How to disassemble a pallet

Making projects with reclaimed lumber is all the rage these days. The hardest part of reclaiming lumber from wooden pallets is breaking down the pallets into usable boards. In this blog post, I will go over several options for disassembling wooden pallets, including what tools you need.

It’s not as easy to disassemble a pallet as it looks

First things first. There are any number of YouTube videos that show what they claim to be the easiest and best way to break down pallets. It’s usually not as easy as those videos make it look, at least if you aren’t the type who spends 4 hours at the gym every day.

So don’t be surprised if the pallets you scrounge up don’t break into pieces in 5 minutes using a block of wood and a hammer. If you want to reclaim pallet wood, chances are you are going to need some tools. With the right tools, you can break down a pallet in five minutes, usually. Even then some of them put up a fight. Pallets are designed not to come apart easily, and it shows.

Wear gloves

One thing I can’t emphasize enough is the need to wear a pair of work gloves. You will get splinters, cuts, and blisters from handling pallet wood. Wearing work gloves helps you keep this to an absolute minimum. You don’t necessarily have to spend a fortune on professional grade work gloves for this either. A cheap pair of work gloves from a discounter is much better than nothing.

The easiest option

The easiest option, if you can tolerate some waste, is to simply cut off the slats where they meet the runners. This yields thin boards that are between two and six inches wide and around 22 inches long. Depending on what you plan to do with them, there are a number of uses for these. And you won’t need much more than a circular saw.

There’s a fair bit of waste, but the lumber is always most damaged at the ends, so sometimes you end up having to cut those parts off anyway, even if you use a method that tries to reduce the amount of waste as much as possible.

Then, if you want to try to salvage the runners, you can try to pry off the remainders of the slats with a pair of slip joint pliers.

Even if you use other methods most of the time, you will run into pallets that just put up too much of a fight on occasion. When that happens, use the circular saw method.

The pallet buster

Pallet busters are a fork-shaped tool with two times that you use to lever pallet boards apart. These tools were available for a while at some of the national hardware store chains, but I haven’t been able to find them at any of the national chains recently. Fortunately, any machine shop can easily weld together the parts to make a pallet buster, so they are readily available on eBay for around $40-$50.

If you know someone with a metal shop, they can probably put one together for you for less than that. Any pallet buster worth having is expensive to ship.

Using a pallet buster to disassemble a pallet

To use a pallet buster, you slide the tines under the board you want to remove and lever the thinner boards against the 2×4 they are nailed to. The force required to pull up a board frequently will cause the other side to lift. Some people will screw a 2×4 up against a wall in their workshop but they can slide the edge of the pallet under while they are disassembling it.

Or, if you have a stack of pallets, stack them up, leaving the second pallet in the stack overhanging enough to cover one board of a pallet. Slide the pallet you are disassembling under the second pallet in the stack, and then disassemble the pallet. It goes much easier this way. Once you have all of the boards on one side removed, flip the pallet over and do the other side.

As you get the pallet disassembled, it can get flimsy. Sometimes you will have to stand on the pallet to study it while you disassemble it. Watch where you are standing very carefully so you don’t step on any nails.

When prying off a board, it’s up to you whether you start at the center or start at the ends. I find it easier to do the center first, then remove the ends. And if one end is really stubborn, I remove the other one, and then I can usually pry the stubborn side another way.

When all goes well, I can disassemble a pallet with a pallet buster in 5 to 10 minutes.

Don’t hurt yourself

When a pallet puts up too much of a fight, don’t force the issue. There have been times I have tried too hard to force a board and sent myself flying. I was working in my backyard, so I landed on the grass, and that was okay. If I’d been working on a concrete floor or driveway, it probably would have been less okay. Don’t be a macho man and hurt yourself. Change tools. The nails that hold them together are designed to grip like screws, and they don’t give up easily, especially on the boards on the ends that frequently have three nails holding them in rather than two.

Disassembling a pallet with a reciprocating saw or oscillating tool

For those instances where the pallet buster just won’t work, I use a reciprocating saw with a demolition blade. That would be a 12-in Diablo brand demolition blade, to be exact. My $80 Ryobi reciprocating saw is more than up to the task, but you’ll want to buy one that uses your battery system, unless you opt for a corded model. With a good blade and at least a 4 Ah battery, even an inexpensive reciprocating saw is up to the task of disassembling a pallet.

