Pallet Cleaning

Very little information is out there on preparing your pallets to start making your projects. This was my attempt at preparing the wood.

Pallets are supposedly dangerous depending on what they were used for carrying E.g chemicals, poisons, etc. Pallets can also harbour mould, wood rot, and insects. Some pallets are also chemically treated in certain countries.

Firstly disassemble pallets. There a few good YouTube videos showing how to do this. My only advise would be use a really long crow bar or a pry bar and mallet (my method). Be careful, having old rotten pallets will increase the likely hood of splitting the timbers.

I thought it would be useful and easier on the back bringing the pallets up to a comfortable height, a pallet is very useful at doing this.

I rested the pallet on the table as shown, did have thoughts of screwing in some angled supports if I start doing this more often.

Using the pressure cleaner works very well at bringing back the boards to a nice condition. It does not take away any sprayed on stamps (which I will want to show off on project). Basically leaves all the character still on the boards, just makes them cleaner.

I strongly advise you wear eye protection as high pressured water will splash into your eyes and it will contain pallet matter/ splinters. We only have one set of eyes make sure to look after them.

I don't have any good suggestions for drying your pallets yet! Ideally I would like to stand them up on their ends with a chicken wire at the bottom to let the water drain out.

Luckily I live in Darwin an it is 32 degrees Celsius everyday and things tend dry out very quickly here.

Here I have stacked the pallet wood in a criss cross pattern to aid in drying.