So yesterday I started to take apart the pallets to reclaim the wooden planks to be used to clad the outside of the garage. It was quite difficult to start with - not something I could do with a claw hammer. I tried some different techniques such as using a long plank with extra leverage to prise the wood, but this usually resulted in the wood splitting and going to waste. Having looked on YouTube for tips, it seemed most successful reclaimers used a custom tool that they welded from bits of metal themselves, such as these ones:
Unfortunately, I didn't have any welding kit or patience to wait another weekend. So I messed about a bit and found a method of turning them upside-down, supporting one pallet end on another and kicking through the planks so that they came away from the joists. I should have taken a picture to make it clearer - maybe on the next post. Anyway, once I got the rhythm it worked well and I got through about a third of the current pallets yesterday. Here is the yield:
Unfortunately, the method means I can't remove some bits, so that most of the pallets are left like this:
So, quite a bit of wood still remaining - I will revisit these later with another method. Alternatively, I might consider using them for something else, such as some furniture.
There were some cases of wood splitting (no method is perfect), but I'm hoping to repair pieces if required to limit wastage. See this example below of some bit glued back together (ignore the apparent bendiness on the glued one - a trick of the lens).
There were some cases of wood splitting (no method is perfect), but I'm hoping to repair pieces if required to limit wastage. See this example below of some bit glued back together (ignore the apparent bendiness on the glued one - a trick of the lens).
At the end of the day, I wanted to see what my efforts had equated to in terms of coverage, so I laid out what I had (you can see below compared to the current side of the garage):
Not too bad for the first day, and now that I have a technique I expect faster progress. The effect of the wood is looking promising though - I'll need to remove the nails and expect to give the wood a subtle clean and sand by the end:
Still plenty more to do...