Show Me Your Pallet Projects!

[Knobby]

My setup is no where near that much. I waited and snagged stuff on sale, craigslist and FB-land marketplace as well as auction sites around DFW too. I have a couple that I will be selling when I’m done fixing them.

Yeah, in hindsight, I paid too much for the current setup, but at the time, all local tractor dealerships had supply chain issues and getting one took a long lead time for delivery. Once my dealership received inventory, we jumped at obtaining one. Like I said, our investment has paid for itself two-folds since I've been able to do projects around the property that I would have had to farm out to contractors...ie, plowing our driveway, digging up our storm system retention pond, clearing up the back acreage with the brushhog, among other things. Now to invest in a post hole digger, a box blade and building an outbuilding to store things in.

 

[Sally PB]

I'm not sure if I've already mentioned my use for plastic trays (small pallet?) that 2 liter pop bottles are shipped to stores in. (Being from Michigan, yup, it's "pop.")

The plastic is heavy duty and they are very sturdy. I turn them upside down and they have a LOT of uses. Here are some:

Boot tray in the winter. You have to have something under to catch the snow melt drips, but the boots aren't sitting in the puddle and the tread dries out. In our muddy spring, I set my garden shoes on one so that the mud in the tread dries and can be knocked out.

I put one next to the wood stove and pile kindling on it. Damp kindling gets crispy dry in a day or so. NOTE! If there are bugs in the wood, they may "wake up" and crawl out.

We have had water in our basement a couple of times (water heater or pipes leaking). I stack stuff on the plastic pallet, and it is safe from the puddles. Thick pieces of styrofoam work well for this too.

 

[gtaus]

I'm not sure if I've already mentioned my use for plastic trays (small pallet?) that 2 liter pop bottles are shipped to stores in. (Being from Michigan, yup, it's "pop.")

The plastic is heavy duty and they are very sturdy. I turn them upside down and they have a LOT of uses. Here are some...

Where do you get your plastic pallets? I see them out behind WalMart but they are not free for pick up. They go back to the shipping company.

 

[Sally PB]

Where do you get your plastic pallets? I see them out behind WalMart but they are not free for pick up. They go back to the shipping company.

I have found two in store parking lots, the ones that hold 6-2liter bottles. One was left in a shopping cart, the other at the edge of the lot.

One showed up where I work when they got pop for a party, and I asked if I could have it. The owner said, "Sure, save me from throwing it out."

This was several years ago. Maybe delivery people are more careful now about leaving them with the pop...?

Now I'm feeling a bit guilty...

 

[gtaus]

I have found two in store parking lots, the ones that hold 6-2liter bottles. One was left in a shopping cart, the other at the edge of the lot.

One showed up where I work when they got pop for a party, and I asked if I could have it. The owner said, "Sure, save me from throwing it out."

This was several years ago. Maybe delivery people are more careful now about leaving them with the pop...?

Now I'm feeling a bit guilty...

No reason to feel guilty for repurposing someone else's trash.

Reminds me of last year when I was picking up pallets at a dumpster out in the parking lot behind the mall. Then a store manager comes running out and telling me that I can't take those pallets. Well, mix up because I had talked to the manager of Harbor Freight and he told me that I could pick up any pallets by the dumpster. But that dumpster was for a different store, evidently, although in the same area.

So, I asked that manager why he was concerned about pallets next to the dumpster that looked like they were free for pick up. He said he had to return them to the shipper, but he did not have any space inside the store or elsewhere to stage them. I guess he felt he deserved to use public property to stage his old pallets for returns, and that nobody should consider them for free pick up just because they were stacked up at the dumpsters.

I think he was in the wrong, but I already had enough pallets at that point, and it was not even worth the effort to argue the issue. I am pretty sure that anything you put out at the dumpsters is considered trash and that a company cannot use public property as storage.

If I really wanted those pallets, I would just come back after store hours and pick them up. The mall is too cheap to have any security cameras outside so they would never know who took them. More importantly, I don't the store would have a leg to stand on if someone took their pallets they stage alongside the dumpsters - no signs or anything asking people not to take those pallets.

