i see a mess of youtube videos where folks are making fairly nice projects with "pallet" wood.  you know, the stuff that your shipment of mulch or round up or stove pellets came on.  you have no idea of the history of this pallet wood, but since there are so many floating around, and some places end up with stacks of them they really don't want or need, apparently if you ask nicely, or dress in black after sunset, you can "acquire" some of these for your own purposes.

 

but my limited experience walking thru the loading area at homey depot tells me that these pallets and the wood they are made out of is fairly crummy lumber.  mostly pine, rough sawn, nail holes, splits, knots, and who know what kind of materials have been spilled onto and soaked into the wood before you got there?  i'd rather not make a nice piece of furniture out of something that has been soaked with poison.

 

your views?

I have made quite a few things out of pallet wood.  You can find some nice lumber from pallets if you look around.  I have found a lot of pine of course but oak and some maple as well.  It cleans up beautifully or you can lightly sand it and have rustic lumber.  I have done both.  I would not worry about "poison soaked"  lumber.  If there is a spill on one, dont take it.  Around here where i live,  alot of the businesses have signs out for free pallets so you can be selective.  I work at a place where when i see something i like, i stash it.  With a little elbow grease, its free lumber.

This might seem a little strange, but I agree with BOTH points of view. Personally, I don't want a coffee table made of anything that dogs may have "tinkled" on. But I have a very handy, and TOUGH, carver's mallet I turned from a 4x4 of some unidentified exotic species of lumber that was part of a skid. At my last place of employment, we received nickel (for plating) in large wooden crates/pallets made out of some type of Scandinavian pine. Some of that wood was BEAUTIFUL! In fact, a co-worker built a complete set of kitchen cupboards from those nickel boxes!

You just have to be very picky when deciding which wood to use, and go from there.

I am not a pallet wood aficionado, but there are a lot of them made out of oak and other hardwoods. I tried to take an oak one apart once, and that's what convinced me it's not something I want to deal with. Some of them may be soaked in god-knows-what, and it would be prudent to skip those altogether. But generally speaking, careful sorting can get you some hardwood. You see a lot of pallets painted a distinctive blue color...and they are usually labeled "CHEP"  on the side. Everyone of those that I've seen is some kind of softwood, and they are considered the property of CHEP.

Edited January 30, 20233 yr by Fred W. Hargis Jr

We got forklift accessories from a company in Oregon.  They were one time use and some of the wood was really nice and a variety of species.  I brought some nice stuff home. 

We covered one wall of my shop with pallet wood. Can't find the pics of before I loaded it up.

I'm in the no camp.   I did a poultry coop once from several pallets.  It took forever to get them apart and ended up with a pile of junk lumber.  Suitable for its purpose, but I cannot see running it thru a planer and jointer and risking messing up knives.  And no knowing what chemicals it's been treated with or spilled on.

 

I think the "rustic" look that replaced the steampunk look has given way to MCM furniture that's painted in blue or black.  Any bets on what's next?

I have to vote with Keith. I’m not willing to risk a blade or a set of knives. There is one exception though. Just a thought but Grizzly, Powermatic and Felder just to name a few ship their stuff on pallets. If you absolutely have to have pallet wood you could be forced to order a new table saw for instance. Hmmm

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8 minutes ago, Masonsailor said:

I have to vote with Keith. I’m not willing to risk a blade or a set of knives. There is one exception though. Just a thought but Grizzly, Powermatic and Felder just to name a few ship their stuff on pallets. If you absolutely have to have pallet wood you could be forced to order a new table saw for instance. Hmmm

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This man here:  dress him in the finest robe/apron!!! 

I've had pallets that weren't good enough to be firewood, and a few that were oak or hickory or something hardwood I couldn't identify,  The trash pallets got set out for my garbage man to take. The hardwood pallets got cut apart.   I realized pulling nails or even screws would still leave holes I'd be cutting around, so I just cut free good sections and left the nails behind.  I'm just about done using up the last of the last pallet.   Some beautiful, dark, hard, oak. Ripped and tipped to glue up into 1.25" thick blanks to be used for small table tops.  

4D

I did not make anything big with the pallets I used.  I did not run anything thru the planer.  Some of the nail holes gave it character as i was going for a rustic look.  

Having worked in industry for so many years I have seen what is carried on and done to pallets so I’m in with Keith.  The risk of contracting who knows what from a pallet isn’t worth saving a few bucks.

I've used plenty of pallets.  My best haul was some long 8' pallets that some John Deere industrial equipment & parts had been shipped on.  It was all 4x4 & 2x4 material and bolted together.  It was just the one haul and I think that JD (or their supplier) went to reusable plastic jobs after that.

I will still pick up a few pallets now & again.  Usually at Lumber Liquidators.  They are generally clean and with several sizes I can count on some decent shorts.  I don't try to disassemble, I just use the circular saw with an old blade and cut next to the nails.  I can get a good stack of 3-4" width by 1/2-3/4" by approx 24" boards in fairly short order.

I haven't used pallets in a long time, I get plenty of good woods salvaging table tops, etc., "Curb Shopping" 

Many moons ago when I was a Scoutmaster we had a project to build shelves in fire station where we meet. I collected pallets and removed nails. That was very time consuming and I promised myself that would not happen again. A famous woodturner has a saying " life is too short to turn crappy wood" . I think this also applies in the case of pallets.

life is too short to build with crummy wood.

 

takes the same amount of time to use crummy wood as nice hardwood.

 

"i'll stain my cheap pine!"  sweetie, save your money, buy nice walnut, done.  it'll always be nice.

Life IS too short, but some of the nicest wood, not available where I live, has been from pallets that tools arrived on from other parts of the world.  Of course I'll make projects from whatever scraps I finally get annoyed at seeing in my shop.  One example:  https://4dfurniture.blogspot.com/2022/06/scraps-window-table-made-from-assorted.html

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1 hour ago, DAB said:

life is too short to build with crummy wood.

 

takes the same amount of time to use crummy wood as nice hardwood.

 

"i'll stain my cheap pine!"  sweetie, save your money, buy nice walnut, done.  it'll always be nice.

When I first started woodworking, I'd sometimes make something out of home center pine.  I would get done and think, I spent all that time building that thing, now it's got knots and will dent easily.  I should have just sprung for some nice hardwood.

I guess if we don't want to pull nails there are other options.

 

Years ago I had a few old pallets stacked behind the shop but I had only planned on using the boards to lay on the ground to set things on for outside use. Then after I cut them all to pieces just to get a few staight pieces for later use, I went in to the house and told my wife to kick me in the butt a few hundred times for wasting a half of a day when I could have used the pallets as they were to stack things on!!!!!!!  But I had wasted that much time and ended up with nothing.