How To Dismantle A Pallet

It was Gerrit Reitvild who first deconstructed a transport crate to reassemble it into furniture that was both affordable and could be easily constructed from the individual pieces. In that sprit this booklet is made to reveal a method to dismantle this wooden beast of burden, the pallet.

Like a donkey it has to be broken-in and for the task you will need

a lump mallet,
a claw hammer,
and a prybar.

You will also need a scrap piece of wood, MDF or ply to use as a cushion to avoided damaging the wood when knocking pieces apart.

Bare in mind that pallets come in various sizes, shapes and conditions, so you may find this manual to be more of a rough guideline then accurate instructions when applying them to your pallet.

Step 1 Steps

1) Begin by turning the pallet upside down and knocking the chocks (wooden supporting blocks) out.

2) The technique here is to distribute your blows with the lump mallet between the three blocks (a, b and c) and gradually knock the sections apart.

3) Once you have done this to all three supporting sections place these pieces underneath the main body of the pallet.

Comments

[goatdriver1957]

Caution!; Be very careful using pallet material, one should pick and choose the pallets to use for other than what they were made for.
Why you ask? Preservatives! There are some pallet makers/mfg dip their pallets in a anti-insect and anti-rot solutions and are very poison if handled w/o gloves very long. Do not burn inside as a wood fuel source for the fireplace or stoves, very toxic.

Many pallet buyers will specify what the dip should be because their customer has an idea where it's destinations are.

Do not breath the dust if you are running the pallet wood threw the power saws.

Paint the wood and it should be safe if it receives a solid coating.

[thekalimist]

one way to make sure you are not dealing with hazardous material is to look for a stamp that says HT printed on pallet. This means that it was heat treated rather than being chemically treated. Those will have a CT printed.

I am not 100% sure that there are not pallets out there that are chemically and heat treated but I do know that if they use chemicals they have to stamp the pallets CT.

[GreyBird]

Nice! After taking hundreds of them apart I find the really tuff ones with the nice wood that you don’t want to spoil comes off easily and with little or no damage by using a car jack. Apply the pressure via the jack close to the block. Here is a picture of what the jack looks like, mine has been modified though to fit better.

[paqrat]

Perhaps you could do an instructable showing how to use a car jack to remove the wood from a pallet. I would really like to see one. I am having a hard time picturing how one might use a jack on a pallet.

[glatzenator]

Brilliant! I can't believe I hadn't thought of that... thanks for the tip.

[pfred2]

I got the idea years ago because whenever we moved pallets with hydraulic pallet jacks we'd often pump a board out, either intentionally, or by mistake. Either way the boards would just pump out.

[vjdoro]

Well done, thanks

[uncle frogy]

The pallets I am most interested in are the ones made of hardwood. They are not as common as softwood pallets though. They must be put together when the wood is still somewhat green the nails are often thin wire power driven nails and are very difficult to take a part without a fair bit of damage. The decking is often cracked but the 2x4 runners are solid any ideas on how to get the wire nails out that simply break off.
I like the systematic approach and the idea of using a jack is something I will try next time.
what are the dimensions of the channel iron pry tool very interesting. I like "shop made tools"

[pfred2]

When the heads pop off the wire nails you can lock onto the nail shanks with Vise Grip pliers, I use 10WRs, then get a claw foot crow bar under the nose of the pliers and the nails come right out. I use the straight end of my bar.

The pallet done in this video is all soft wood. The one in my pictures in my comment further down is all oak, with the break away nail heads.

[raviolikid]

Wonderful video! I feel like going right out and finding me a pallet to take apart!

[throbscottle]

There's one thing I would add to your most excellent instructable, and that is, if a nail is seized in it's hole, a good whack driving it further IN before removing it will often loosen it enough to get it out or pry apart the wood more easily. (A nail punch may be handy for this)

Actually there's another thing I'd add too. Those transport pallets are expensive for the businesses that use them (at least, in the UK they are) - make sure you have permission before taking any pallets!

OK, third thing. Those pallet nails are really good, and worth straightening out and saving!

[pfred2]

My back is aching just looking at you. When I knock riser blocks off pallets I lean the pallet up against a bench, then swing down on them while standing up straight.

Someday I'll put up an article about how to really break a pallet down. Until then a few pictures will have to do.

[onrust]

nice!
that is some clean wood left behind.
wish me luck, i doubt im as lucky.

[sschwartz]

That was very well done...I've been doing it the hard way for quite some time now...this will be much easier...thank you so much!!

[mmandrez]

WAY TO GO! NICE ! Thanks for posting.

[TKDWILSON]

I found turning them on their corners and applying quick hard pressure and then doing the opposite corner. Or applying pressure to the beam by one quick stomp.

[EngineerJakit]

During a zombie apocalypse, your best friend can always be a re-purposed pallet. Because sometimes you need to sacrifice a friend to stay alive. (man that sounded really messed up !)

[foreverfad3d]

I've done and read countless instructables, and I disagree that this ible' wouldn't be well received. A+ job, great video for sure, and very nice work with the zen vibes towards that nail.

[lratica]

A+ video! The best part? NO TALKING!!! Perfectly explained without unnecessary blathering on and on.....BRAVO!

[Kozz]

Your instructable is being plagiarized (more specifically, violating your share-alike license) here: http://palletracksystems.org/pallets/pallet-racking%C2%A0%C2%A0.html

They seem to be violating the license you've selected by not crediting you or attributing what they've posted to you.

[Tupulov]

Well done. I've ruined a lot of good reusable wood by not thinking to break down pallets this way. Thanks for the instructable, it will definitely make a dramatic increase in the amount of wood I can salvage!

[montythemole]

 Well I tried it on two nice condition pallets I was saving to carefully take apart and it worked great.  Split 2 planks in total and they were a little damaged to start with anyway.  Have a nice pile of wood ready for finishing off daughter's wendy house now.

Thanks!

[montythemole]

Nicely done!  Have split a fair few down in the past in a random manner.  Will try this and see if I fair as well as you.

[billiecripps]

Love it,
Am off to get me a lump hammer in the morning and go round up some pallets x I am sure that it is not going to be as easy as it looked though.

[bjay]

Nice first move of flipping it upside down.  I've damaged planks by trying to pry them off from the top.  Thanks.

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