outdoor amenities

How to dismantle pallets. Pallet Disassembly Method

Sometimes at the disposal of the summer resident are used (used) so-called. euro pallets. This, of course, is not about shower trays, but about wooden pallets, made in order to make it more convenient for loaders to turn over some kind of cargo that is stacked on pallets. They are assembled, I must say, in good conscience, on ruffled or screw nails, so that they would not figure it out on their own during operation. The wood there is mostly birch. But it's a great material to make. garden furniture or use it as ancillary products. For example, formwork, light railings, garden furniture, benches, deck chairs, etc. One of my acquaintances did this in general - he made a fence from second-hand pallets. And not bad, I must say, a fence.

The main problem when disassembling euro pallets is their high-quality assembly. But this is if you approach them without a flight of thought. I have met discussions on several forums on dismantling pallets for building materials. And alas, he noted that the stereotype is working. "Knocked down with nails? “We need to use a nail puller.” But the thing is just that the nails are non-removable! Nails ruffed or screw. Therefore, an attempt to extract them ends either with a breakdown of the board into which they are driven, or with the use of a saw to cut the pallet into firewood.

Meanwhile, there is a way to disassemble the pallet, even to the finish, and quickly and with virtually no damage to the material. And from the tools you only need ... a small hatchet. Now I'll tell you how it's done.

Please note that these three boards, which serve as a support for the pallet, are attached through 9 wooden blocks. On one side, 3 boards are nailed to them, on the other, the pallet plate itself. Moreover, in 99 cases out of 100 nails are hammered across the fibers of the tree! (And this is normal. Who clogs along ... Although there are such pallets.) And this means that a short bar is extremely easy to split. He's almost pierced by nails already. It remains only to finish the job with a light blow of the hatchet blade. 3 hits - and the board with the remnants of the bar itself is separated from the pallet plate. So we separate all three boards of the pallet.

Now we need to get rid of the remnants of the bar on the plate. Nothing complicated either. Proportioning the force of impact, with the tip of the hatchet blade we prick the remains of the bar. The extreme pieces fly off immediately, the middle ones still resist and hold on to the nails. We pierce them too. Don't be afraid to hit a nail with a hatchet. In this case, you are not hitting across the nail, but along. Therefore, serrating an ax blade is quite problematic. It simply glides over the nail, chipping the wood.

We get rid of the remnants of the bar with a few blows of the butt of the hatchet. At the same time, we prepare fuel for a samovar or barbecue.

That's actually all. We have at our disposal a die with completely intact planks and 3 more planks separately with the remnants of the bar, which can be disposed of in a similar way.

As you can see, all the fears when disassembling the pallet are greatly exaggerated. A little ingenuity and at your disposal mountains of almost free building material. Parsing one pallet takes no more than 3-5 minutes.

Court Butterfield

How to disassemble a wooden pallet without cracking?

I'm trying to salvage wood from some wood pallets but with no success. I drove closer to where the nails were, and then pulled out the nails; however, before the tree gets far enough to remove the nails, it usually breaks in half. Any suggestions would be most helpful.

Shirlock at home

pallets are built from raw wood with tons of flaws. why are you even worried? Cut the boards at the ends before the nails and save the rest.

Michael Karas ♦

Rubbish is sometimes someone else's wealth. There are people who have built entire little buildings out of pallets!!

Jay Bazuzi

Pallets are great for many projects, but in my opinion it's better if you can use them whole. If you are taking them apart, you should buy lumber instead.

Answers

Michael Karas

They make several styles of tools that are made specifically for pulling nails. One tool called "cat's paw" looks like the picture below. (You may find a similar tool under other localized names). A hammer is used to drive the hooked end under the head of the nail so that it can be leveled later.

Another type of nail puller is also very effective in that the tool is used by itself without the need for a separate hammer. The handle on this type of nail puller is used to slide up and push down to insert the jaws around the head of the nail. Pulling sideways in the direction of the "foot" causes the jaws to press firmly against the nail and pull it out.

