Pallet wood

[AnthonyYak]

[Herb G]

When I worked in a shipping warehouse, we got pallets from all over the world.
Had I known what wood it was & what it was worth, I would have been hoarding it all along.
We got bird's eye maple, curly maple, all kinds of African hardwood, you name it.
If it could be reused, it went in one pile. If it couldn't be reused, it went in the pallet shredder.


What a waste.

[MichaelMouse]

Sometimes the 4" stuff, even when figured, won't do for lumber.   Dunnage in ships calling at Guam featured many exotic (to me) woods.

[Wildwood]

You can find all kinds of things made from old pallets. Certainly a cheap source of wood just for the asking. Made a lot of glue blocks from untreated furniture bracing & pallets. Never seen any exotic wood pallets. Treated pallet wood might not be so healthy.

[Stwood_]

Gotta watch them. Sometimes the products that are on the pallets, especially bagged feed or seed, are fumigated after being put on pallets to kill off bugs in the product. So some pallets have chemicals on them.

[Dusty Workshop]

Not to mention, nails, pebbles and other unwanted debris

[Rodneywt1180b]

Pretty stuff.  Must have been deemed unfit for lumber for some reason.  Too small or something.
The only thing I have against using pallet wood is how hard it can be on tooling.  The embedded dirt and grit can be horrible on things like planer and jointer knives. 
Rodney

[Herb G]

I knew a guy in my local woodworking club who used pallet wood all day long.
He pressure washed it & let it dry well before using it.
He said it saved a lot of wear on his tools doing it that way.

[firefighter]

Friend worked in a warehouse and used to bring me all sorts of woods. Some I have no idea what they were. Sadly they put a stop to giving it away after someone was injured by chemicals on the pallet. They were afraid of lawsuits.

[Cecil]

This was posted in Woodnet over a year ago, and I like it!



With that said, my workbench legs, stretchers, etc, all but the top, is from pallets.  I have utilized it on other shop furniture as well.

I have made many "Scrap wood" pieces from pallet wood, like picture frames, knife racks, and such.  That was in the old days.  I don't trust the chemical content of what is shipped in through the ports.  They are sprayed, perhaps more than once, to keep those foreign critters off our soil. (I hope the mods view this next statement as humor and not political).  They could not build a wall to keep the insects out, so they spray them.  Pressure washing is a good idea.