Making Something Palletable

Ah, but ignorance truly is bliss.  After reading Garbology recently, by Edward Humes, I could not help but feel there is more that I can do.  Especially after my exposure to such great re-use sites as Pheonix Commotion, etc..  What really did me in though was a fairly innocent trip to the waste transfer station down the road.  I took a truck load of leaves (trust me, our compost bin cannot keep up with six plums, various neighborhood maples, and three cedars on a postage-stamp size urban lot) to dump off for industrial composting and they had recently moved the area where they accepted clean green waste to a larger open area.  When I got out of the truck to unload I was surprised that one of the mounds surrounding the central area was a bunch of wooden crates that had obviously contained some large material item at one point.  I actually got pretty upset right there that this would go to waste like that after one use.  Perfectly good wood suited for a variety of uses and instead of becoming part of something long-lasting and useful, it's dumped to be shredded into compost.  Looking back, I should have just loaded it all into my truck after emptying my leaves but next time I'll know better.

Two chairs, one pallet, and one big helper

Back at home, the unsightly pallets sitting across the street at our radiator shop neighbors all of a sudden became a mission.  I asked the manager of the shop if he minded me taking them to use on some projects and he told me he'd be happy if I did as it would save them the cost of dumping them!  The shop had recently taken delivery of a very large industrial radiator and the pallet for it was a single use one because of its unique size and was just going to be tossed in the dump for shredding.  I couldn't let this happen.  I hauled the thing across the street and dismembered it in the back yard.  I had an immediate use in mind for some of the wood as a cover for our new compost bin (thanks Dad and Mom!) and some of the boards I thought would make some good frame material (see my last post) but that still left a lot to do something with.  After some online research I finally settled on making some chairs for the beach house that could withstand the outdoors and would be cozy enough to either have on the front porch or the back patio around the fire.

The original clevis pin design holes with
the compromise wood brace

My first design was based off a picture I found online but without any set plans.  I thought I would modify it to allow for the chair to easily collapse flat for moving or storage.  To do so, I thought I would use a clevis pin setup to lock the chair back position for sitting or for storage.  This turned out to be way too flimsy and I was afraid it wouldn't support any weight put on the pins in the upright position.  To fix it, I used a leftover piece of the 2x4 support wood at a notched angle to brace the back when it's in place and then left it freestanding for removal when you want to fold it up.  I'm still not very happy with this setup as anyone sitting there for the first time won't trust the brace to hold with the amount of creaking and give it allows.  It's also only built for one position when upright and you have to do something with the brace wood when it's folded down.  On top of all that, the chair itself is a little big for your averaged size person.  I fit comfortably well in it but you'd have to 6' or better to agree with me on that one.

Now we're talking.  And now you know which side
is hydrophobic, fragile, and must be kept upright

On my second design, I wanted to include more flexibility in the seat back position and make it a hell of a lot easier to adjust so I used something more akin to a modern chaise lounge.  I attached an extra set of supports to the seat back and cut two notches for a couple of choices of recline angle.  The result was a vast improvement over the original as it's much more stable and has a wider range.  The drawbacks are that it does not fold flat and is heavier because of the added weight of the supports and hardware.  Even with those negative points, I think I will remake the original design to use the adjustable incline support system and work out a way to make it fully collapsible as well.

Two angles are better than one?

All in all, my first foray into working with pallets was a success and I half-heartedly look forward to the radiator shop getting in more pallets.  My fear now is that I can't keep up fast enough building these types of things or coming up with new ideas before they consign them to the trash.  It's ridiculous that a 4' by 6' pallet should have one use and then discarded.  Luckily, I'm not the only one that thinks this way. One of my favorites is these guys, Viridian Hardwoods, which specialize in foreign hardwoods that arrive as pallets from other countries.  That doesn't mean there's nothing we can do with domestic soft-wood pallets either.  Pinterest, DIY, and a 96,798 other sites have ideas for "Reusing Pallets."  Why waste good wood?