Mike

it good tools for regular nails, but for coated wire nails commonly used in pallets, the cat's paw rips off the head and the jaws on the slide hammer puller cut the tang.

Ed Beal

I used a jack nail, second photo, to remove twisted square nails on oak pallets, yes low quality wood, I wouldn't waste time on soft wood, but oak can be cut through a planer and is still used.

DMoore

For the first few corners, you need to cut your nails in half once you have them a little. A Dremel diamond tipped tool might work. If you take out too many of them, they will break.

HerrBag

I would use a receiver with a 12" bi-metal or carbide blade

DMoore

I think it's funny that my answer was downvoted when I did this before and a lot of people have a dremel or something that could cut a nail. But how many people (cheap enough to want to keep a box) have a cat's paw... whatever. And I don't understand how a cat's paw or any other nail puller won't damage the tree.

HerrBag

I +1 to counter the anonymous downvote. Downgrading without comments does not follow the suggestions of our site. I think -1 should be reserved for a BAD, dangerous, misleading answer, so it needs to be commented out.

DMoore

I don't mind upvoting if my suggestion is either unsafe, doesn't work, or there is much more the best solution. I just thought it was weird that the solution I tried and didn't work got a bunch of upvotes. If you pull the nails too far, the wood will split. @Herr, both of your chopping suggestions are correct and possibly better than mine. Just tossed out what I did from experience. I use pallets for my barn walls... 2-3 more pallets and you're done.

Ed Beal

Nail Jack can start to pull and if he stops moving he will clip the nail and you can get another bite or use a flat bar or miracle bar to pry it out.

Stephen Zhang

I usually collect pallets from the street because my parents won't buy me wood to make things for my things, they only buy them when I make their things. The first time I did it, it was such a complex and hard job that I had a whole day of sour muscles, but 80% of the solid wood from the pallets broke. I recalled the memory of having done this and found that perhaps I should use a chisel and drive it in between two nailed nails, using the pole principle to separate them, and then use the end head of a hammer. and use the same pole principle to pull it out. After removing dozens of pallets, I also had the experience of pulling each nail a little each time so that the wood doesn't bend and therefore break. Never use a hammer to try and knock it out, you will damage the wood and break it. Drive in the chisel and spread it. Here are some examples of wood that I removed:

Ed Beal

They are like most of the free pallets I fixed, time is cheap when you don't have a job.

Dano0430

I have been very successful with a simple 1x6 mark reduction. This notch is for the pallet boards on the underside of your pallet, so make sure it's large enough to accommodate the widest plank. Then I would take this 1x6 and set it between the boards and next to the "2x4" that all the boards are nailed to. This would lift the pallet off the ground + - 1". I would then take the mini sled and push down on the pallet. This would create additional pressure points that would separate the boards from the 2x4. I would then move my 1x6 to the middle and opposite end section This loosened 95% of my boards without splitting (which usually happens with a hammer and a crowbar) I would then use the crowbar to pull just the nail It may sound hard but it's not the only hard part was the constant sound from hitting .

Dan Padilla

I used a FEIN saw with a metal cutting blade and then a punch attached to an air hammer and it ripped out the nails very quickly. Highly fast work to remove the pallet without damage, except when the nails were pressed into those that were recessed into the tree.

Tester101

FEIN is a company, not a type of saw. Could you elaborate more on the type of saw you are using?

Tyler Durden

Obviously you can use specialized hardware as Dan Padilla suggests, but I'm assuming you don't have such hardware.

You have to pass through both sides of the nail, which is hard to do with a hammer. Use a nail puller and squeeze it into the crack where the board is nailed to the beam.

If that doesn't work for you, take a hacksaw and cut the seam where the two pieces of wood meet. Once they are separated from each other, use a set of nails (a small metal pin) to knock out the nail.

