Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[gtaus]

TIP for connecting uneven pallet boards with pocket hole screws.

Last time I built a pallet wood raised bed, I used 2X4's from the pallets but they were not the same thickness. One 2X4 was the standard 1-1/2 inch thick, but the other pallet "2X4" was only 1-1/4 inch thick. As we all know, pallets are not made with the same wood and you sometimes end up using mismatched thickness boards. That happened to me on my last pallet raised bed build and I ended up having to take them apart and redoing all that work to get my front face flush.

The problem I encountered connecting these boards with pocket hole screws is that the screws are driven into the boards at an angle. If the boards are different thicknesses, then the screws can lift one of the boards resulting in the front face of the boards uneven. You don't normally want this with pocket hole fastening, as in most cases you need the front face to be even. But, you don't care if the back face which you don't see is uneven.

Enter this jig to solve the problem...

Basically, I just used some scrap wood to make the jig. I had a piece of shelving board that was about 20X16 inches. I attached a couple of the 1-1/4 inch thick boards to the edges, making sure they were square at 90 degrees. Then, I screwed in the 2 horizontal clamps you see. I think you can see the 2 boards that I am going to clamp down in the jig are not the same thickness.

Here is a closer look at those boards with different thicknesses...

Anyways, put those boards in place in the jig and clamp them down....

The clamps will now hold the boards flush on the bottom face, which will be the front face of your connected boards. In this pic, I just used some random pieces of wood to show the proof of concept. I don't have the pocket holes drilled into the boards yet. I may have to reposition one or the other clamps not to interfere with the drill and drill bit used to drive the pocket hole screws themselves. Not a big deal as the clamps are just secured with 4 screws into the wood.

Normally, I use my pocket hole clamp which works great with boards of the same thickness. It does not work so good with wood of different thicknesses. This jig I just made will allow me to fasten my pallet boards of any thickness and still get one face that is flush. Plus, it's a lot faster using this jig than my pocket hole clamp because the form is already at a perfect 90 degrees.

The cost of the jig, using scrap wood I had laying around, was less than $10 for the price of the 2 horizontal clamps which I bought at Harbor Freight. Normal price for the clamps was $4.99 each, but I had a 20% and 25% off coupons which I used.

A simple jig like this now allows me quickly, and easily, use my pallet wood of "almost" the same thickness and still end up with professional looking flush faces.

I am finding various ways of using pallet/reclaimed wood in ways to hide the imperfections of the source material. I never had these issues using store bought wood all of uniform size and thickness. But using pallet wood of all kinds of sizes and thickness sometimes presents some rethinking on how best to use the wood in your projects.

Hope you found this tip useful.

 

[Sally PB]

sliding drawer to catch the poop

My husband built this set up in our coop. I have never used it. (Sorry, dear.) If I were to try to pull it out, there isn't enough clearance for the bedding on it. It would just catch bedding (pine shavings) as it was pulled out. Maybe if the pull slot were a lot taller...? Not sure if that would fix the issue. Just tossing this out; maybe you can make the design work better.

 

[McChooky]

My husband built this set up in our coop. I have never used it. (Sorry, dear.) If I were to try to pull it out, there isn't enough clearance for the bedding on it. It would just catch bedding (pine shavings) as it was pulled out. Maybe if the pull slot were a lot taller...? Not sure if that would fix the issue. Just tossing this out; maybe you can make the design work better.

Thank you! I'm using hardware cloth on the floor instead of wood & won't be using bedding on the floor.

 

[gtaus]

Thank you! I'm using hardware cloth on the floor instead of wood & won't be using bedding on the floor.

What size hardware cloth do you use for chickens? I used to raise rabbits, and their wire cage bottoms used 1/2 X 1 inch hardware cloth. That was big enough for the rabbit pellets to fall through, but small enough for them to walk on the hardware cloth without hurting their feet. IIRC, you mentioned using 1 inch hardware cloth. That seems to me to be a very big mesh, and probably hard on the chicken's feet. But I don't know.

Here's a prior discussion on BYC on that wire floor issue: Can I use half-inch Hardware cloth for floor of henhouse in tractor?

 

[gtaus]

My husband built this set up in our coop. I have never used it. (Sorry, dear.) If I were to try to pull it out, there isn't enough clearance for the bedding on it. It would just catch bedding (pine shavings) as it was pulled out. Maybe if the pull slot were a lot taller...? Not sure if that would fix the issue. Just tossing this out; maybe you can make the design work better.

I have heard that complaint about sliding clean out drawers on prefab coops all the time. If too shallow, the drawer catches everything when you pull it out. If too deep, the drawer just gets too heavy.

@ChickensComeHome2Roost, would love to see how you design your coop with clean out drawer and how well it works for you. I like the idea of a clean out drawer if it works. I can see advantages to that type of coop cleaning, especially if you are sensitive to chicken dander and don't want to actually go into a coop for cleaning.

 

[McChooky]

I have heard that complaint about sliding clean out drawers on prefab coops all the time. If too shallow, the drawer catches everything when you pull it out. If too deep, the drawer just gets too heavy.

@ChickensComeHome2Roost, would love to see how you design your coop with clean out drawer and how well it works for you. I like the idea of a clean out drawer if it works. I can see advantages to that type of coop cleaning, especially if you are sensitive to chicken dander and don't want to actually go into a coop for cleaning.

Thank you for the heads up on the drawer!

What size hardware cloth do you use for chickens? I used to raise rabbits, and their wire cage bottoms used 1/2 X 1 inch hardware cloth. That was big enough for the rabbit pellets to fall through, but small enough for them to walk on the hardware cloth without hurting their feet. IIRC, you mentioned using 1 inch hardware cloth. That seems to me to be a very big mesh, and probably hard on the chicken's feet. But I don't know.

Here's a prior discussion on BYC on that wire floor issue: Can I use half-inch Hardware cloth for floor of henhouse in tractor?

No worries! The 1" hardware cloth will only be underneath the roosting bars. The raised coop will have wood floors covered with linoleum (easy to walk on!)

 

[gtaus]

No worries! The 1" hardware cloth will only be underneath the roosting bars. The raised coop will have wood floors covered with linoleum (easy to walk on!)

Sounds like you have already thought about these potential problems and came up with solutions. If/when you can, please post some pictures of your build and the improvements you made. Always nice to read about, and see, how people improve designs.

 

[Idaho Chicken Bungalow]

I was on pintrest and found a link which linked me back to BYC. This post is old, but they did pallet shingles on their pallet coop!! Such a cool build! Thought I'd share it

Thread 'Our newly finished pallet coop!!' https://www.backyardchickens.com/threads/our-newly-finished-pallet-coop.734710/

I love this!

 

[McChooky]

Sounds like you have already thought about these potential problems and came up with solutions. If/when you can, please post some pictures of your build and the improvements you made. Always nice to read about, and see, how people improve designs.

Thanks! The chicken tractor I'm making out of pallets & scrap lumber will be ready soon.
The new coop won't be started until spring. I have plenty of time to gather materials lol

 

[chickengr]

Thank you for the heads up on the drawer!

No worries! The 1" hardware cloth will only be underneath the roosting bars. The raised coop will have wood floors covered with linoleum (easy to walk on!)

linoleum is slippery. one of my first hens got injured in a rainy day. I gave up linoleum. dirt or deep litter are the best. I get some soil from my garden and put it on a concrete floor in my big coop. used to do that in the raised pallet coops as well. that soil at some point returns to garden of course.