Neighbor L wanted to go to town today at noon, and that gave me about 3 hours to get a start on one of the juniper stacks laying around the yard. Trouble is…
I forgot how dirty that stuff is to cut.
Two hours in I looked down at myself and was ever so happy I’d changed my clothes for a trip to town. Just enough time, if I hurried, to do that all over again after the very thorough shower. Gad, I love that shower.
And then, just for a small touch of irony…
L wanted me to clear out another pallet from their hay room since they won’t be stocking horse pellets anymore. Just put the Sawzall away, too. I’ll knock it down and chop it up in the morning, then get back to filthy juniper.
“they won’t be stocking horse pellets anymore”
So thats it…theyre officially done with the hayburners?
I don’t recall whether you’ve said or not, but have you tried using a hand-held circular saw to cut down pallets? That would seem less cumbersome than either the Sawzall or the tablesaw.
jabrwok, actually that’s the first way I tried to take them apart. Overall it turned out to take a lot longer than expected, hitting nails with the saw blade was a stone bitch, and it left me with irregular lumps of wood that were hard to stack.
Then I tried prying the pallets apart with a big crowbar. That turned out to be damned near impossible half the time – pallets start out their lives stuck together with some really I-mean-business nails – and on the older ones it mostly left me with splinters.
So when I got a half-decent sawzall I fitted it with nail-cutting blades. On some pallets it sails right through the nails like nothing and on others I have to work a bit but on balance it’s the best method I’ve come up with.
I’ve cut up pallets, but when I’ve done so I just avoided the parts where the nails are. Cut inside the ends and cut on either side of the central brace piece, if that makes sense. But whatever works!
How’s D coming along?
Kentucky
Watch that juniper cutting. The wind blows the sand and other grit into the bark, then it gets incorporated into the wood slowly as the tree grows. About 100 miles west of you, we used to see sparks from the junipers when we cut them with chain saws. And sometimes the sparks would land in the sawdust and bark string resulting in smoking hot spots. Never saw an ignition, but stories were that it could happen.
I sort of miss the smell when it is cut, but not trying to split that stringy stuff.