Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Back40chick]

Yeah, that really caught my attention, too. Took me a few looks to figure out what it was and how it worked.



Perfect! That's what I eventually worked out from the pictures. It certainly gives an extra flair to the project! Who thought up that creative idea?

My daughter had the idea. She is very clever. She was looking for something rustic for a handle and saw the horseshoes in her daddy's barn. Light bulb. She and her husband made it work

 

[Back40chick]

My art loft. Old tin backsplash from roofing off of an old barn. Sink and counter top material from Habitat for Humanity Restore, pallet lumber siding. Trim is pallet lumber

 

[gtaus]

My art loft. Old tin backsplash from roofing off of an old barn. Sink and counter top material from Habitat for Humanity Restore, pallet lumber siding. Trim is pallet lumber

That is some really nice-looking work! Just beautiful! Thanks for sharing.

 

[gtaus]

Woodworking Vise Upgrade to Modular Workbenches

For anyone new, a few years ago I made a couple of modular 2X4 foot workbenches out of pallet wood that are designed to be bolted together. The idea came from a YouTube video and I just modified it a bit to use pallet wood. Here is what the modular benches look like...

You can see the holes I drilled out in the top 2X4 frame, which are the same on the other workbench. Those holes are on all sides and are exactly 1 foot apart. That allows me to bolt the benches together side by side, end to end, or any number of other configurations.

I have been posting some upgrades to that basic build over the past weeks or so, and today I am posting another useful upgrade to my modular workbenches.

Last November, I bought a 7" Woodworking Vise from Menards that I wanted to use on my modular workbenches. At the time, my modular workbenches were down in my basement in winter storage, because I needed the space for our cars over the winter. But Menards was offering a $20.00 rebate, plus their 11% off on the item, so I bought it with the hopes of someday installing it on a workbench. Here is the vise I got...

At first, I considered just installing it "normally" on the workbench. But then I thought to myself, why would I want to make a permanent install on a modular workbench that is made to adapt to any needs of my current project. I could see that a permanently installed vise on a workbench would limit my future options of use for the modular workbench.

After racking my brain for a few weeks, I came up with a solution to make the vise install modular, not permanent, using the same holes that I have previously drilled into the 2X4 top frame.

I'll let the pictures tell most of the story. First, here is the vise completely installed and ready to use...

Next, you can see that I was able to make it a modular install, first by using that 2-foot-long, 2-inch-thick board which was bolted into the workbench using the holes previously drilled into the frame. Then I mounted the vise to the 2-inch-thick board, and finally I added a couple of 2X6 boards to the inside of the jaws of the vise. The idea of using wood boards on the vise is so that you don't mar any wood you clamp down on. Remember, this is a woodworking vise...

Of course, most of the strength comes in that middle section where the metal vise is located, but the extended 2-foot-long wood pieces allow me to clamp down a much longer piece of wood to work on. Very nice!

Another big advantage to going out the full 2-foot-long is that I can slip in long boards vertically to work on while the vise holds them tight. Here is a picture of a 4-foot-long 2X6 inserted vertically into that vise. I cannot do that with my "normal" bench vises, so this gives me more options especially for use as a third hand. I love it!

I am very happy with this upgrade. I got a great deal on the purchase of the vise with the rebates, and all the wood I used was salvaged from other projects.

In order to make the install removable, I had to purchase some new bolts, washers, and nuts but that was only about $2.50. I thought that was a small price to pay for the benefit of making the install modular. I can install this vise in the middle, at the end, or on the side of the workbench. Wherever I want to put it.

I even had a nice little bonus for the chickens. The three pieces of wood I used for the vise install were rough cut to size. Then I used my hand-held power planner to plane everything down flush on top. That gave me a lot of nice, fluffy, pine shavings on the floor. I swept them up and put them into the nest boxes out in the chicken coop. If I was a chicken, I think those fresh pine shavings would be very nice in my nest box!

Well, I am very happy with my pallet wood modular benches and the recent upgrades I have been posting. I don't have any more upgrades to the benches planned at this time, but if something comes up, I'll post it. If anyone has some suggestions that they have done to upgrade their workbench, I would love to hear about it. Thanks.