Harris McGuire

If you manage to create a gap, a space, in whatever way, between the boards and the 2x4 structural members (to which they are nailed) - so that you can insert a saw blade for cutting metal (a hacksaw or a reciprocating power saw) then you can trim your nails carefully, closer to the bottom of the board, leaving a small headless "nail" on the 2x4 surface.

Then use the ViceGrip pliers to carefully pull out the remaining embedded nail. Clamp the "shank" of the nail tight enough that the pliers are not squeezing the metal shaft, rather than loosening and breaking it; but firmly enough that the teeth of the pliers can successfully hold a grip that does not slip off the stem. Practice and intuition will get you through this successfully. Using the curved head of the ViceGrip pliers in a rocking motion not unlike the bending of the head of a forked hammer, with a soft but firm motion, the nail has a good chance of falling out. Again, using wedges, as with the forked hammer head, will also help. The goal is to apply sufficient traction to the nail shaft without causing it to detach as it is removed from the wood.

fixer1234

Let me add a couple of other options to the list.

For nail heads not fully embedded in the wood, you can use carpenter's pliers.

You bring the jaws to the bottom of the nail head and then squeeze the handles to get leverage to get the jaws under the head. From there, you can easily pull the nail far enough to pull it out with a large tool, cut it off, or move the pliers to pull it out. Some pliers have a hardened head and allow you to trim softer nails if you have a lot of hand strength.

Another approach if you do it a lot and you have air compressor, is to use pneumatic nail remover. They are not necessarily expensive. One of the first ones I noticed on Amazon was for under $50 and I wouldn't be surprised if Harbor Freight has a $20 version. :-)

You use this to remove nails after the boards have been torn. You slide your muzzle over the protruding nail (you may need to straighten the nail if it is bent). The ram knocks the nail back out of the wood. Here is a video demonstrating its use, starting at 3:00 am, by address : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AEejvcNBoCg.

The smart guy made a hand held version with a punch bit holder. Here's a video: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LWeEbYYySLw This video is much longer than it needs to be. The relevant part starts at the minute in the video, and how to use it starts at 3:30 (you can figure out the first part if you watch from 3:30).

Zeek

Use 2 strong boards + 2 strong support boards:

BMitch ♦

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We get rid of the remnants of the bar with a few blows of the butt of the hatchet. At the same time, we prepare fuel for a samovar or barbecue.

That's actually all. We have at our disposal a die with completely intact planks and 3 more planks separately with the remnants of the bar, which can be disposed of in a similar way.

As you can see, all the fears when disassembling the pallet are greatly exaggerated. A little ingenuity and you have mountains of practically free building material at your disposal. Parsing one pallet takes no more than 3-5 minutes.

Sometimes at the disposal of the summer resident are used (used) so-called. euro pallets. This, of course, is not about shower trays, but about wooden pallets, made to make it more convenient for loaders to turn over some kind of load that is laid on pallets. They are assembled, I must say, in good conscience, on ruffled or screw nails, so that they would not figure it out on their own during operation. The wood there is mostly birch. But it is an excellent material for making garden furniture or using it as ancillary products. For example, formwork, light railings, garden furniture, benches, deck chairs, etc. One of my acquaintances did this in general - he made a fence from second-hand pallets. And not bad, I must say, a fence.
The main problem when disassembling euro pallets is their high-quality assembly. But this is if you approach them without a flight of thought. I have met discussions on several forums on dismantling pallets for building materials. And alas, he noted that the stereotype is working. "Knocked down with nails? “You have to use a nail puller.” But the thing is just that the nails are non-removable! Nails ruffed or screw. Therefore, an attempt to extract them ends either with a breakdown of the board into which they are driven, or with the use of a saw to cut the pallet into firewood.
Meanwhile, there is a way to disassemble the pallet, even to the finish, and quickly and with virtually no damage to the material. And from the tools you only need ... a small hatchet. Now I'll tell you how it's done.

Often, the summer resident does not need to disassemble the top plate itself is full. It is a product in itself, very applicable in the economy. And you just need to get rid of 3 boards to which this die is attached.

