Megashed Continued

So I had finally gotten all of those pallets taken apart. How many were there? In the end, I took apart over 60 pallets. Though for my Mega Shed project, I mainly wanted the stringers, I also had grand visions of what I would one day use the slats for. Even being as careful as I could without making a career out of it, it still lost some. What's that saying about winning some and what not?

The design for the shed was not written down. I kind of just made it as I went. This way of doing things has its advantages and disadvantages. While I didn't have to spend a lot of time over-thinking it, I did spend a lot of time fixing things that a little bit of forethought might have caught before it happened. I still enjoyed myself.

The first thing I did was improve the rooflines of the original sheds. I wanted a steeper pitch. So here's what I turned out. I used 1 1/2 inch deck screws and 2 Part Weldwood Waterproof Resorcinol Glue. I only used deck screws because I had them left over from another project or I would have used less expensive interior screws. The glue can be a bit pricey. It's a structural glue that allowed me to use spliced together stringers from the pallets.

Now, unfortunately, I lost many of the pictures that showed construction. So I'll just give a short description of what I did.

I put a ridge beam on the other shed at the same elevation. Then I made another beam that spans between the sheds, also at the same elevation. The lumber for the rafters are stringers off of 8 foot long pallets. I then used 1/2 inch OSB for the roof sheathing.

This photo gives you a rough idea. You can see the old roofline and part of the new. I put up 30# tar paper to protect the OSB from moisture until I could get the shingles on (about 6 months later and fall shingle closeouts).

Besides adding new roofs over the existing ones and creating a center shed area, a stable area for Dorrit, I also added one long lean to shed to the back of the entire structure. This picture show this but in a much later date of construction.

The back wall consists entirely of 6 foot long pallets standing on end and connected to one another as this picture demonstrates.

As you can see, I'm using it for random storage atm. The wood along the left wall are all pallet slats. About half of those have been used to date on the new chicken coop, something I'll post about in the future. The sheet material on the right side is that 70's style paneling that I got for free off of Craigslist from a guy flipping a house. I had about 3 times that much but have used it slowly for different projects ranging from paneling the inside of Dorrit's stable area and the inside of the chicken coop to lining the inside of my SIPs (sub irrigated planters). All of which I will discuss and show in upcoming posts.

The next post concerning the Megashed will include pics of the shed to date. All I have left to do are the soffits, doors on the lean-to shed ends, some trim and paint. This project was put on hold for the chicken coop which is currently nearing completion. I needed to complete it before my chicks outgrow their brooder. They are growing fast! Here they are at 3 days.

And here they are at 3 weeks.

These little guys are also a topic I'll visit another day. Now go do something thrifty!

Early Spring: Planting Outdoors

It's spring and if you're anything like me, you started seedlings indoors way too early because you just couldn't help yourself. My mid February planted seedlings are into their third up-potting, some on their fourth and I'm quickly running out of room in my seed starting area. I need to get my cold frames set up and my polytunnels in place pronto!

This will be my first year using a polytunnel so a lot of trial and error is going to take place. This is my first attempt. I used 1/2 inch electrical conduit in 10 foot lengths for the tunnel hoops. The plastic is 6 mil clear plastic that is 10 feet wide. It was left in one of the sheds (now part of the Megashed) by the previous owner. The cinder blocks and bricks were all Craigslist finds. The bricks were about 4 cents a piece and the cinderblocks I picked up for 50 cents each. I love Craigslist.

While this doesn't look too bad, it has major problems.
1. The plastic isn't wide enough. You can see that it barely comes down to where the pipes meet the bed wall.
2. There is no center support connecting all of the semi circular pipes. This makes the structure less stable than I would like.
3. I cut the plastic too short. You need to have several feet overhang on each end if you want to gather it up like a tootsie roll wrapper. Though the better approach IMHO is to install unmoving end pieces cut to fit at each end of the tunnel.
4. The garden bed above is 21 feet long. I used one long piece of plastic. That will be too long to open and close the sides without difficulty.

After doing some more internet research (something I do far too much), I found a picture that I will be attempting to copy.

This is my inspiration and has seemingly solved all of the problems that exist in my trial run. I already have the pipes in place. I used 1/2 inch diameter, 10 foot long electrical conduit. You can use the white plumbing pipe as well though I've read that the grey electrical conduit holds up to UV much longer. It is also cheaper, $1.35 vs  $1.68 at Home Depot.

Now that you can see what I want to do, here's how I'd go about doing it.

INSTALLING THE HOOPS:

- Space hoops 2 - 2 1/2 feet apart.

