# Pallets of your dreams!



## SalvageCraft (Jun 26, 2011)

In the spirit of Bertha's famous ""Handplanes of your dreams"":http://lumberjocks.com/topics/26023 , how about a post dedicated to our favorite reclaimed wood projects, ideas, and musings?

Here's one of my favorites built from reclaimed fir flooring and mixed pallet pieces (sorry for pic quality):









This post is brought to you courtesy of the humble pallet:


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## bruc101 (Sep 13, 2008)

That's awesome. Love to see furniture out of reclaimed wood. We get solid surface counter top materials on large skids and have made a lot of farm table legs from the skids. Takes some time to get all the nails out of them but well worth the time and the nail holes add…character that women seem to love.


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## canadianchips (Mar 12, 2010)

My boss gave me 6 pallets couple of weekds ago. This is all I made from them SO FAR !
I like re-cycled wood. Old cedar doors are my favorite. Pallets are good too…......because its FREE !


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## BentheViking (May 19, 2011)

Considering I have an endless supply of pallets available to me I am going to be watching this forum and hope it does even half as well as "handplanes of your dreams"


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## JoeLyddon (Apr 22, 2007)

Very NICE!

That's the way to use Pallets!

Great Job!


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## Beginningwoodworker (May 5, 2008)

Nice wood!


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## murch (Mar 20, 2011)

Hope this thread runs. Hooray for the Scavengers!!


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## Fishfreak911 (Jul 14, 2010)

I have been a dumpster diver all of my life. It started with the need to eat, but I quickly learned that much can be gained for free if ou know what, where, and when to look, and are willing to put invest the elbow grease to make something out of someone else's trash.

Many of my pieces of personal furniture contain much repurposed lumber that would have been otherwise tossed in the trash. Most of said wood was obtained from my employers, manufacturers who toss their scrap when it builds up too much. Here are two examples that contain high percentages of scrap wood.

First, I found a used 4×4 used to sticker an incoming lift of lumber. I noticed how heavy it was and took it home before it got tossed. It turned out to be a gorgeous, refractive piece of hardwood with a warm orange glow to it. I paired it with some pieces of ebony I had left over from another project, and voila! A christma gift for my wife. We love it, and it sits proudly on our fireplace mantle.





The next piece is a 5 drawer chest made from old discarded mahogany doors. I literally pulled this solid Genuine Mahogany from a 40yd, dumpster at a door & window manufacturer.



Note the pieces of dowels showing in the underside of the lid. They are kind of like battle scars.


I made this in my early days of ww and didn't have too many tools then. I resawed the 1.75" stiles on an old, underpowered tablesaw, then meticulously thickness planed them on a craftsman 4.125" jointer. Each of the cases' sides you see, and some of the drawer fronts fronts too, are made up of edge glued 1.75" wide pieces! Even the mirror's moulding was pulled from the dumpster. I rabbeted it's back, mitered it, and there you have it.

The Vert, Grained Douglas Fir drawers sides were made & glued up in the same way as the case.


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## Kentuk55 (Sep 21, 2010)

very awesome projects and a gr8 way to recycle


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## Tokolosi (Dec 14, 2011)

I love reclaimed wood. Almost all my projects are reclaimed from something. My wood store is Craigslist's Free section. I pick up off-cutts, old furniture, you name it. It takes work, the wood is not always what you would like (but then again when is it?) and the price is awesome. And there is nothing like making an 'awesome' find. Like about $300 worth of mahogany and maple being thrown out by a commercial cabinet shop because they 'need the room'. My most usefull project was made with free wood found on Craigslist. Its my workbench. It is by far my most valuable tool!










Anyway this post is about the pallet. My favorite pallet project is this toolbox I made for my son. It is being used by me now, but that was the plan. I make it, use it and then when he is ready he will take it, and whatever is in it (He is 12, I have time to give it good character).










(also see my own tribute to the wonderfull pallet)


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## SalvageCraft (Jun 26, 2011)

Wow! Lots of projects already! That 5 drawer chest is unbelievable. I'll have to start digging around in the dumpsters at cabinetry and millwork shops for sure.

Tokolosi's workbench gives me bench envy. Also, very cool to have an heirloom toolchest to hand down to your son


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

What a great idea for a thread Jesse. Wait until Mads see this. He's always picking up some useful wood that's been chucked out and strapping it to his roof rack.


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## mafe (Dec 10, 2009)

What a wonderful idea to collect the recycle posts.
And what wonderful projects you all show here.


Pallet wood.


Pallet wood.


Pallet wood.


Recycle wood, could be pallet.


Pallet wood.


Pallet wood.


Pallet wood.


Old winebox recycle.


This one from a old parasol.

As you can see I have a soft spot for recycle, and especially for pallets, this modern throw away life hurts my cave man, so I have big joy in making my humble contribution to saving - if not the planet - then at least some wonderful wood from beeing trashed.

Best thoughts,
Mads


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## donwilwol (May 16, 2011)

I love recycled projects. As many of you know I spend a lot of time restoring vintage tools, but a good share of my wood projects come from some sort of recycled or reclaimed wood.

Here is just a few.

From a house remodel…...


