Pallet dimensions and design

doc henderson · December 15, 2019, 01:35:42 PM

Hey guys, i usually sticker one log at a time. getting too many logs, and not all great for lumber, so thought i would start some drying pallet. i air dry and then bring stacks into my conditioned shop, or they got to the container that is also conditioned with DH in the warmer months. i tend to band them and can tell how dry they are at least in part based on the slack that develops in the band. my question is what are the sizes of pallets that you use and how are they made. i remember seeing them at @customsawyer place and spoke with @YellowHammer . thought i would hear from them again and a few others of you. i will make a solar kiln in the future if that makes a difference. i assume 42 to 48 inches deep, 8 to 10 feet long. what spacing? I was thinking 18 to 20 inches . how tall. i have forks so I assume at least 4 inches unless 6 or more is better. more boards on top and brace boards on the bottom like a pallet? pics would be great. also any particular wood to use or stay away from? @GeneWengert-WoodDoc @WDH @Southside and others!

YellowHammer · December 15, 2019, 01:56:05 PM

I use 8 foot open bottom pallets or skids, with 2x4's nailed on edge every 16 inches to give 3.5 clearance for forks. That spacing seems to work best for me. No bottom on the pallets as that restricts airflow to the top layer of whatever bundle of lumber it is placed on. I use standard 1x's for the planking, and mine are 42 inches wide.

42" wide is important because most flatbed truckers don't want to have to deal with two 4 foot wide pallets which it not situated properly on their deck, will cause them to go over width.

I spray painted a pattern on our concrete floor, so it makes assembly much faster that having to use a tape measure.

WDH · December 15, 2019, 06:23:33 PM

Mine are very similar to YH's except that I do not ship pallets of wood on trucks so mine are 48" wide vs 42" wide to maximize the loads in the kiln. The runners are on 16" centers so I have two sizes. 7 runners which gives a 96" long pallet or 8 runners which gives a 112" long pallet. This allows me to easily dry 8' or 9' or 10' lumber. I can only dry to a max of 10'6" boards in my kiln, so I do not deal with any hardwood lumber longer than 10'6" that will be ultimately kiln dried. A man has to draw a line somewhere

. If they want it longer I say, "Call Jake".

A-z farmer · December 15, 2019, 08:22:42 PM

I make my pallets 48 inches wide by 12.5 long and 16.5 feet long with 16 inches spacing on the 2x4 bottom boards like the others do .But I cut my stickers 50 inches long so they over hang each side so I can keep them in line because I stack right off the mill and I work alone.Last year I made my stickers 1inch by 1 inch but this year I am making them 1and 3 eights thick so I can get my pallet forks in between the layers .I have used oak ,ash,ewp,and spruce to make my 2x4 pallets and stack them four feet high with lumber and usually put three stacks on top of them.

btulloh · December 15, 2019, 08:52:26 PM

My pallets are only 32" wide, because that's what fits my forks. I'm also sawing less lumber with my manual mill, so it all works out. My runners are 2x4' with 1x6(ish) top and bottom. I prefer pallets to skids, but I do use some skids as well. 18" oc with the staterter row of stickers nailed on. 8,10, and 12 feet long. A few shot ones for odds and ends. Everything goes on a pallet or a skid, then it's all easy to move.

Brad_bb · December 15, 2019, 08:55:56 PM

Here's a whole thread on this subject from last year. Mine are 46"x 4',6',8'.
https://forestryforum.com/board/index.php?topic=101389.msg1609081#msg1609081

A semi trailer deck and most long goosneck trailer decks are 8' wide so with 46" I can get one on each side with a couple inches to spare.

doc henderson · December 15, 2019, 09:23:47 PM

thanks @Brad_bb it is motivational to see all the uniform pallets and I followed one thread to another and learned lots. thanks all.

K-Guy · December 16, 2019, 08:39:19 AM

I think @YellowHammer 's excuse of making them 42" wide because of trucking issues is probably false. I think it has more to do with his being afraid of "beer canning" his kiln!!! ;D ;D

Merry Christmas, Robert!!

doc henderson · December 16, 2019, 08:45:31 AM

@Tom the Sawyer we have a pallet co. here in town, but unless I build a bunch, not sure if they want to do it. I took care of one of there employees a few weeks back. so they were about 60 buck a piece? how long ago. do you think cotton wood would be ok. I know it is used for pallets, is it strong enough in your opinion for this application. I guess with banding, all the wood helps support itself.

