# how to process pallets for firewood



## schwaggly (Jan 5, 2010)

I've got more wood for 2011 than 2010 and even more for 2012 than 2011. I need to stretch my supply with some pallets and I've got a good local source.
I've just been going at them with my electric saw kinda half ass. Does anyone have a better/neater way?


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## spirilis (Jan 5, 2010)

Heard some folks use a circular saw, that sounds a bit nicer.  I go at them with a sawzall but that is really hard on my wrists...
Personally wouldn't mind also having a table saw for cutting some of the slats down to smaller stove-size as I love burning them in my smaller downstairs stove (mainly use my WoodBrickFuel in the upstairs stove).


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## golfandwoodnut (Jan 5, 2010)

I like using a sawsall.  I stand them upright and just cut downwards.


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## Battenkiller (Jan 5, 2010)

Lay down about 4-5 of them in a stack to use as a bench, put them one at a time on the stack and cut them with a circ saw.  Set your blade just deep enough to go through them.  Cut the bottom slats first then flip them over.  Save all the heavier lengthwise pieces, line them next to each other on the top of the stack and make two cuts across the entire layer.

Use a cheap blade, wear safety goggles, and of course, watch out for nails.  And make sure you don't dump the ashes in the driveway.


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## CrawfordCentury (Jan 5, 2010)

Stack 'em about 4' tall and make 4 vertical cuts alongside the support runners with your beater saw. If you have one that's orange and other that's purple and green, use the latter of the 2 in case you encounter a stray nail. 

Then cut to stove length with a mitre saw.

Not a lot of firewood in pallets. Lots of air. Fortunately, air's needed for combustion. And pallets burn better than iceicles.


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## basswidow (Jan 5, 2010)

Is it ok to burn the boards with the nails?  My stove is brick lined and I don't put my ashes on the driveway.  Pulling the nails would make it more of a hassle then it would be worth.

I may go after some pallet boards too and plan to use my circular saw.  With a tool size generator,  you could cut a bunch on site without hauling them home to cut.  They take up so much space in the truck bed - it's hardly worth scrounging them, unless you could break them down on site.  I have a short bed and could probably get at most 10 in the bed.  But cut on site - I could fill the bed above the rails with boards in short order.


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## spirilis (Jan 5, 2010)

I burn them with the nails.  I don't put my ashes in the driveway so IMO it's all good.  Do whatever you have to in order to cut them down--it's a great idea actually...


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## CrawfordCentury (Jan 5, 2010)

Burn 'em with the nails in. Get a good magnet if you spread ashes anywhere you tread.

BTW, those nails will NOT be suitable for use after being subjected to high temps


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## leaddog (Jan 5, 2010)

use a magnet in the ashes and pull all the nails out. works really well and it even gets the nails that are in firewood that you didn't know about.
leaddog


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## sksmass (Jan 5, 2010)

Does heating metal (like the iron in nails) change the rate of decomposition of the metal?  That is. if you took two identical nails, made one red hot by putting into a fire, and then buried them both (like in your compost pile), would they turn to iron oxide (pure rust) at the same rate?


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## CrawfordCentury (Jan 5, 2010)

sksmass said:
			
		

> Does heating metal (like the iron in nails) change the rate of decomposition of the metal?  That is. if you took two identical nails, made one red hot by putting into a fire, and then buried them both (like in your compost pile), would they turn to iron oxide (pure rust) at the same rate?



I don't know the science behind why, but it's the same reason woodstoves are made from cast iron and not steel.


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## CarbonNeutral (Jan 5, 2010)

1. See if you can get hardwood pallets from a local stonemason/landscaping company

2. I use a circ saw with a cheap carbide toothed blade - most of which are missing from hitting hidden nails - it did cut quickly though when it was new...

3. Technique depends on the pallet style - the hardwood ones are trickier.

4. Ditto for the whole stack making a bench thing


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## CarbonNeutral (Jan 5, 2010)

PS. Tried a sawzall - horrible, much slower


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## prajna101 (Jan 5, 2010)

Another for circ saw with old blade.  Stack like a table.  

I usually get a pile of "nail wood".  Then I burn it all up in a day or so and throw the nail ashes away in the trash.  Then back to normal burning.

I get my pallets from a lanscape company that is literally less than a block away.  They stack them up for me.  The I go over every couple of months and give the forklift operator a $5 and he drives them to my driveway in one load.  

t


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## CarbonNeutral (Jan 5, 2010)

TriTodd said:
			
		

> I get my pallets from a lanscape company that is literally less than a block away.  They stack them up for me.  The I go over every couple of months and give the forklift operator a $5 and he drives them to my driveway in one load.
> 
> t



That's awesome - they are heavy and dirty to stick in the back of the car.


