>>899768
millions of hipsters build random shit out of pallets and put next to their bed

it is fine

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>>899768
Its fine I'm sure. Just don't let the vegans know.

>>899768
Oh wow, even a shitty carpenter could turn all that wood into a proper and nice looking desk.
Instead they chose to just nail all that shit together and it looks fucking awful.

>>899768
I tell people that they shouldn't do it. Then I do it.that's for pretty much everything though

>>899768
Plenty of hipsters have done it and as far as I'm aware nobody has died. Seems safe to me. Use experience to determine what's acceptable, not internet articles.

>>899871
>Use experience
But I don't have the experience yet. And I can't use yours, unless I ask for it.

You would have to use quality pallets. Here in Europe the individual planks are weak so if you would make a floor out of them (as in the image) someone could just jump few times and land on individual planks to break them one by one.

Also the wood is rough so if you use this for desks in an office someone passing will rub their arm against them and will get lots of splinters under skin.

Also how are you going to clean? You will have to vacuum-clean under the planks. There would be lots of stuff like coins and trash falling through the gaps.

These unnecessary steps would also make people trip over and also make it harder to walk from desk to desk.

>>899871
personally I'd check what those pallets have been through rather than experience or internet articles
Don't want any of that offgassing in your house

>>899768
Real wood is usually readily available. Use real wood, make real furniture that justifies the time you spent making it and has resale value.

>>899768
I personally don't have an issue with pallet wood for indoor furniture, just not for food stuff or for stuff in common contact with people. so a bookshelf or a picture frame, sure, table or knife rack or bed or nightstand, personally wouldn't.
I'm careful to use domestic labelled pallets (actually, i tend to use packing materials, not pallets), and all wood can have mold. look for boreholes to not have insects in them, and plane off the top layers to remove most of the contaminants from exposure.
The bs about mold is true for regular wood, too. as long as you end up with a clean surface and stain it, meh.
formaldehyde is/was common in kitchen countertops and flooring for ages, and had a mild effect at worst on most people (although it is cumulative). So that's not new.

Basically, build stuff out of cherry picked pallet wood, not out of pallets.

>>900051
The point of the concern is there is pretty much no way to check/no records.
I have heard that custom sizes (for appliances etc.) tend to be much safer as they usually don't get reused.
My go to is the shipping boards that protect a shipment of 2x4's from the straps, from the lumber yard. Cheap pine, but free.
I have built some handles for tools out of pallet wood (because oak).

>>899768
It all depends on where you get your pallets and for what they were used.
I get free pallets from the grocery store, so I know the likelihood of contamination is low.
But if you want to use pallets from the chemical factory then more power to you.

>>900049
>be this guy. A eurotrash
>oh no palletz are scary. Dem splinters! Think of the children, anon.
>if they where to paint them black and call them tatical the EU would surely have to ban them.

The palletts are usually stamped where i come from. If they have been stamped HT they have been heat treated and are safe to use for furniture. If they have been stamped MBT they have been treated with methyl bromide and should be avoided.

i work in a food warehouse. where pallets are very controlled.


I would only every use new GMA pallets for furniture. never use a CHEP or any kind of particle board or treated pallet.

Uline has CMA pallets starting at @$25.


so.... not a really cheap furniture solution.

building your own "pallets" using grade 3 lumber from a big box would be cheaper.

So unless it is a look your going for, ( I was in a very cool logistics company office that was inside an industrial space, and was made from their shipping containers and new pallets. The office partitions and break out rooms were made from containers or their parts, furniture was made from pallets of all sizes, it was an amazing office, but it was not an inexpensive look to pull off. ) I would use another method.

>>900111
I think the cholesterol has started to plug up the arteries in your brain.
I suggest draino.

The consensus is that there is no consensus.

When you pick up pallet wood, it's always possible that it's been exposed to something bad. There is no way to know exactly what a pallet has been exposed to unless you can trace it from the origin all the way to your hands, which most of the time is impossible. That said, lots of people use pallet wood for things.

Some cautionary notes:

Make sure you understand the pallet coding system and how to identify which are pressure treated wood. These should not be used for furniture, especially tabletops and eating surfaces, and you should wear a filter mask when you're cutting.

Pallets can be involved with unhealthy industrial products. Miscellaneous chemicals, cleaners, solvents, and a thousand other caustic substances are shipped this way. You don't know what might have soaked into the wood if there was a spill or other problem, so be judicious about wood of unknown origin.

Foods and similar products are no guarantee that a pallet is clean. Pallets are routinely sprayed with pesticides at ports of entry. Depending on the product the pallet may be treated multiple times while it's en-route to it's final destination. Certain kinds of sensitive products require heat-treatment to accomplish the same goal, and these are likely to be much cleaner than others.

>>900163
Protip: You're wrong unless they are brand new pallets.

I worked at a pallet recycling center. We cobble together pallets all the time. Plus we re-treat them all the time. Plus they often come in coated in random shit and damp with chemicals.

My advice. Buy real wood. If you're poor, use grade c pine. If you want the aesthetic of pallets, buy new ones.

I wouldn't use them if you have a dog that chews furniture or small children. I also wouldn't use them indoors because you never know what they are going to off gas.

Also to people saying they're totally safe, I have never had health problems in my life until I worked there. I wore a respirator but still managed to get several lung infections. I also had the early stages of heavy metal poisoning and the doctor wanted me to start chelation.