 

[Molpet]

Another big advantage to going out the full 2-foot-long is that I can slip in long boards vertically to work on while the vise holds them tight. Here is a picture of a 4-foot-long 2X6 inserted vertically into that vise. I cannot do that with my "normal" bench vises, so this gives me more options especially for use as a third hand. I love it!

Great idea
Looks good too

 

[gtaus]

Great idea
Looks good too

Thanks for the feedback. Appreciate it as always.

I have really come to appreciate the use of vises in the past few years. Before that, my father and I always did projects together. Unfortunately, he passed about 5 years ago and since then I have had to do those projects by myself. I really miss that third hand helper and the only way I can do some things is with the assistance of my new vises. I now have about 4 different kinds of vises in my garage, and each one has some advantages over another. I use them all.

It is kind of funny in that I only had one standard bench vise for about 40 years, and that was all I ever needed. But now that I am working alone and getting on in the years, just about everything I use today has some kind of vise or clamp involved. I don't regret buying any of them.

Well, I was disappointed in one purchase of my Harbor Freight Bauer Clamping Workstation...

I loved the functionality of that workstation and it was my primary tool used in my pallet breakdowns. When it worked, I was happy to give it a 5 star rating. Unfortunately, it broke. The metal is not of the highest quality and bent, leaving me a clamping workstation that could not clamp down. I resubmitted a 1-star review.

I returned that item because it failed within the first 90 days and was glad to get my money back. That Harbor Freight Bauer Workstation only came with a 90-day warranty and no option to even purchase an extended warranty.

I was going to replace the Bauer Workstation with the original Rockwell Jawhorse...

The Rockwell Jawhorse has a 5-year warranty. I suspect it is made of better-quality metal and that is why they can stand behind their 5-year warranty. But it costs a lot more money. So, I have it in my Amazon Wish List waiting for it to go on a special sale.

In the meantime, Harbor Freight discontinued that Bauer Clamping Workstation. They put them on Clearance for about $75.00, so I bought another one. It was a really hard decision for me, but I bought another one at $75.00 because I really liked how well it worked before it broke. I am happy to say that my second Bauer Workstation has held up for over a year now. Maybe my first one was just flawed. I don't know. But I have to admit that I don't use that new Bauer clamping workstation for the heavy projects that I did on the first one which broke.

My goal is to someday buy a Rockwell Jawhorse so I have a pair of these clamping workstations. That is how much I like them. But the price on the Rockwell has to come down a lot before I will buy it.

For working with pallets and pallet breakdowns, these clamping jawhorse-type workstations are my favorite tool. You can take them anywhere in the yard and set them up for working. All my other vises are pretty much only used in the garage on my workbenches. When I need that third hand out in the field, that jawhorse-type workstation is my go-to tool.

 

[gtaus]

More Pallet Wood Raised Beds Back On My To-Do List

It's been a frustrating year for my gardening efforts. Early this spring, rabbits and squirrels did a lot of damage to my transplants, killing lots of plants. I had to build protective cages using some salvaged 2X2 lumber for the frames and chicken wire on the sides and top. That has worked. Now I just need to make more of those cages.

I had intended on moving all my gardening to my backyard this year. That puts them next to my chicken coop and run. I also have running water in the backyard, so I can water the beds as needed. All my raised beds in the backyard use the hügelkultur method. I harvest my chicken run compost and put it on those raised beds. It's a pretty nice setup for me.

I still have a few hügelkultur raised beds down on my old gardening site by the lakeside. I had a number of landscaping timber raised beds down there that I removed this year. I don't have any running water by the lakeside garden, so the past few years nothing much of value grew in the landscaping timber (non-hügelkultur) raised beds.

However, I had a few plants too many for my backyard garden this year and ended up planting them into the hügelkultur raised beds down by the lake. For some reason, they did not get hit hard by the varmints and those plants did really well.

Long story short, I have decided to make a few more of my pallet wood raised beds v2.0 using the hügelkultur method and put them out in the lakeside garden. The 6 inch high non-hügelkultur landscaping timber beds just dried out too quickly. Nothing grew very well in them without watering. But my 2-foot high hügelkultur raised beds down there are doing fine. The difference, of course, is all the logs in the hügelkultur raised beds acts like a giant water battery for the plants. They don't need constant watering.

