You should learn woodworking on pallet wood. When a lot of people start down the path to woodworking they dive in too deep before they realize how expensive wood is. Good wood can be very pricey and if you’re just learning it sucks to throw away your money on something you’re going to mess up a few times before you get it right. The solution to this is to learn with scrap wood and there’s no better source of scrap wood than pallets!
Pallets are Often Free and Abundant
Pallets are one of those things we don’t really think about in life that ends up being surprisingly ubiquitous. Almost everything that is shipped is shipped on pallets at some point. Rather than sending those pallets back a lot of places simply trash them at the end of the day. This is a huge waste problem because while pallet wood isn’t the highest quality material in the world, it’s still usable and often can be turned into very functional items with a little love and care.
In almost any place in the US (and many other countries too) you can drive up to a store that gets deliveries on pallets and ask if you can take them. Most big box stores are required to say no, but local shops, shipping yards, and distribution centers are often happy for you to take the pallets away. It saves them on waste fees if nothing else so it’s worth asking.
Ask Before Taking Pallets
While most pallets sitting outside are free to take, you should always ask. Some places do recycle their pallets and certain types of pallets are more valuable than others. The worst that can happen is the place says no and you have to go somewhere else. Just be sure you’re not stealing the pallets before you drive off with them!
Why Learn On Pallets?
While it might not sound ideal to learn with scrap wood beyond the cost savings, pallet wood offers another surprising advantage that other types of wood don’t: defects! When you’re learning woodworking figuring out how to overcome challenges and think about your wood is super important. Pallet wood offers you a lot of small simple challenges to overcome.
With pallet wood you’re learn to join smaller planks into larger board. You’ll learn to patch holes and knots. You’ll even learn how to clean up splits and tears in your work. Most importantly with pallet wood you’ll learn how to troubleshoot on the fly. Being able to fix issues as they come up is the most important skill a woodworker can have.
What Can I Make With Pallet Wood?
Pallet wood works great for projects that require slabs. Pallets can easily be glued and clamped to make large thick wood slabs that are great for workbench and bar tops. You can also join planks widthwise to make boards for simple draws and cabinets. It’s amazing how much you can really do with them at the end of the day. Wood is wood after all, so if you want to make something with pallet wood you probably can!
That being said there are some limitations to pallet wood you should be aware of.
The Limitations of Pallet Wood for Woodworking Projects
Pallet wood is great for a lot of applications, but it shouldn’t be used for kitchen counters, cutting boards, garden beds, or animal shelters. While there’s a good likelihood that it wouldn’t be harmful, you never know how pallet wood had been treated and it can have all sorts of chemical compounds in it. This is why when working with pallets you need to be especially careful to wear a respirator and not just as mask. Who knows what you could be breathing in!
With those projects out of the picture your scope is narrowed a bit. That being said, pallet wood makes great furniture, storage trunks, work benches, garage cabinets, and shop bins. Many people like to use it for the tabletop surface of smaller pieces of furniture because joining all the wood together gives it a wonderfully varied mosaic patter. While the look might not be for everyone, the versatility here of the wood cannot be denied. If you really want to go the extra mile you can sand stain and colorize pallet wood to the point that you wouldn’t even recognize that it was trash to begin with!
Other Caveats of Working With Pallets
The final big downside to working with pallets is that you have to take them apart which can take a long time. You need to own a long handle pry bar if you want to disassemble them with any sort of ease and still it will take some effort. When the wood is free you pay for it in other ways.
After you take the pallets apart you need to very carefully remove all the nails. Nails can be tricky because in addition to just being things you want out of the wood, they can also be hazards when working with the material. We recommend getting a handheld metal detector when working with pallet wood to ensure you’re not sending any errant nails or bits of metal into your saws when you start cutting the wood down.
Pallet Wood is A Easy Entry Point to Woodworking
While you may have the cash to get into woodworking without free wood, we think recycling pallets is a great place to start for almost anyone. You’re not only helping reduce wood waste in landfills, but also giving yourself a simple, but challenging starting point to ease into the hobby. Pallet wood might just be the thing you were looking for to kick off your woodworking journey!