Crusarius · December 16, 2019, 01:59:40 PM

I make mine 48" x 96 usually. longer if necessary but 8' usually works.

I make all my stickers 42". That way I can stack all on my 48" wide skids and not have anything hanging over. The few times I end up with stuff hanging over I always manage to hook it either with my leg or the tractor tire.

The tractor tire makes me mad. The leg usually makes me give blood

Neither of which I enjoy doing.

doc henderson · December 16, 2019, 02:13:58 PM

Thanks gentleman, I do plan to measure my forks. I want to make sure to have the pallet wider than my forks are long so I do not catch on a pallet or concrete wall on the back side with a protruding fork. When allowed by the weather, I am pouring sidewalks along my retaining walls and the steel reinforcing is 8 feet x 20 feet, so cut in half is 48 inches + a couple inches so the steel is not against the edge of the concrete. I plan to stack these pallets to air dry on the concrete.

alan gage · December 16, 2019, 02:27:51 PM

Quote from: doc henderson on December 16, 2019, 08:45:31 AMdo you think cotton wood would be ok.

That's what I used for mine, both for bottom boards and decking. No issues. The only time strength should be required is when lifting a loaded pallet with forks as then the entire weight is bearing on the deck boards that are in contact with the forks. This hasn't been a problem for me lifting stacks that weigh 3000lbs+. I just try to keep the forks close to the bottom boards/stickers rather than in the middle of the span. I used 7/8" thick boards for the decking with a few inches spacing between each one.

I took Yellowhammer's advice of spray painting a pattern and it works great. But instead of the floor I painted it on my deckover trailer, which gave a nice working height.

I made pallets to hold 6, 8, 10, and 12' lumber. The 8 and 12' pallets are 16" on center. The others were something like 18" on center because that's how the spacing worked out. In hindsight I should have used the same spacing on all of them because the way I did it I can't stack a 6' pallet on top of an 8' (or 12') pallet because the stickers don't quite line up.

I'm also thinking WDH has a good idea with 9' pallets. I cut predominantly hardwoods and around here it's rare to find a trunk longer than 10' before the first crotch. I probably cut more 6' logs than anything else and I see quite a few logs that won't quite make 10' so I end up cutting a chunk off to make them 8'6".

Alan

Tom the Sawyer · December 16, 2019, 03:24:51 PM

@doc henderson
I think mine were made in the March of 2018. They had a minimum order of 10, so I ordered 8 - 8' and 2 - 12', each 44" deep with the slats on 16" centers. Had I been more aware, I might have asked what grade of lumber they were using, I think it was #2 common at best. I am sure they are adequate for the function but I would probably have used better quality. I think that most pallets are built for a single use (disposable), whereas I would expect to get multiple uses out of my pallets.

As far as cottonwood, I think it would be fine. I know of a sawmill that builds heavy-duty custom pallets for overseas shipment of heavy equipment (heat treated and certified) and they use both cottonwood and white (burr) oak, depending on the design specifications. I ended up with a half a dozen cottonwood logs that weren't likely to chosen by anyone for a project, some of them had ring shake. One of the better ones was milled up for a university sculpture class. I milled two of the worst ones to use for stickers and they are drying now. We'll see how those turn out.

YellowHammer · December 16, 2019, 08:09:40 PM

I just make mine out of our kiln dried, planed to a consistent thickness, cull wood and 2x4's. Lay it out on the floor pattern and slam them together with a Paslode nail gun set on "really fast." :D

Since there is no bottom on the skids, the pallet runners should align with the stickers in the sticked wood packs, so the pallet acts like a single layer of stickered wood, and there is no load imparted to the pallet when its lifted. So they can be stacked as high as you want, and lifted with no damage. So basically, the 2x4's serve as really tall stickers. Sometimes I'll use 4x4's if the wood is not stickers stain prone.

Since the runners are only 1.5" wide, they don't sticker stain the wood below, whereas with a conventional pallet, it would.

We go through lots of these, and try not to stack more than about 800 bdft per unit, or about the height of the backstop of our forklift. We've found that if significantly more than that is stacked, there will be issues with the green wood called stack bow, and there will be issues with the dead stacked, non planed wood where the bundles don't like to stack on top of each other well.

WDH · December 16, 2019, 08:28:42 PM

Another thing. If you have a kiln, make the runners that are on the 16" centers a bit more than 4" high. This way, it is easy to plug the holes between the runners with two pieces of the 2" pink foam insulation so that the air flows between the stickered layers and not in the large holes between the pallet runners. If the runners are even a bit less than 4" high, two pieces of foam will not fit.