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## prajna101 (Jan 6, 2010)

Yeah, I can haul 5 at a time on my bike trailer too.  The weight isnt bad, but the wind resistance on a stack of pallets is HUGE  If I am scrounging on my bike, I throw a sawzall in with an extra battery and 12 inch pruning blade for quick breakdowns.  

todd


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## WES999 (Jan 6, 2010)

I break them up with my pallet fork, mine is home made but you can buy them.
Then cut them up with a circular saw.

OPE store around the corner put out these nice oak pallets, I grab as much as I can and burn them. :exclaim:


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## Elderthewelder (Jan 6, 2010)

CrawfordCentury said:
			
		

> it's the same reason woodstoves are made from cast iron and not steel.



???????????


Everybody I know who owns a stove has one made out of steel


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## Elderthewelder (Jan 6, 2010)

CrawfordCentury said:
			
		

> it's the same reason woodstoves are made from cast iron and not steel.



???????????


Everybody I know who owns a stove, has a steel stove, I do not  think I would even consider a cast stove/ IMO cast to fragile and once it breaks or cracks it is a pain to repair

sorry about the double post


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## SWNH (Jan 6, 2010)

Well, after breaking down 100's of pallets last year, I think I've tried just about every way possible to do it. 

BFL (Big F$#^$& lever) - Way too much effort. Those twist nails are like rivets!

Chainsaw - Holding the pallet vertically with a stand and trying to slice down thru the slats. Slats always pinched the bar.

SawzAll - Too slow and weight of the tool can tire one out early. Not to mention the slats will sometimes pinch the blade and vibrate to death...without cutting.

Jigsaw - Did about 50 this way. Aggressive blade. Easy to steer around nails. Barrel grip is easier on the wrist than top handle. Slower that a circular saw, but I get into a rhythm.

Circular saw - Tool of choice using Oshlun Deck & Nail blades. These have more steel backing up the carbide tips, so they can take more "shock" when hitting a nail without dislodging the tip. Sure, they dull but I have the equipment to sharpen them.

I put the pallet on a table with stops (to hold it) and "float" the saw barely above the surface...not really riding on the shoe much. This is (obviously) a 2-hand operation...hence the need for the stops. I use a Milwaukee 6390 because it's one if the lightest saws in it's class. The Tilt-Lok adjustable handle is a plus. After cutting all the slats from the stringers, I cut the stringers with a 10" chop saw.

A spring project will be modifying a Delta Sawbuck to ride on 6ft rails to slice thru the slats without having to hold the saw's weight. Since it's captured by the rails, I'll be able to cut in both directions to save time...without having to worry about kickback.


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## Battenkiller (Jan 6, 2010)

Or, you can do what I used to do and own a friend that runs a pallet shop...

They had to get rid of their scrap somehow, paying for removal if needed (nowadays they chip in and pump the chips into the nearby woods).  Once or twice of a year, he'd send a couple of his guys over to dump a huge trailer load at my place.  Free wood, but what a pain!  Thousands of little pieces from 3" long up to about 2', then hundreds of longer boards with defects that I had to cut to stove length on my band saw.  Let me tell you, if you think handling big rounds is a pain, try moving and storing a mess like this before it gets snowed on.  Then loading the stove, trying to get a good, long burn (they only work well when mixed with splits in my experience), dealing with the giant bed of tiny coals with no air spaces for burn channels, etc, etc, and so forth.

One year I set up 6 pallets in a rectangle to make a bin.  Wired them all together and dumped all the smallest pieces in it.  Filled it heaping. Then my buddy's shop went to the chipper and I stopped burning pallet scrap. Now fast forward to last year. I decided to break down that old compost bin that I hadn't been using in years.  Forgot all about that it was full of pallet wood fragments, now fully decomposed into about a cubic yard of rotten muck.

God, I hate burning pallets!  And getting them deliberately and cutting them up myself?  What was I thinking?!  My friendly hardware store always has a big stack around the back for free.  Every spring I select about 8 good, strong, heavy ones... just enough to store my leftover splits from the recently ended burn season.


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## schwaggly (Jan 6, 2010)

I think I'm going to use the stack method with my electric chainsaw for now. I'll plug it into an adapter in my car to break them up at the store bring them home and finish up.
I found some oak beauties that burn wicked pissa.


