The Pallet Scam?
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@Renauda said in The Pallet Scam?:
What’s the scam about pallet wood furniture?
It's not really a scam so much as "is it worth it?"
When you consider the cost (and time) of tearing down a pallet, removing nails, jointing, planing and getting pieces reasonable thickness, filling defects, etc, it's a
bitlot cheaper to just use poplar.If you like "pallet wood," go for it, but otherwise, not worth the hassle.
When you consider the cost (and time) of tearing down a pallet, removing nails….
Tell me about it.
It took my spouse and I two or three weeks to break down and remove the nails from those crate walls. That was working on them for at least an hour and a half per day. Two medium sized utility trailer loads of crate walls = a hell of a lot of heavy gauge framing nails of which many of were driven through and bent at the point
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@George-K said in The Pallet Scam?:
Poplar is $5 a bf??? Christ on a popsicle stick - that's what I used to pay for walnut.
Candy bars ain't a nickel no more...I'm assuming that's 1C.
@Jolly said in The Pallet Scam?:
Candy bars ain't a nickel no more
Again...by the way.
I never had the equipment for large glue-ups so my lumber yard would accommodate me for large panels.
For our dining room table, I had them fabricate a solid walnut panel, about 40" wide and about 72" long. I asked them to cut that in half (two 36" panels) so that I could put leaves between the two larger pieces. I crafted two leaves, each 18" by 40" which were also glued up for me for uniform thickness.
It was solid 5/4 walnut.
In 1986, I paid about $550 for that work.
The entire table cost me about $850. That included the extension mechanism, legs, etc. Solid walnut.
For our kitchen table I did the same thing. Had a slab of 5/4 oak, about 40" by 72" glued up. Cost me $250.
"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... " - Mik, 6/14/08
The saying, "Lite is just one damn thing after another," is a gross understatement. The damn things overlap.
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@Renauda said in The Pallet Scam?:
@Aqua-Letifer said in The Pallet Scam?:
Be interested to hear what @Renauda has to say.
Very little.
I made my furniture and the bathroom cabinet from hardwood crating that had come from a local steel mill. I was told the crates originated in Brazil. The crating walls had been sitting in a guy’s garage since the 1970’s. He never got round to doing anything with it and just wanted it gone. Some of it was rock hard dense, like iron wood. It was goulash of different hardwoods.
Have never used pallet wood. I do however have an oak pallet in the garage that I may some day break down and use.
I didn’t watch the video. What’s the scam about pallet wood furniture?
Basically, for somebody trying to make money with their woodworking, he built two identical tables. One was pallet wood (with walnut scraps as backing) and one from poplar. At the end of the projects, he auctioned both off. Both brought close to the same money. But...When you figured in the additional man-hours required to tear the pallets down, square them up, piecing the wood, the additional steps in finishing...Well, he made a little over $22/hr working on the pallet wood table. He made over $40/hr on the poplar table.
I can see that.
Just checked and yes, poplar runs about $5 a board foot here as well. Used to be less than half that. I remember helping to build tie stalls for horses. Used 3 x 8 x10’ poplar planking for the floors because it was a fraction of the cost of construction grade spruce 2x8x10’s.
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@Jolly said in The Pallet Scam?:
Candy bars ain't a nickel no more
Again...by the way.
I never had the equipment for large glue-ups so my lumber yard would accommodate me for large panels.
For our dining room table, I had them fabricate a solid walnut panel, about 40" wide and about 72" long. I asked them to cut that in half (two 36" panels) so that I could put leaves between the two larger pieces. I crafted two leaves, each 18" by 40" which were also glued up for me for uniform thickness.
It was solid 5/4 walnut.
In 1986, I paid about $550 for that work.
The entire table cost me about $850. That included the extension mechanism, legs, etc. Solid walnut.
For our kitchen table I did the same thing. Had a slab of 5/4 oak, about 40" by 72" glued up. Cost me $250.
@George-K said in The Pallet Scam?:
@Jolly said in The Pallet Scam?:
Candy bars ain't a nickel no more
Again...by the way.
I never had the equipment for large glue-ups so my lumber yard would accommodate me for large panels.
For our dining room table, I had them fabricate a solid walnut panel, about 40" wide and about 72" long. I asked them to cut that in half (two 36" panels) so that I could put leaves between the two larger pieces. I crafted two leaves, each 18" by 40" which were also glued up for me for uniform thickness.
It was solid 5/4 walnut.
In 1986, I paid about $550 for that work.
The entire table cost me about $850. That included the extension mechanism, legs, etc. Solid walnut.
For our kitchen table I did the same thing. Had a slab of 5/4 oak, about 40" by 72" glued up. Cost me $250.
Wow!! That is awesome work!!!:woman-heart-man:
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George does very good work.
There are carpenters, finish carpenters, cabinet men and furniture builders. George is a furniture builder.
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George does very good work.
There are carpenters, finish carpenters, cabinet men and furniture builders. George is a furniture builder.
@Jolly said in The Pallet Scam?:
George is a furniture builder.
Thanks for the compliment.
Among my many flaws is a total lack of imagination, sense of scale and proportion.
There are a couple of pieces that I've built with which I've been very dissatisfied. They just don't look "right."
But, show me some plans and I can do it. Sometimes, show me a picture, and I can plan it out - like the desk at which I'm sitting now. It's a beast. All walnut, except for the drawer sides, which are maple - dovetailed, of course.
These two tables, however, were successes in opinion. The kitchen table was built for durability. We had hundreds of meals at it, the kids painted, colored and, yes, sat on it. It served us very well.
The dining room table was okay. In retrospect, I could have done some things a bit better, but for the 15 years we had it, it also served its purpose.
Like I said, the total cost for both of these was about $1000.
I did good.
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I actually like the style of the kitchen table more vs. the dining table. But both are very nice.
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I actually like the style of the kitchen table more vs. the dining table. But both are very nice.
@taiwan_girl said in The Pallet Scam?:
I actually like the style of the kitchen table more vs. the dining table. But both are very nice.
Yeah, but look at the work on the dining table.