How do I know they don't have cameras? Because I saw a woman being accosted by a young person begging for money outside the Harbor Freight store. So, I talked to the manager of Harbor Freight and asked him if they have security cameras outside so they can go after these aggressive people. He said they were aware of the problem, but that the mall management was not going to put up camera and, in fact, did not even have lights out in the parking lot after dark. That's too bad, I told him, because I would never let Dear Wife park out there in the lot and pick up anything inside of Harbor Freight for me. It's just not safe.

Coming back around to the initial point, there are always a lot of people thankful for you to take their old pallets because otherwise they have to pay to have them hauled off to the landfill, then they get charged a dumping fee at the landfill, and then our county landfill buries them like trash, and we pay more taxes for more landfill operations.

 

[gtaus]

EPAL Pallet Disassembly with Minimum Tools

I'm not a big fan of the EuroPallets but sometimes there is some good wood on them to harvest. I found this YouTube video tonight on a good way to disassembly those EPAL Pallets using only basic tools. It's a good tutorial for those type of pallets. Watch him disassemble that pallet in just 12 minutes real time...

Still looking for some way to reuse those spacer blocks of wood, other than burning out stumps. Any ideas?

 

[NanaK]

I have found two in store parking lots, the ones that hold 6-2liter bottles. One was left in a shopping cart, the other at the edge of the lot.

One showed up where I work when they got pop for a party, and I asked if I could have it. The owner said, "Sure, save me from throwing it out."

This was several years ago. Maybe delivery people are more careful now about leaving them with the pop...?

Now I'm feeling a bit guilty...

You mean like these black ones?

They are great for small pots. Keeps the wind from blowing them around and easy to move them to the garden without damage.
Hubby saved a big stack of these from the landfill. I use them often!
I had not thought of the ideas you mentioned. Thanks!

 

[Sally PB]

They are great for small pots. Keeps the wind from blowing them around and easy to move them to the garden without damage.

Yes, just like those! I had never thought of using them to hold pots. What a great idea! And they stack neatly when you're done with them.

 

[Smokerbill]

EPAL Pallet Disassembly with Minimum Tools

I'm not a big fan of the EuroPallets but sometimes there is some good wood on them to harvest. I found this YouTube video tonight on a good way to disassembly those EPAL Pallets using only basic tools. It's a good tutorial for those type of pallets. Watch him disassemble that pallet in just 12 minutes real time...

Still looking for some way to reuse those spacer blocks of wood, other than burning out stumps. Any ideas?

Are those blocks made of compressed wood chips and fiber? Do they swell up if they get wet?

 

[gtaus]

They are great for small pots. Keeps the wind from blowing them around and easy to move them to the garden without damage.
Hubby saved a big stack of these from the landfill. I use them often!

Yes, just like those! I had never thought of using them to hold pots. What a great idea! And they stack neatly when you're done with them.

Not plastic pallets, but I snagged a few trays for 3-4 round inch pots at Menards this spring. Here is a picture of one of the trays with an empty 3 inch net pot in it...

Anyways, they were just being thrown out at Menards so I grabbed a few when I purchased some plants. They came in handy when my early start tomato plants got about 10 inches tall and started falling over in a normal 10X20 flat tray. The molding on the individual slots helps to keep the plant from tipping over. I have 3 inch net cups, but you could easily put a 4 inch net cup in those tray slots.

Because these trays have slits in the bottom, you can still bottom water the plants by putting the tray into a tote lid, filled with water, for example. I used one of my 27 gallon tote lids and filled it with water. Then just set these trays in the lid and let it soak up the water for about 30 minutes. Worked great.

I might have mentioned this before when I was talking about my pallet wood seed starting shelf I built late last winter. I had been using standard 10X20 trays, but they are not nearly as strong as these tote lids. My 10X20 trays had cracks in them and leaked. So, I replaced them with a tote lid which is much better, especially since I am using 3 inch net cups and not a standard seed starting 6-pack holder.

Picture of my pallet wood seed starting shelf with salvaged shelving board from another project...

I later added LED lights to each shelf for sprouting and growing my starts in the house. Dear Wife was not too excited about taking up a big space in our second bathroom for a couple of months, but boy did it pay off as we had a nice jumpstart on our peppers, tomatoes, and eggplants. So, all was forgiven in the end.