From the firewood pile


What loggers left for firewood


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## canadianchips (Mar 12, 2010)

Britt: *You made my day again*. I must watch Mr Bean tooo much, Now I have visions of an Austin Mini driving throughout Europe with roof rack and "lumber piled 12ft high" going 150 kms an hour "Thinking Germany Auto bon freeway".


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## Brit (Aug 14, 2010)

Chips - Once when I visited Mads, I was waiting at the train station and he turned up to collect me and his roof rack was packed with wood that he'd scavenged. In Denmark, people have the opportunity to put stuf they don't want out on the pavement and the authorities will take it away. Mads gets in first and loads up his car. Great idea.


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## mafe (Dec 10, 2009)

Yeps - thats me!


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## BensBeerStShop (Jan 8, 2012)

I have an old toyota corolla, I found an aluminum roof luggage rack in the trash and put it on top. The rack is bigger than the roof, but the feet of it just fit. I've had it loaded with an amazing amount of scavenged wood on trash days. I get some looks, but hey, free is free 

I've used pallets on occasion, but most of my wood is reclaimed from houses slated for demo


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## canadianchips (Mar 12, 2010)

When I moved my wife from Ontario to Alberta. I Flew into Toronto, loader her Malibu, whatever went in car is all she took. I instisted ROOF RACK…..NO were her words. She said did you ever watch movie with CHEVY CHASE going camping ? ALL the way to ALBERTA, 2500kms ,almost every car go by with roof rack, tarp blowing in wind and things flying OFF, we giggled . WE ARE STILL TOGETHER TODAY.
AND I am NOT ALLOWED a roof rack ….........


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## BensBeerStShop (Jan 8, 2012)

That's funny chips. That Chevy Chase ref cracked me up! You really don't need a rack to load up the roof if need be anyhow


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## Dcase (Jul 7, 2010)

Yesterday I was on Craigslist and I found an add in the "Free" section where someone was giving away a stack of old wood. I responded and the person got back to me and said I could come pick it up. I was not expecting much but when I got there I saw they had a huge pile of redwood, old oak beams, old grown pine and other misc hardwood. There was enough to fill the whole back of my truck. This will keep me busy for a while. 









There were at least 10 Redwood planks that were about 10ft long.


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## Tokolosi (Dec 14, 2011)

Thats what its about!!! nice find.


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## DaddyZ (Jan 28, 2010)

Nice Idea


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## Visions (Sep 12, 2011)

My buddy got a pallet made from some type of exotic rosewood and some other stuff almost like mahogany. Lucky little bugger. It was a huge pallet too, with 5/4 for top rails, 4/4 on the bottom, and four 6' long 4×4's for main supports. The pallet was 6'x8' total size, a monster, and all exotic wood.

I'll see if I can get him to send me pics of what he made and has left from it.

I've looked at ship yards and reproduction antique sellers who gets pallets of repro furniture in from all over the place, and I've not found anything like his find yet.


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## mochoa (Oct 9, 2009)

Great thread, I'm watching!


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## jgreiner (Oct 23, 2010)

My favorite ones are from a buddy Woodwrecker, he does some great things with reclaimed wood





Just amazing stuff


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## JohnEinNJ (Dec 22, 2011)

I've been recycling redwood, and love working with it. The first few projects came from my (now grown) children's wooden swingset; I used pieces to repair a redwood picnic table, build a window planter box, and to build a redwood side table. Last year, a neighbor put a redwood picnic table top at the curb for pickup, and I took the planks apart, cleaned them up with my table saw, and built an adirondack love seat.








The plans came from here:
http://www.mitzenmacher.net/blog/?p=1072
I've been finishing the pieces with spar varnish, but now wish I'd used a more natural finish. I just got about 100 feet of 2×6 off craigslist, and have a disassembled redwood deck (another CL find) in my garage, and need to start planning the next redwood project!


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## RandyM68 (Jan 20, 2012)

I don't mess around with pallets, but I love old furniture. I go to my favorite thrift stores on the way to the lumber yard, and often wind up with much better material for a lot less money. I keep finding stuff that is too good to pass up. I ran out of room to store more stuff, so I had to start using it up. I'll post some pictures later, of some of the things I've built, and the pile of lumber I have left.


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## greasemonkeyredneck (Aug 14, 2010)

Pallets have been my main source of firewood this winter.
However, I seen this pallet guitar last night…...








And thought about this thread.
You can read more about it here.


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## BensBeerStShop (Jan 8, 2012)

I love the forklift inlay on the neck. It tells it's own history. And it's a Taylor… Nice!


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## RandyM68 (Jan 20, 2012)

I bought a huge old solid walnut cabinet for $30. It was seven feet tall and over fifty inches wide. The sides were frame and panel.








I cut the rest of it apart for later.








And used some of the odd leftovers to build this for my wife.









I bought this pine table for $15 the other day. It was six and a half feet long and forty inches wide.









All the pieces are a full two inches thick. It makes a nice stack all by itself, I'm sure I'll use it for something.


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## mochoa (Oct 9, 2009)

Nice Score Randy! I need to hunt the goodwill by my house more often for wood.

I forgot all about this thread I just scored a pallet that was 8' long which came with my kids playset. The 3 2×4's of the pallet were walnut! Pretty sweet.


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