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## Got Wood (Jan 6, 2010)

Or you can just beat the crap out of them with a sledge hammer. May not be efficient but its great stress relief


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## 4acrefarm (Jan 6, 2010)

chainsaw for slats and chop saw for runners


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## firefighterjake (Jan 8, 2010)

CrawfordCentury said:
			
		

> sksmass said:
> 
> 
> 
> ...



Uh . . . scratching my head here . . . I realize there are cast iron woodstoves (I mean my Jotul is cast iron), but I'm pretty sure there are woodstoves made out of steel as well . . . Lopi, Englander, etc.


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## firefighterjake (Jan 8, 2010)

I didn't cut up too many pallets this year . . . although last year I did quite a few. They are a pain . . . a lot of work, for not a lot of wood, but the advantage is wood that burns well.

I experimented a bit and for me simply using my chainsaw and being careful where I cut worked the best.

Yes . . . you can burn the nails . . . pulling all of those nails would try the patience of even the most patient Buddhist monk . . . but just be careful where you spread the ashes.

---


An alternative . . . and true story . . . last year I picked up a load of pallets in my trailer and I dropped the trailer off at the Fire Department training facility since parking can sometimes be a bit tight at the firehouse where I work.

When I returned in the late afternoon to pick up my trailer I found that a fire academy was going on unbeknownst to me and coincidentally enough the class they were doing that day was on ventiliation which involves breaking a whole lot of pallets with axs . . . needless to say my pallets were reduced to small pallet pieces as they thought my trailer full of pallets was for the class (I never did find out where the trailer with the pallets intended for the class ended up) . . . not as neat as I normally cut them up, but a lot less work as the entire class had gone to town on my trailer full of pallets.


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## Battenkiller (Jan 8, 2010)

Cast iron will burn through eventually if you get it hot enough long enough.  The top baffle in my old stove was definitely cast, but after twenty years or so it got a hole burned right through it.  The part is no longer made, so the stove got chucked.

Steel will develop a layer of oxide (called "fire scale") on it when you heat it that protects it from further oxidation.  If you heat it hot enough this will get thicker and eventually crack and fall away.  I experience this with every heat of a piece of steel in my forge.  Of course, the oxide gets a little help cracking off from me and a 2# hammer.  You can easily see it flake off (leaves fire scale on the anvil face), and with each heat, the piece gets slightly smaller.  But if you get it too hot (white hot) it will oxidize so fast that sparks of hot steel will come flying off of it and you will have ruined the piece.

I'm not sure what this has to do with steel plate stoves since they seem to hold up fine, but I do know that the nails come out fairly intact.  The stove walls are farther away from the fire than the nails are, so I'd guess they are somewhat protected from the worst of the heat.


Another thing that once came out of my stove intact. Turns out that even the foil wrappers from condoms (unbelievably) don't entirely disappear.  I know this because my teenaged son used to sleep in the basement for "privacy" reasons.  Turns out he and his underaged girlfriend were throwing the evidence of their adventures in the stove when they were done.  I found the like metal squares when I cleaned out the stove. 

One time we were upstairs watching TV and the distinct smell of burning rubber came wafting up the stairs.  My wife went running for the door to go down, but I grabbed her and told her what I thought it was.  Next day, I finally confronted him about it.  Turns out his girlfriend was responsible because she was afraid of the intense heat of the stove when she opened it and just heaved the item at the opening... missing completely and hitting the stove top.  Pretty gross. I'll never let him live it down.


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## schwaggly (Sep 16, 2011)

I'm onto some heavy oak HT pallets. They weigh 70lbs each according to my bathroom scale. The outside stringers are 4x4 and the centers are beefy 2x4's. The slats
are over an inch thick. I'm using the stack method with a circular saw but my new carbide tip blade from harbor freight is having a hard time 
getting through them. My saw is a 10amp craftsman about 20yrs old with a repaired cord. I'm wondering if I should get a fancy Diablo blade or a 15amp saw or
just keep chugging along. I'm also wondering if adjusting the blade depth will smooth out the slat cuts? I am soaping the blade and that is 
helping a little. I do plan on processing as many as I can and as long as I can, the calorie to BTU ratio is outstanding.


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## PA Fire Bug (Nov 6, 2011)

I've tried cutting them with a circular saw and with my old chainsaw without a whole lot of success.  Right now, I'm using them to stack wood on and for burning in our outdoor fire pit.  Here is my favorite YouTube video for processing pallets


Here is another interesting approach that uses two circular saws to cut both top and bottom at the same time


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