How to Cut Up AND PROCESS Pallets into Usable Boards 

Very smart. You're right about the variety of woods you'll find. Fun fact, most pallets have a two letter country code. Some of the ones I've seen--CA (Canada, lots of spruce, doug fir, and nice maple, if it's light and white it's Aspen), BR (Brazil, lots of plantation grown pine, but really usable), MX (Mexico, various woods, even mahogany once in a blue moon), CL (Chile, plantation pine), AS (Austria, good alpine spruce and Scots pine), Germany, Latvia, Estonia, Philippines, Malaysia etc. I've never ever seen walnut on a pallet. Cherry a few times. Oak, tons. Ash, often. Beech, only occasionally. Basswood, ditto. Tulip poplar, as frequently as oak, second only to Yellow pine. By law, all pallets which are shipped across borders must be fumigated or heat treated to kill bugs and larvae. HT is the code for heat treated at the video made clear. To get longer boards you need a pallet breaker, a four foot leverage tool. You can get them on Amazon for around $60 US. You'll need about 3.5" of space to get the tool in between boards. The nails are always spiral or ring shank mothers, often cement coated, rusty if their in oak for any amount of time. Nails pull best out of fresh pallets. Use a pry bar. You'll often break off their heads before they come out. If so, grab the shank super tight with your best vice grips and get the pry bar under the jaws, then tug. As a last resort, drill two holes along side a buried nail and chisel around it a bit. There's always a way. But usually not worth the time. Watch out for buried grit from gravel and the forklift. It's easier to pull oak slats off of pine stringers than vice versa. The thicker the slat the less breakage. Nails that come out on the slat will often have their heads overdriven. Spray the nail head with water to soften the wood before backing out the nail. This prevents splintering. That's everything I know about pallets. Hope this helps somebody.

You built that guitar out of pallets?! Impressive ;-)

Thanks for sharing your method 🤘🏼

Great that you're not afraid to speak up for safety!! Great video!! DD

Awesome video!

Great video! And nice van…let’s see a tour!!

Another great video! I’ve been enjoying these. The time lapse makes it interesting and moves it along, your monologues are informative, and the guitar music fits well! You’re inspiring me to hopefully one day get into woodworking myself. 😊

Thank you for sharing, You have a new subscriber. God bless.

Good job, and nice tunes to go along with the content.

Nice guitar soundtrack!

I have 3 pallets made with hickory I need to process. I have gotten a lot of red oak too. Had one with hard maple.

Wish I got different species pallets over here most the pallets I can lay my hands on are pine or usually painted red or blue which your not meant to take because they belong to a company and wouldn't use painted ones anyway. Nice process though. Would love some exotic pallets! 👍🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

That was awesome. I had never thought to go straight for the clean short boards. That will motivate me to actually process pallets when I get one. Not just let it rot on the side of the house or take up space in my shed or garage. Thanks! What planer did you use? I'm considering getting one but I don't think it would be worth the money if I am just doing hobby pieces.

I'm considering getting into this Hobby, the only thing is how do you guys tell the difference of what type of wood the pallet is?

I foud a jigsaw/sabresaw also works well

Love it. Did you make the guitar too?

Great video! Is it easy to see where all the nails are, or are there hidden ones to watch out for?

I wonder who will need these small pieces for wood work. People ask for longer pieces mostly . They don't bother about the nail holes as they can fill them easily. Else they don't mind having them in their project. Only if you have customers for these small pieces it's ok to do this.

I am new and so lost because I am no carpenter and these project are for my own use . All the videos I see give no step by step and no definitions on measuring and cuts . Please help or give reference and guide .

Wasted a lot of usable wood, the nail holes give your project character

You know a lot of people don't have a planer

Absolutely rubbish over the treatment 😂