So, in the next few days, I will start making another 2 or 3 pallet wood raised beds for the lakeside garden. One thing I think I will try to do is to have at least one future raised bed empty so I can dump all my pallet wood cut off bits and pieces as wood in a hügelkultur setup. I have a number of 5-gallon buckets full of pallet wood cut offs again, and nowhere to put that wood to good use. I would rather fill up a new raised bed with that pallet wood cut off pieces than just burning it in my fire pit.

I picked up some pallets when I was in town this morning. I found one interesting pallet that had a nice, solid, 4 foot long 4X4 in the middle. I snatched that one up. Don't know what I will use it for, but I like having interesting wood pieces like that in storage. I'm sure it will be the perfect piece for some future project.

Also, Harbor Freight had a stack of pallets for free pickup today. I have not seen any pallets there for almost a year. So, it was a nice surprise to see that they still give them up for free. Only thing, they were all the Euro pallet style with the blocks of wood instead of the 4-foot-long stretchers that I use for my pallet wood raised beds. But they had some good planks on them. In fact, 2 of the pallets had some really heavy planks on them so I loaded them up. I am talking about deck board quality wood, maybe even thicker. I don't see that much on the pallets I pick up.

Anyways, I filled the back of the old Ford Explorer with about 6 or 7 better than average pallets on my run into town. I will break them down and store the wood in my new outside wood storage bin I setup last week. I also have too much pallet wood in the garage, so that has to be relocated to an outside storage rack as well. I am at a point where I have too much stuff in the garage to start my new building projects. I guess that is a good problem. I know some people have a hard time finding free pallets.

 

[Back40chick]

Might not be pretty, but we used a large pallet for the flooring of this pool deck. Topped it with plywood. Quick fix to the pool for the grandkids to finish summer fun

 

[gtaus]

Might not be pretty, but we used a large pallet for the flooring of this pool deck. Topped it with plywood. Quick fix to the pool for the grandkids to finish summer fun

I bet your grandkids love it! I think it looks great. Thanks for sharing.

 

[gtaus]

Furniture Dolly Hack and Other Uses

I just saw that Menards is having a sale on their furniture dollies this week...

I have purchased a number of these type of dollies, mostly from Harbor Freight, because they are rated for 1,000 pounds. That means each wheel is rated to hold up to 250 pounds. If you bought a 250-pound rated wheel/caster by itself, you would pay more than $5.00 each. My hack is to buy these dollies and remove the wheels for my projects.

I have built a number of pallet wood workbenches for my garage and used these dolly wheels on the workbenches to make them mobile. For inside the garage on hard cement, these wheels work fine. I would never suggest using them outside on a lawn. Also, they do not have any locking mechanism on the wheels, so I would not use them on something that needed to remain rock solid and unmovable. For what I need them to do, they were perfect and saved me a lot of money.

If I need to make a workbench totally unmovable, I'll just put a little block of scrap wood under each leg by the wheel, just enough to raise the wheel up off the floor. Then the workbench will not move. When I need to use the wheels again, I just lift each corner and kick out the block of wood, putting the wheels back on the floor. Easy!

I also use these dollies, as moving dollies. I have a number of large plastic garbage cans that I have filled with pallet wood ready to be used in my projects. Those garbage cans full of wood are too heavy for me to move around the garage. The solution for me was to place a dolly underneath each garbage can and now I can easily move them around the garage...

I know some people store their chicken feed and grains in metal garbage cans to keep the mice out. Those metal garbage cans can hold a 100 pounds or more of feed. Why not put a dolly underneath that metal garbage storage can and move it with ease?

I used to store my chicken feed in large garbage cans. They were far too heavy to move when filled with feed. So, I now transfer my feed from the 50# bags into two 5-gallon buckets with lids. It's much easier for me to move a 25# bucket of feed with the handle on it. Even so, I often times have three or four 5-gallon buckets stacked up on each other if I buy feed on a good sale. That's when I will put a dolly underneath the stack so I can move them all together if I have to.

At any rate, Menards has the lowest price I have seen on these 1,000-pound rated furniture dollies in years. Take advantage of the 11% mail in rebate and save even more money on future purchases at Menards.