-If you have raised beds made out of cinderblocks, you can just place the 10 foot long pipes in the open holes opposite one another and then fill with dirt. If you have clay soil, tamping the dirt into the holes will hold them securely enough. If your dirt doesn't compact will, you might consider filling the hole with concrete. If I were to do that, I'd buy a length of 3/4 inch pipe, cut them into shorter lengths equal to the height of the blocks. I would then concrete that length into the hole. This way you could slide the 1/2 inch pipe into the 3/4 inch sections. This just makes the system less permanent if you want to ever dismantle the polytunnel.

-If you have raised beds with wooden, you can secure the hoops a couple of ways. I'll be using the method shown in the above picture. Here's a blown up version of it.

As you can see, the used 3/4 inch sections and screwed them directly to the wooden wall of the raised bed. Then then slid their 1/2 inch sections into them (as describe in the cinderblock/concrete method). Again, this would allow you to remove the hoops if you only wanted your poly tunnel to be a seasonal fixture.

-A second method would be to use 1/2 pipe brackets. Use these to secure your 1/2 diameter hoops directly to the inner or outer wall of your garden bed.

INSTALLING THE CROSS MEMBER:

-The cross member will be unmoving. In the picture above, it is the upper most piece of lumber. Though I have to extrapolate how it's attached, my guess is that it was placed at the apex of the PVC hoops and then screwed in place. Or at least that's how I'm going to do it. I'll use 2x2 redwood balusters that I got for free off Craigslist. I'll pre-drill into the 2x2's and the pipes and then secure them together with 2 inch exterior screws.

INSTALLING THE PLASTIC:

I purchased pipe clamps from the Greenhouse Megastore online. They were only 50 cents each and you will only need 6 per end.

This is how I'll attach my cut-to-fit plastic ends. Please not in the picture of the polytunnel end, they didn't go all the way up. This will allow for ventilation when your sides are down.

To install the plastic sides, purchase plastic that will overlap the sides of your raise bed by at least a foot. In my case, I'll need 12 foot wide stock. I'll lay my plastic over the hoops so that there is an even amount on both sides. I think I'll make my sections 10 feet long making it easier to raise and lower the sides instead of one long piece.

I'll sandwich each end of plastic between 2x2 lumber and furring strips using 1 5/8 inch exterior screws as connectors. Then all I'll have to do is roll the plastic up the sides (like a roller shade), using the 2x2 as the core and then use bungee cords to hold it up as they did in the inspiration polytunnel or use any other clamping method you can think of.

This is today's project for me. I hope this helps anyone else that wants to make one themselves. Just leave a comment in the comment section if I missed anything or if you need clarification on any steps. 

One difference between the inspiration tunnel and my tunnel will be the t-posts they used on the ends. I'm going to skip that step. I'll add them later if I find I need to add more stability to the structure.

How to take a pallet apart

There are many different ways to take a pallet apart. I'm fairly sure that I tried all of them. I'll describe a few of them. Each method has it's strengths and weaknesses as well as intended outcomes. First, a material list.

*Pry bar - By far the most useful and employed in every technique I've used. The best ones have the flatter pry heads. The reason being, they can be more easily wedged under close fitting nails than their fatter head counterparts. They cost anywhere from $7 to $25.

*Claw Hammer - This would be your second most needed pallet rending tool. It is great for removing nails from stringers, pounding your crowbar under pallet slats and reverse pounding nails out of slats. These can run from $6 to $60.

*Circular Saw - I have used methods that don't require this tool at all but if speed is more your thing, this is a must have. In the end, I used this tool as much as the first two. It moved my project along more quickly and left me with far more intact slats (though the slats will be a few inches shorter as a result. These will run you $40 to $200. A simple handsaw can do the same job if you are willing to put in the elbow grease and will cost much less if you have to purchase your tools.

*Fence Pliers - Now we are getting into really optional tools. I had this one on hand from various fencing projects I've done around the acreage. This cost anywhere from $17 to $25.

Pallet Buster - This tool is entirely optional. It is a great tool if you have a lot of pallets to take apart and are more interested in the stringers than you are in the slats. This will pull slats off fast but it will almost always break them apart. Yes I purchased one and I used it but I preferred keeping the slats intact so I only used it on pallets where the slats were already pretty well destroyed. I loan it out a lot to people that break up their pallets for firewood so I don't feel as bad about this rather frivolous (and not very thrifty) purchase. This very specific tool will run you $50 to $75.

Just so you know what I'm talking about when describing the different methods used to take pallets apart, let's name the different pallet parts. I'll keep it super simple. I'll just talk about slats, stringers and extra support boards.

