Working with reclaim materials

When I get old scaffold boards or pallets from my suppliers they are usually in a bad way and need a bit of TLC. This involves 2-3 rounds of sanding using a grinder with a sanding pad, two sessions with a pneumatic sander (which is powered by air so can do the more extreme bits of sanding), and then further rounds with a belt/palm sander. After this I’ll use them for making the piece of furniture I’m working on and then re-sand once the item is put together, generally with the pneumatic, belt and palm sanders. Next I finish the wood with either paint, beeswax, liming wax or a satin/matt varnish and finally, do yet another round of sanding to ensure a smooth finish. It's a LOT of time sanding.All wood from pallets has to be manually taken apart

Some boards are covered in tar and paint so often a grinder is needed

If I chose to work with new wood (which would be treated and ready to go) it would take a minimal amount of time to make good for use, however, the satisfaction of turning wood that will be sold for firewood or for garden borders into a beautiful piece of furniture for someone’s home is huge. I love being able to make 'something from nothing' and being able to do this on a weekly basis is just brilliant. All in all, each piece involves a huge amount of time making the wood safe and asthetically pleasing, but it’s well worth it for the finished product.