I have to start thinking about this thing.
And I’ve already cut as much juniper as I really want to burn. After the first winter on wood I’ve found that it really isn’t something you want a steady diet of in your stovepipe, if you have a choice.
My choice isn’t something high-price folks would choose, but what the hell? It’s better than juniper, and quite a lot of it is hardwood.
I’m trying something different this season. I’ve been stacking the pallets in a place where if I drop an occasional nail while pulling them apart, it won’t immediately rampage off in search of a tire. Because while most of them go in the bucket, nails get dropped.
Continue till sick of it. Unload the trailer where there’s electricity and a chop saw. Convert unwanted pallets into tasty stovewood.
Stack, and it’s Miller time.
It’s the gadget freak in me, I know, but there is a magnet thing with wheels that my contractor buddy wheels back and forth at the construction site to pick up stray bits of steel. I’m too cheap to buy one, but I have on occasion used a small but powerful magnet to sweep up a work area.
About the second flat tire would be when I got serious about prevention. Now in my head, I am inventing a set of magnets mounted directly to the vehicle, strategically located to pick up road hazards. Hmmm – somebody call the patent office, quick.
Magnets would work on nails, since you obviously lack small boys. LOL When we were using pallets, and all sorts of construction waste for firewood, the boys would comb the dirt under the cutting area and find an incredible number of nails, screws and other bits we’d failed to find and remove. And, of course, occasionally the SAW found one. sigh
Never occurred to me to give magnets to the small boys. We live and learn. 🙂
Hope this works . . .
http://www.harborfreight.com/30-inch-magnetic-sweeper-with-wheels-93245.html
Have cut and burned pallets for quite a few years. It winds up mixed up with oak, mesquite and juinper. Pretty much anything that burns goes into the firebox. The local truss company dumps their scraps and sawdust onto a pile that is accessible to the public. I use a trashcan or two a year as kindling. We, Dad and I pull the magnets from old microwaves, hard drives or speakers, glue or screw them to a stick and use to pick up nails. Used to pay the girls a penny a nail when they were tikes.
Yeah, last year after wood-cutting season I suffered an epidemic of flat tires. I borrowed a neighbor’s pick-up magnet and collected a shit-ton of pointy things I would have sworn weren’t there, because I thought I was being so very careful.
This year I still don’t own a magnet, but I’m not pulling pallets apart in anybody’s yard.