I also had the most nasty fucking hands the entire time I worked there. They were fucking black and grey down a few layers of skin. Took like 6 months for the stains to go away.

I've been doing woodwork with clean wood for over 20 years and never had a single issue other than the odd splinter.

>>899871
>nobody has died

Or nobody cared when they did

>>900111
If you would paint them black in America they would be thrown in prison

Pinterest plz go

>>900111
You ever worked with pallets anon?

Because those fuckers are 95% splinters and rusty nails held together by a hope and a prayer.

You do NOT want to run a hand over one without a glove on.

>>900288
Does your dog often chew small children?

>>900611
I hate dogs and small children. So it would be a mixed blessing.

>>899768
making furniture out of pallets is dumb. the wood is damaged, in limited sizes and shapes, generally poor (usually pine) and may contain unknown insecticides.
plus pallets are generally not free unless they are built poorly to begin with, or unless they are so used and damaged that they have no return value
"free because you know a place you can steal some" is not free, and risking arrest for stealing really shit-quality wood for furniture-building is silly
there is no good reason to use it, at all

if you want to build your own furniture, do yourself a favor and spend the money for some kind of hardwood. do not use pine.

>>900061
>custom sizes (for appliances etc.) tend to be much safer as they usually don't get reused


good point. these non-standard size pallets or boxes used for shipping appliances or furniture or drywall panels etc., which are not meant for re-using and happen to be salvagable right after their only journey, they're sweet. I have used some for building this or that. they tend to look clean and even smell of fresh lumber, but how do I know whether they have a chance of being contaminated with some pesticide sprayed onto them (if they have been used for shipping furniture from some exotic country)? am I more safe to get poison-free ones only if I pick ones that are likely to have not traveled overseas?

>>900797
Just wash it with a hose and a bit of detergent.
>No more insecticide.

Or leave it
>no more insects

>>900061
>I have heard that custom sizes (for appliances etc.) tend to be much safer as they usually don't get reused.
Grocery stores ship their displays on custom pallets that only ever get used once. I've seen some of them and they're actually really well constructed and in good shape. I still wouldn't use it for something I'm in constant contact with (night stand, desk, dining table, chair), but the better quality would make it better for stuff that's on display (entertainment center, coffee table, book shelves) in a more public area (living room) of your home.

>>900566
The desk I'm using right now was made using super cheap 2x4 and plywood, I just sanded the shit out of the plywood and anything that I might touch. I haven't gotten a chance to put any finish on it, but it's still super smooth and it's a big bonus that I don't give a shit about scratching it or anything because I can just take the top off and replace it with relatively little work/time. I'll probably put a nicer quality top on it eventually, but the point is that you can use cheap as shit material without dying of blood loss from splinters.

Also the splinters and rusty nails is why you don't raid the fucking trash pile. Go find a big appliance place and steal from their return pile.

>>901121
>Just wash it with a hose and a bit of detergent.
>>No more insecticide.
I don't know why you think that, but you're wrong.

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I don't understand half of the posts on /diy, do you people not posses rudimentary search-engine skills?
https://www.fix.com/blog/preparing-wood-pallets-for-upcycling/
tl;dr look for the symbol 'HT" stamped on the pallet for safety. true for us/euro pallets

>>901235
Many pallets aren't stamped as they are recycled and have bits and pieces from all over in them. Also, regardless of how the pallet was or was not treated, you have no idea what has been spilled on it during its life, what was spilled on the floor is sat on, or the anything like that.

Did it sit out in the rain for a week and then spend another week in the back of a truck collect black mold? Sure enough it did. Then someone cleaned it with a pressure washer and bleach. Then it was used by a rendering plant to move around cow carcases around for a few months before finally ending up being that Home Depot you snagged it from... but not before that 15 gallon jug of CLR cracked open on it when the derp making 8 bucks and hour skewered it with a pallet jack. Gee, lets make a bed pedestal out of it and spend 8 hours a night 6 inches from it!

Wood is not expensive. You will spend more on the tools need to work it then you will on wood. Hell, you might spend more on the nails/screws needed to put something together than you will on the wood. If you want something super cheap just get that shit at a thrift store. Not need to reinvent the wheel just to make yourself sick. If you want to build something nice then INVEST THE FUCKING MONEY to do it right. Don't be penny wise and pound foolish.

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>>901235
I make wooden pipes out of colored pallets and sell them, nobody has ever had any issues... this post is questionable.

>>901331
Let's say you've increased their cancer risk 10 times. Does it count as "no issues", since it isn't immediately obvious?

>>901235
So applying the logo transforms it into a +5 Pallet of Resist Contaminants?

>>899858
underrated post

>>901235
Why are the coloured ones dangerous? Is it special toxic paint?

>>899768
>That image.
What a huge fuckign waste of space.

Ginourmous room completely used up with basically what amounts to 4 tiny workstations separated by ridiculous and useless steps everywhere else.

>Triggerwarning

>>901195
Wash the insecticide off, duh

rough cut untreated shit soft wood

>>902268
nah, colored means it gets reused, gets used for toxic stuff (where the paint protects the pallet), and that the wood underneath is usually MB or something worse, and the paint is to protect others from it.
tldr, colored is the heavy duty pallets, and they tend to be treated in a heavy duty way in terms of pesticides.