In the pic below, you can see the two pieces of the 2" thick pink foam plugging up the space between the runners where the top pallet sits on the bottom pallet.

Brad_bb · December 16, 2019, 09:34:19 PM

I want to make them myself so that I can control the quality. I want a higher quality than the pallet company probably has material for. I doubt they are carrying 5/4, and I want to plane it smooth to keep cobwebs and dust from accumulating too readily. I want to know my stringers are solid when I plane them 1.5" or 1.75". The stringers I usually see on pallets are in the 1"-1.375" range. You're not making them in too large of quantities, so it's not bad. Sawyers usually have enough 8'ers with a defect that make them good for 1 or a pair of stringers. I also get some ash boards that are wormy, so not too pretty, but still plenty strong to use for top boards.

YellowHammer · December 16, 2019, 11:40:14 PM

A agree, I make mine myself. I don't make them one at a time, I stage enough components for a half a dozen and knock them out. It's a great way to reutilize scrap boards, and a perfect assembly line style task.

doc henderson · December 17, 2019, 08:35:31 AM

It will be gratifying to have 6 or so matching pallets. I have put off milling about 60 cedar logs. I think with this, I would knock them out since I will be all set to stack and sticker. for 1 log of a species, I may still stack some the way I have in the past. thanks to all, and further ideas are welcome. busy this time of the year, but I think I will mill the wood and then be set to assemble in the shop when things are cold, and slow down at work.

Brad_bb · December 17, 2019, 10:58:09 AM

I don't know where you're planning to store them, but I keep them in my pole barn. It's either dry enough or I get just enough air flow that I don't get mold 97% of the time. June might be the only time when it's hot and humid and if the wood is wet. I sticker stack boards on the pallets to a certain height, then put a new pallet on top of that stack and work on filling that one. If I'm not going to be adding to the stack for awhile, I try to finish off a layer, then stack some weight on the pallet with maybe another pallet of material, or maybe a few big cants. I have separate pallets for Walnut, Ash, and Cherry. I do have a couple mixed species pallets that I have small quantities of each like Honey locust, white oak, Osage, Mulberry. I have a forklift to lift cants and pallets. If I then need to get stack on an unfinished stack later, I take them down to expose that stack. Whenever I go to have them kiln dried, I'd obviously have to separate those and figure out what species can be dried with each other. If I use my own solar kiln that I'm planning, maybe I wouldn't have to separate? Not sure.

FYI I took others advice on here and I screw stickers to the pallet on top of all the stringers.

GeneWengert-WoodDoc · December 19, 2019, 06:06:32 AM

When the average MC of lumber is over 30% MC, air flow affects the speed of drying, which, if air flow values vary in different locations within the stack, so will the drying MC. Air flow is expensive. Air going through the space of a pallet or even 4x4s does little benefit with respect to drying.

So...when using pallets or even when using 4x4s as spacers, and when drying above 30% MC, and if uniform, fast drying is desired, then block the space. I have seen a 1x4 nailed temporarily on the edge. I have seen styrofoam blocks pushed into each space. I have seen canvas stapled on the edges. See WDH message 14 above.

Note in air drying, we would not block the spaces...just in the kiln or similar equipment with fans.

K-Guy · December 19, 2019, 08:45:02 AM

@WDH

That picture is an excellent example of how baffling should be done!! Good Job!! 8)

WDH · December 19, 2019, 10:37:50 AM

But, you can't see the logo :D.

K-Guy · December 19, 2019, 01:24:21 PM

Quote from: WDH on December 19, 2019, 10:37:50 AMBut, you can't see the logo .

Wiseguy!!

Brad_bb · December 20, 2019, 12:11:42 AM

I'm baffled.

davch00 · December 30, 2019, 11:29:09 PM

I went to pallets a couple of years ago. I was already using 39" stickers before I build my first pallet so I stuck with it. The reasoning behind that width was the length of the forks on the smallest tractor around here. I also found that with 39", one can easily make two stacks on a standard car hauler trailer with a few inches to spare.

I make my pallets out of 2bys and 1bys, all planed to that same thickness on each pallet. I have a few that the deck boards and 3/4" and a few that are a full 1". I usually use what most would say are cull boards and just plane until they are all the same. For the spacing I use 24" for the runners because that was what my first solar kiln had for joist spacing. 24" also lines up with most car hauler cross members.