First things first. I highly recommend all the usual safety equipment such as:

- Hearing protection - Banging hammers on pry bars is EXTREMELY loud and you'll lose your high frequency hearing quickly if you neglect to follow this one.

- Eye protection - Banging hammers on anything can cause debris to fly around. You don't want any of it in your eyes. None of this is worth impairing or losing your vision over. Also, unless you have hammers and pry bars that are tempered/designed to hit metal to metal, there is always a chance your tools could shatter so ALWAYS wear eye protection.

- Gloves - You are working with wood so splinters and general roughening of your skin will occur unless you wear gloves. WARNING: Do not wear gloves when working with power saws! It's bad enough if you somehow get a finger in the way of a rotating blade. It will slice through your flesh like a hot knife through butter but if you are wearing gloves, they material will get caught and pull more of your fleshy fingers and hand into the carnage!

Method 1 (hammer and pry bar): Pull off extra support boards(if they are on your pallet) with your claw hammer. To keep things tidy, I suggest removing the staples immediately. These treacherous little things are accidents just waiting to happen if you don't. 

Now, wedge the curved end of your pry bar between a slat and stringer. Get the head of the pry bar as close to the nails as possible and strike the lowest section of the curve with your hammer. This will push the pry bar under the slat and allow you to leverage the slat away from the stringer. In order to keep the slat as intact as possible, you may want to do this a little at a time at all nail points across the slat. The more evenly you release the slat from the stringer, the nicer your slat will remain. 

Repeat this process on all slats. Using this method, all of the nails should still be in the slats once separated from the stringers. Again, I suggest removing the nails immediately for safety. Slats also store in neat piles much better once nails are removed. Just flip the slats over and pound the pointed ends of the nails until they are out.

Nails and staples, you can expect to collect a lot.

Method 2 (circular saw): Using the saw, you can cut right along the inside of each outside stringer. Set your blade depth to just past the depth of a slat and cut from one end of your pallet to the other. This method allows you to skip prying the slats from both of the end stringers. You end up with shorter slats but many more will remain intact. You can use a saw guide and get very nice straight  cross cuts on all of your slats. You can use a drywall T square, draw a line and cut along it or you can just eyeball it. I used the latter to speed up the process since I wasn't concerned with a super straight cut.

Use the first method on the middle stringer to pry the slats away from the stringer. Your outer stingers will be covered in small pieces of slats still connected by nails. I just used my hammer to hit the slat bits off and then used the pry bar to pull the nails out. You could used the claw portion of your hammer to pull the nails out but you have a ton more leverage if you used the pry bar.

Method 3 (pallet buster): If the condition of your slats don't concern you, this is your tool. All you have to do is place the fingers of the buster under the slats on either side of the nails. Then apply downward pressure and off the slat will pop (likely in several pieces). Then you just pry out the nails with your pry bar and you're done.

Once you've taken apart your pallets apart, you can now use the materials you've reclaimed and begin your recycle projects.

Where to start?

Let's see, where to begin. I suppose the best way would be to explain the purpose of this blog. It will essentially be a log of the different projects that I get myself into. Whether or not these projects are wise investments of my time is usually determined once I've finished. If you ask my husband, those determinations are few and far between. I'm an excellent project starter but my finishing skills leave something to be desired.

Case in point: THE MEGASHED
So named by my brother-in-law. What was once two completely unremarkable, slightly eyesoreish (yup, made that up) sheds joined and became one. Here's the before pic.

These two lovely sheds actually came with the property. Originally they were not side by side but one in front of the other. I wasn't too keen on that arrangement. A few ropes and a few gentle tugs and nudges from my truck and voila, side by side sheds. Also, the trim was originally white. I had black paint left over from my fencing project and thought it would help their aesthetics. It did but not enough. No amount of paint would change the pitch on those roofs nor would it make that tiny calf shed bigger and cozier for our mini horse. Dorrit is her name and that's her bum in the picture above.

Then came the crazy idea, only one of many I routinely have.

Before this was a massive pile of pallets behind my sheds, it was a massive pile of pallets at a local sporting goods retailer. I saw them, asked the manager if I could take them off his hands and promptly made several trips to and from town. While I was giddy about my newfound treasure, my husband only rolled his eyes at my newest collection.
"You've got a year" That's all he said about it. You see, many years ago after realizing that I have hoarding tendencies, I told my ever indulgent spouse that if I don's use something that I've collected in a year, I'll toss it. So my year had begun as had the transformation of the sheds.

All I had to do now was take them all apart.