full load of nice dark, aged pallets that the wood will look great in some new raised garden beds contrasting with my newer, lighter pallet wood planks that I currently have in stock. My old Ford Explorer only gets 13 miles per gallon, but when I can pick up a load of good pallets on my run to town, it's well worth it and the pallets more than pay for the gas for the entire trip.

 

[Sally PB]

To my surprise, I found one heavy duty pallet made entirely out of 2X4's - both the stretchers and the planks - and screwed together using torx head screws. Pallets put together with torx head screws are absolutely the best/easiest to take apart. In no time at all, I will have a nice stack of ~4-foot 2X4's and a couple handfuls of torx head screws that I can use in another project. No sawing, no prying, no pounding or pulling out nails. Just simple disassembly of the pallet with a drill and/or impact driver with the proper torx head bit.

SCORE!!!!

 

[gtaus]

A few days ago I picked up a pallet made of all 2X4's and screwed together with Torx T25 head screws....

With almost no effort at all, I was able to remove all the screws and take apart the pallet. I ended up with fifteen 2X4's - twelve 2X4's that were 40 inches long and three 2X4's that were 48 inches long...

I was able to save 89 of the 90 3-inch-long screws to reuse in some future project...

Those screws came out like they had never been used. I don't know exactly how much they would cost new, but for comparison here is a pack of 100 T25 Torx head screws for $16.00...

Other than a few screws holes in the 2X4's, they are in great shape. The current price of treated 2X4's locally is over $5.00 per 8-foot-long piece...

I did the math real quick and it worked out to $34.32 for the board feet of 2X4's I salvaged from that one pallet.

All in all, it was just about a $50.00 pallet of wood and screws - if new. That's a great find, I think.

 

[gtaus]

I also picked up an 8-foot-long 2X4 that had a couple of heavy metal lag bolts and washers on it. The lag bolts were both badly bent and I did not expect to salvage those. I managed to fit that 8 footer 2X4 into the old Ford Explorer and took it home.

I took it apart today and here is what one of the lag bolts looked like when I took it out...

Those lag bolts are about $1.00 each at the fleet store. This one was bent beyond using - or, was it? The other lag bolt was also bent, but not as bad.

Back in January of this year, I purchased myself a new 6-1/2 Vevor bench vise...

I have told you that I really like that bench vise. I got it on sale for $69.00 at that time, so it has gone up in price since then. Still, it's a much better deal than any similar sized bench vises locally which are all well over $100.00.

Just for fun, I decided to put that bent lag bolt into the vise and crank down on it to see if I could straighten it out at all. Here is what I got...

The top lag bolt is the one that was really bent out of shape. After clamping and pressing it down in the vise, you can see that it really did a decent job of straightening it out.

I put them back into a piece of wood and discovered that both bolts are now useable. The bottom lag bolt went in and out almost like new, the top lag bolt that was previously really bent, has a slight wobble but it is good enough for many projects.

Those washers are really heavy duty. They are about 2 inches round and probably 1/4-inch thick. I have no idea what I will ever use them for, but I am saving them in just in case I need them. I bet those are pretty expensive to buy in the specialty bins at the Fleet store.

Anyways, I was able to salvage some badly bent lag bolts using my bench vise to press them back into shape and thought I would mention my good luck on that project.

 

[Sally PB]

Wow, what a score! Nice! And good on you for keeping all that out of the landfill. May you make a really nice raised bed out of them.