The 12-in blade really increases your reach. You don’t need it for the outside edges, but when you start cutting down the middle of the pallet, the longer blade makes it much easier to reach what you need to cut, even if you have to come in at an awkward angle.

If you can’t afford a reciprocating saw, you could get this done with another type of saw. An oscillating tool with a metal cutting blade would do the job, just not as quickly. A name, brand oscillating multi-tool is no cheaper than a reciprocating saw, but the $20 corded oscillating tool from Harbor Freight is good enough to get the job done.

Using the reciprocating saw

To disassemble the pallet, you need to get in between the slat and the runner, and cut between the two boards until you reach the nails holding them together. Once you get through that final nail, the board frees. Repeat the process until you free the slat from all three runners.

You will reduce the amount of damage you do to the boards if you lever the slats up a bit with another board, a crowbar, or a pallet buster before you start cutting, but that does slow you down, and depending on the age of the pallet, you may or may not be able to get much of a gap.

The key is to not get in too much of a hurry. Prop the pallet up against a wall or, better yet, if you have a workbench with a table that acts like a clamp, clamp the pallet in the workbench to hold it still. Then cut as much as you can, then reposition the pallet so you can reach the rest of the nails. Work your way around the edges, then cut the center.

Disassembling a pallet with a reciprocating saw minimizes the damage you do to the ends of the boards. It still does damage, but usually less damage than prying boards off with a pallet buster. The downside is that it does leave metal embedded in all of the boards. It’s not difficult to drive the fragments out of the slats, but you will have lots of metal embedded in the runners so this method does limit how much resawing you can do on the runners.

Finishing the job with a hammer

There will be times when a pallet just doesn’t want to come apart through other methods. Usually you will get the pallet mostly disassembled, but there will be one side of a board or two that just doesn’t want to budge. One thing I’ve found that helps is standing on one of the boards and hitting the other one with a hammer. This will usually loosen the board enough that I can get the board apart either by prying it with the pallet buster or getting my reciprocal saw blade into the gap.

Removing the nails from the slats and runners

When you pry off the slats, sometimes the nails come out with the board, and sometimes they stay in the 2×4 runner. They are much easier to remove from the slats.

To remove nails from the slats, place the board with the pointy side of the nails facing up on another pallet, or a stack of pallets. Make sure the nail is facing into one of the gaps. Hammer the pointed side of the nail a few times until it protrudes through the other side. Repeat for each nail, then flip the board over and pry the nails out with your hammer. I find alternating between a side to side motion and a back and forth motion makes it easier.

If you had to cut through the nails with a reciprocating saw, you can remove the nail fragments from the slats fairly easily. Place the board down like you would to remove a full nail. Then place a full nail over what remains of the nail, and hit it a couple of times to push it through the board. Flip it over, and you can pry out the nail from its head very easily.

Dealing with the runners

Removing nails that stay behind in the 2×4 portion is much more difficult. This is a shame, because those lengths of 2×4 can be extremely useful. They aren’t always the common whitewood variety you find at the major home improvement stores.

But you’ll find if you try to pry them out with a hammer, you frequently end up breaking off the head. So now you have a pointy nail sticking out from the 2×4.

Removing nails with nipper pliers

The tool to remove them are called nipper pliers. A small handheld set frequently comes bundled with one or more sets of needle nose pliers. But for this job, you probably need a bigger set. Harbor Freight sells a 14 inch set for around $25.

Position the nippers on the body of the nail and lever against the 2×4. As you work the nail out, reposition so you don’t end up cutting it when you meant to reposition it. Moving to an unstressed portion of the nail helps prevent unintentional cutting. If you do cut the nail, it is possible to lever out what remains, but it’s much easier if you are working with more than just a sharp nub.

It’s not a fast process, so you will have to decide if it’s worth the effort. If the board has notches cut in it, that’s a strike against it. If it’s common SPF Whitewood, that’s another strike against it.

But when a pallet has three lengths of undisturbed 2×4 that are 4 feet long or longer, and especially if it isn’t plain old everyday SPF whitewood, I’m typically willing to put a little bit of effort into trying to salvage it.

