Best Way to Disassemble a Pallet for FREE WOOD
In this video, I show you the best way to disassemble a pallet for free wood to use in projects. It provides the behind-the-scenes look at how I reclaimed the wood for my free art project, the Pallet World Map, that I made for my son's bedroom makeover.
Pallet wood is kinda like Clint Eastwood: dry, rough, and dirty. But it's very useful and ages well. Make it your friend and it'll always help you out in a jam.
Warning
Before using a pallet for indoor projects, be sure to look for the IPPC stamp with the “HT” (heat treated) designation. Do not use chemically-treated wood indoors. Ever.
Disassembly Without Destruction
I tried two ways to take the slats off a pallet. The first (and the worst way) was brute force using a hammer and ripping bars. The nails were so tight in the dry wood that the slats split as IÂ tried to pry under them. Split wood might look okay for some projects, but I wanted solid pieces as long as I could get. So I switched to a second method that used a circular saw to cut the slats away from the end rails. This yielded the longest pieces of solid wood with no splits.
