Hello everybody,
I hope you all had a fun Thanksgiving. We had a houseful - fed 34 people Thursday night. I have a lot of artistic, creative types in my extended family and had a great time hearing about their current projects. From avant garde music, to jewelry making, to marble sculpting, to motorcycle builds, trips to Japan, and more. It was really great hearing about all the new ideas and fun adventures people are having.
Back to the build!
TiFJ - Many people do use the sawzall method you described. But it leaves the nails in the bottom stringer with no head. So if you want to reuse the bottom stringer for something, it's not the best plan. Since these stringers are often choice oak, I want to use them for some joined table tops and didn't want to leave nails in them.
1Garageman - Thanks for your kind comments. I'm looking forward to getting that darn ceiling up too.
Here are a few pictures of the pallet tool I made. It is rather crudely built (no fine welding beads on this one), but functional. I've changed it a few times, hence the cut tubing and multiple welds.
This shot shows the whole tool. It is made of a solid steel tie rod cut at an angle, welded to a horizontal piece of 1x1 tube. Then 1x1 tube tines are welded under the horizontal. The tie rod was scrap, strong, and a good length, but there's no real reason to use a tie rod. Anything stout that is the correct length would work.
At first I had the fork tines in the same plane as the horizontal. But I was cracking many boards. I cut the fork tines and rewelded them under the horizontal. This made the fulcrum higher, and has worked better.
Using it is pretty simple. Slide it under the pallet board, stand on the pallet, and press the lever down. Because the wood is old and dry, I usually apply slow pressure, or use short quick strokes, rather than a huge downward blast.
Sometimes you will have to stand on the pallet too. In this next shot you can see the board tearing on the underside. This happened frequently, and almost every time on pine boards. The bottom stringer is almost always oak, and the nails are almost always spiral shanked. This combo means they pull right through pine pallet boards.
I hope this helps anyone who wants to use pallet wood for a project. If you like the industrial look, they are a great free material.
Have a great day, Brett