One more thing before you saw your reclaimed lumber

Chances are you will not be using your reclaimed lumber strictly as is. You will probably need to cut it to length at the very least and you’ll probably need to sand it. It’s also possible you may want to resaw it to a different width, and you may also want to plane one or more of the sides to get a smoother finish.

Before you use any of your power tools on your reclaimed lumber, run a handheld metal detector over the board to look for any metal fragments. Start on one side of the board and run all the way across going back and forth until you have covered the entire length of the board. It is very common for shards of metal to remain in the nail hole even after you remove the nail. You can pick out these shards of metal with a small pic. The metal detector costs around $40, but that’s better than ruining your blades.

Planing boards salvaged from pallets

You may also want to plane the edges to straighten the boards out a bit. Some pallet lumber has a lot of curve in it, which makes it a real liability when trying to get a straight line. If you plane off the high part in the middle of one side and the two high parts on the ends of the other middle side, the board becomes much easier to lay out in a straight line, and it also becomes much safer to cut to a specific width if you need to adjust the width of a board at all.

Sanding

For that matter, you probably want to use a metal detector if you intend to sand the wood. You will always want to sand the edges to eliminate as many splitters as possible. But if you sand the surface, those metal shards will tear up your sandpaper. Sandpaper isn’t terribly expensive, but it starts getting expensive a lot faster if you have to replace it every third or fourth board.

The more you sand or plane the board, the less reclaimed the lumber looks, but you will at least want to send it with coarse sandpaper to eliminate splinters and the roughest of the rough spots. Reclaimed lumber does still look reclaimed after you sand it with 60 grit sandpaper, especially if you only sand enough to eliminate splinters and the roughest edges. So if you want a reclaimed book, you will probably want to stop after 60 grit so the board still has some roughness.

If you start with 60 grit and work your way up to 200, you will end up with something resembling and appearance grade board.

Sanding by hand is adequate if you are just trying to get rid of splinters and other hazards. Load your sanding block up with 60 grit, send the edges, then sand anywhere on the surfaces that show signs of splintering, then move on to the next board.

Fixing cracks in reclaimed pallet wood

Sometimes a nice board will have a crack in it. You don’t necessarily have to just cut off that end and settle for a shorter board. To fix a crack, squirt some wood glue into the crack, then work a piece of string along the crack to distribute the glue at least somewhat evenly. It doesn’t have to be perfect, but the main reason glue joints fail prematurely is because there isn’t enough glue along the whole surface to hold it together. You know you have enough glue when you wipe the excess glue off the surface you can see, then clamp the board together, and you got a small amount of squeeze out along the entire crack.

If you get squeeze out, but it isn’t consistent, remove the clamps and add a bit more glue, then try again. After you have the clamps in place, wipe away the excess glue that squeezed out from the crack. The squeeze out is just an indicator that you have enough glue inside the crack. You probably don’t want it on the surface, and it’s easier to clean up before it dries.

Getting the right look for your repair

For a finished look, the area to blend the repair together. If you do this before the glue has completely dried, it can make the repair invisible. This can really clog up your sandpaper, so after you’re done sanding your repair, make sure to wash your sandpaper with water and let it dry.

For a rustic book, wipe the blue from the surface so it doesn’t discolor the wood or interfere with any other finish you might put on it, but other than that, you can leave it as is. Having some imperfections in some of the boards helps contribute to the overall look, and makes the whole thing a little less uniform.

Washing the boards

Wooden pallets typically have lived a very rough life, and you don’t know where they’ve been. You can clean them just by sanding them with a heavy grit sandpaper, but depending on how dirty the boards are, the sandpaper can clog pretty quickly.

An easy way to wash a lot of words quickly is to line them up on a concrete surface, pour a couple of gallons of water on them along with some bleach, borax, or both, then scrub them with a deck brush. You want to get both sides, but give the side that you expect to face up most of your attention.

An easier way to wash them is to use a power washer, if you have one. You can just use water, or you can use a combination of water and a cleanser. You don’t have to use heavy pressure. The goal isn’t to remove a layer of wood, it’s just to get it clean.

It’s definitely easiest to do this outside in warm weather, so the boards can dry outside.

Thank you

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