Please note that these three boards, which serve as a support for the pallet, are attached through 9 wooden blocks. On the one hand, 3 boards are nailed to them, on the other, the pallet plate itself. Moreover, in 99 cases out of 100 nails are hammered across the fibers of the tree! (And this is normal. Who clogs along ... Although there are such pallets.) And this means that a short bar is extremely easy to split. He's almost pierced by nails already. It remains only to finish the job with a light blow of the hatchet blade. 3 hits - and the board with the remnants of the bar itself is separated from the pallet plate. So we separate all three boards of the pallet.

Now we need to get rid of the remnants of the bar on the plate. Nothing complicated either. Proportioning the force of impact, with the tip of the hatchet blade we prick the remains of the bar. The extreme pieces fly off immediately, the middle ones still resist and hold on to the nails. We pierce them too. Don't be afraid to hit a nail with a hatchet. In this case, you are not hitting across the nail, but along. Therefore, serrating an ax blade is quite problematic. It simply glides over the nail, chipping the wood.

We get rid of the remnants of the bar with a few blows of the butt of the hatchet. At the same time, we prepare fuel for a samovar or barbecue.

That's actually all. We have at our disposal a die with completely intact planks and 3 more planks separately with the remnants of the bar, which can be disposed of in a similar way.

If you plan on depalletizing on a permanent basis, either occasionally or in a mass production environment, it will be helpful to have the right tools for the job. There are many options for palletizing, including bars, hand-held power tools, and equipment for high-volume recycling operations. They are discussed below. If you are going to dismantle multiple pallets, this can be done without any of the special tools discussed in this article.

Pry bars

The support is intended for manual removal of pallet boards. There are two main styles of pin design. These styles include duck and double fork. The duck counter is well suited for picking up lead slab from the edge of the pallet without dismantling the wood during removal. The jaw of the instrument is positioned above the board, and then the handle is lifted up. A double fork tray is used to remove internal deck boards. Its effectiveness depends on the heel of the bar lying on the string, and then using a lever, the forks rise under the next board and pry it out of the stringer.

The accompanying image for this article shows a combination board that has a duck bill patch on one end and a double fork on the other.

Power Hand Tools

Power tools can extract most of the effort from pallet removal. Two common approaches for power hand tools include the reciprocating saw, often referred to as the Sawzall, as well as the Nail Kicker.

A reciprocating saw is used to trim the nails at the joint where they connect the wood components. The Nail Kicker is similar to a pneumatic nail tool, except that instead of driving the nail into the wood, it is designed to drive the nails out of the wood, or at least push them deep enough to easily free the deck boards from the pallet.

For getting additional information visit www. nailkicker. com.

Palletizers

Palletizers are the workhorses of successful high volume pallet recycling operations. There are two main categories of commercial demolition machines. These include the pressure type, often using round cutting heads, as well as the popular dismantling of the band saw.

1. Pressure sensors. Dismantling devices high pressure first appeared in the 1970s. Typically, this approach involves free swivel discs with an adjustable tabletop. The pallet is fed through discs that shift the fasteners at the point where the deck slabs meet the pallet stringer. The speed of the operation is determined in part by the number of heads. With three cutting heads, only the upper and lower pallet passes are required to achieve disassembly. One criticism of this style of hardware is that while it can be very fast, up to 30 percent of the pallet components are damaged in disassembly. In addition, the nails must be removed or flattened.

2. Bandage disassemblers. Belt depalletizers have become the workhorse of palletizers for depalletizing. They use a band blade that runs high above the table, which will allow it to cut through the bottom boards where they meet the stringer.

Recyclers appreciate the superior lumber recovery as well as a clean cut that leaves no nails.

Any type of device can be reinforced with additional equipment such as conveyors to ensure the flow of disassembled parts from the device for sorting and stacking or further processing, for example, to a cut-off saw to cut pieces to a shorter length.

There are several pallet removal equipment providers to meet the needs of your pallet recycling business. Some of these providers include:

Pallet Group

smart products

Tracing hardware