Picked this up on another forum-

 

http://www.instructables.com/id/The-Pallet-Bible-A-Guide-to-Finding-Inspecting-and/

I worked in the trucking/delivery industry and I worked with pallets day in and day out. The problem with many (not all) pallets for reuse in projects is that they can be contaminated by urine and feces (both human and animal), chemicals, spoiled food products and many other things that can make them them unsuitable for human use. Unless the pallets are single use for delivery and have not been left out on a dock or behind a store where they can be contaminated by rodents and other types of critters, I would not touch them and certainly not use them in my home.

In S America I have read about pallets  commonly made from rosewood

 

We are maybe the only nation on the world flagellating themselves so completely about things  we didn't cause

Very timely.  I had a lady contact me Wednesday about build a king sized headboard.  She is supplying the pallets so I'll have to pass this on to her. 

In S America I have read about pallets commonly made from rosewood

We are maybe the only nation on the world flagellating themselves so completely about things we didn't cause

A friend of mine at church is in the wood and wood product disfribution industry. They buy lumber and lumber products by the boat and train car load for sale to builders and furniture manufacturers. He gave me a number South American Mahogany pieces that were used as stickers between stacks of lumber. The locals consider this wood as scrap as there is so much of it.

The only pallets I've re-used were from direct shipped single use food packaging. The other pallets I pull off of trucks every day are barely clean enough for mulch and will never be used in my shop. On pintrest there is vast array of projects geared towards recycling pallets and I cringe every time I see one.

 

It must be because of my business name being Round Barn woodcrafts but at the art and craft fairs almost every week I get asked are these made from barn wood? People get a different look in their eyes when answer them with the question "would you want to eat off of a board a cow did it's business on"? In my opinion pallets are worse than that.

Early on, I worked in a factory that made rubber hose.    Back in the Mixing Dept.,  we'd get a LOT of pallets.   Single use, ones.    They would sell them back.   Used to get a lot of hardwood pallets to carry a ton of bagged clay per pallet.  Forklift drivers being who they are, quite a few were broken.   Can't return broken ones, so.....I broke them all the way down, and hauled more than a few trunk loads out of there. 

 

One time, got enough verical grain,5/4 pine/fir, that a complete chest-on-chest could be made.   Love the two-way runners.   The "four way" pallets weren't much use to me.  

 

One year, we got a shipment of Friable EPDM bales from Brazil.   They arrived in a mahoganey type of wood crates, with tongue & grooves 1 x 4s.    Tried to get as many home as I could.....Wierd stuff, couldn't sand it( it'd just fuzz up) but a plane or a glass scraper would make it shine.   Wouldn't take a stain( it'd just soak down out of sight) but a single coat of varnish would turn it from a dusty brown, to a deep, dark RED.   It also was about the best wood for glued up panels. 

 

Nowadays, there are Amish in my area.   Seems about every farm they operate, they are sawing wood for pallets, or nailing them up and stacking on trailers.   I can drive up, and ask for scrap wood.  Stuff that they would otherwise just pile up and BURN.   Might again in a few days.....

 

Barn wood?  Depends on where in the barn they came from.   Right now, I am typing on this keyboard on a desk made from a Sycamore beam from a barn.   A few worm holes, and that is about it. 

A while ago...quite a while ago, Japanese "Crotch Rockets" came to the dealers in wooden crates. Most often each crate was of all the same hardwood species. I could only guess at what species they were. Most were very nice wood, though. They were free to haul away and I made regular runs by a few dealerships in the Phoenix area. Kept me supplied for several years until they started using plywood, flake board and cardboard.

 

Never used pallet wood for anything other than shims and such. My dad OTOH, used them to make work benches in his machine shop on the farm. He was a Standard Oil bulk agent and got lots of pallets with his oil products. They were already oil soaked. No finish required. 

I had a customer this week call me about barn wood. i told him then only barn wood I had was wood I stored in a barn.

Interesting about the barn wood. Here's a link to a place where we go for special occasions. It is a barn converted to a restaurant. The barn was originally owned by some of our relatives. 

 

http://www.emilive.com/portals/221/tour/2032/0.html

Interesting about the barn wood. Here's a link to a place where we go for special occasions. It is a barn converted to a restaurant. The barn was originally owned by some of our relatives. 

 

http://www.emilive.com/portals/221/tour/2032/0.html

 

 

 

that is a great looking place.

wasn't easy... but...

25 minutes ago, Stick486 said:

wasn't easy... but...

Never understood the appeal of this.  Maybe it's because I've had to work on a lot of Restoration Hardware furniture that was either faux aged or reclaimed and it's not very to my taste to see something so rough, dirty and splintery (and usually without any protective finish).   In five years, it'll be in the garage or on the street.  I get chuckles out of people in $800,000 houses fawning over a dining table made from an old door.

Just needs to be selective on what one saves...

Parts from I think five different pallets, and two store bought dowels....

we have an old weathered deck, ground level, that has no use to us.  it just sits there getting more and more weathered every day.

 

i need to find some sucker who wants 'rustic'.

I made these "walls" as a backdrop for the cake and cupcakes at my niece's wedding earlier this summer. Also made a backdrop for the bar like these - did not get a picture of that one.

 

I worked by a motorcycle shop that sold BMW motorcycles and they had some nice, heavy duty pallets they shipped the motorcycles on. I took them apart and used the long boards for the verticals behind the walls and the cross members of those pallets for the feet of these walls. Since everything had to be moved in on Friday and removed on Sunday, I made everything "mobile" enough for one or two people to handle so this wall was built in 4 sections.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Edited September 13, 20169 yr by Chips N Dust

Many years ago, I used food packaging pallets made of oak to make a crib for my baby daughters. The wood was in good condition; just had to remove the spiral nails. Unless I actually know the wood is somehow dangerously contaminated and can't be cleaned, I'll use it. Life on a farm involves contact with a lot of "stuff" that doesn't cause harm.

 

hat

23 minutes ago, hatuffej said:

Life on a farm involves contact with a lot of "stuff" that doesn't cause harm.

So True. I think most of us have made it this far because we got "inoculated" with dirt and germs playing outside.

"would you want to eat off of a board a cow did it's business on"?

 

I have been in a lot of barns... hundreds easily... never seen a wood floor in one.  But then, I don't make wooden plates either.

In the old style dairy barn with cows on the lower level with a loft for hay storage most of the lumber would not even be close to the cattle.

 

In any event, I have recycled a lot of lumber over the years.  Some of my favorite was some old growth oak that were rafters in an old saw mill.  I was told the mill had been in business for over 100 years.  I don't know about the rafters I snagged, but man were they some tough stuff to mill.

I have just started to use some pallets for picture frames and such.  They are really clean, so I figure they must be single use.

Cal