Pallet Long Board Deck

Recently, do to an elementary school being renovated in my area, i stumbled upon some old wood pallets. soon, while being a couch potato and trying to find something to occupy my free time i thought "what the heck i might as well build something." then out of the corner of my eye i noticed a long board sitting in a vacant corner of my house. immediately the idea popped into my head why not build another deck for these wheels to party on. and thus my quest for building a long board deck for little to no money began.

The first step on your rather short road of making a cheap long board deck is to find some pallets.

however there are some things to consider when trying to find your pallets.

1. be sure your pallet has at least 2-3 planks of the same thickness

2. be sure the people that are working at wherever you get your pallets are OK with you taking the pallets, or you could take them in the dead of night. (to each their own i guess)

3. be sure that the wood is not rotted, balance on one foot on the pallet and see if the planks will break under your weight, if they do well don't use that pallet.

4. (optional) look if the wood is the right color. i cant tell you how to do this step because i don't know what type of wood you like.

to get the wood out of its pallet form use a crow bar and a hammer.

chances are the wood you just gathered is pretty crappy wood, good wood is not used to make pallets, at least through my experience. The wood i gathered had many little splinters sticking everywhere, was curved slightly, and had a weird gray tint to it. To make your wood look pretty and be functional i would recommend using a palm sander/ orbital sander to smooth out the splinters, along with a belt sander to smooth out some of the bigger deformities in the wood and if possible remove the slight bends in the wood. be sure to make one long edge of both pieces of wood smooth and strait as you are going to be gluing them together in the next step. it would also be a good idea to cut your wood to the length you want it to be.

generally people don't want a long board deck that is 1 board length across (about 3-4in), in order to solve the width of the wood being less than adequate, unless your preference is otherwise, we are going to glue two pieces together. In this step you will need wood glue, i used titebond II because it was the first i saw, and many clamps long enough to reach the width of two boards put together, so about 8 in. To glue the wood together apply the wood glue to one of the long edges that, unless you are lazy or hate following instructions because your a "rebel", you should have sanded earlier. Next press the two smooth edges of wood against each other and tightly clamp them in place.

if you want your board to look good i would recommend finding another piece of wood or something strait and clamping it across the wood to keep it in alignment. after you have glued the wood wait about 24 hours for the glue to dry.

this step is pretty much as the name implies, pick a design and draw it out on your pieces of wood. i modeled mine off a sector nine board i own. the hardest part here is knowing where to put the holes in the deck to attach your trucks. look up online how where to drill holes for the deck, i just drilled random holes and that approach did not work. in order to transfer your design to the board you can freehand draw or print off one of the many templates that can be found all on the internet.

now that your beautiful design has been transferred to your glued pieces of wood you need to cut out the design. to do this i used a jigsaw and a circular saw. Be sure the glue on your wood has completely dried before you do this step, if it has not your board will fall apart and you will just be left staring in wonder at two pieces of wood. Be sure to wear eye protection when using a circular saw they throw up a lot of dust.

in order to get the wood looking super pretty i would recomend using a palm sander to smooth out everything and give the edges of your new deck a nice round look. start with course sandpaper get rid of the bigger blemishes, and slowly work your way to super fine sandpaper to give your board a nice smooth feel. This step can be done with just sandpaper and your hand but it will take way longer. this step is also optional but it is highly recomended.

this step is also optional but it makes your poor old wood deck look like a brand new high class long board strait out of the factory or wherever they make long boards. I first coated the whole deck in wood glue, this was because i accidentally spilled some and then just spread it out. then with the help of tape i used black spray paint, dark wood stain, and polyurethane.

also this is my first time building a long board so any tip or tricks are greatly appreciated. if you have anything to add please feel free to leave a comment or message me personally.