Building a Bridge with Recycled Pallets
Little by little we're making our Home in the Woods!
The very first structure we built at No Man's Land Extravaganza was a little bridge to span over a ditch. It links together a pretty little camping area under the pine trees, and The Launche Pad, a place where sunlight, food, art and living are its main functions.
We want to build with natural materials as much as possible and up-cycle the rest.
We collected a few pallets and a bunch of crates made of the same type of wood , they are mostly for shipping statues.... We have an "antique" dealer down the hill from us whose front yard is full of concrete Buddhas, Chinese Warriors, Turttles and Fountains (there are even dolphins and lions from time to time).
We talked to our antiquitaire neighbor, as you should in every situation where you need to go through someone dumpster to collect what is valuable to you. We got the green light to harvest all that we wanted from a specific area! The source is close to home and free... Why isn't everyone doing this again, can someone remind me please?
So, as pretty and glamorous reclaimed pallet wood for furniture and construction has become, don't be fooled it is a lot of work! What takes the longest time is cleaning the wood, getting rid of all the rusted nails that traveled the 7 seas to get here and separate each piece into some kind of organized chaos...
Once done, the fun begins and every piece, bent or not gets used for something. Even when the left overs go into the fire, they are being used for something!
We try to use only the crates or pallets that have been marked with a HT. It stands for Heat Treated and that makes me feel a lot better than Chemically... I don't claim to know if it realy is HT, a stamp is just a stamp in the end you know! There are numbers on the marking that can be used to track down the manifacturer if you wish to dig past the label.
Enough technical talk... Let's look at this bridge now:
~
The pieces are staggered on the edges like that because the perfectionist in me wanted certain parts of the boards to be in the center of the bridge. It ended up looking so fun, we decided leave them alone instead of cutting the sides all straight, like the original plan!
There is plenty to build and we will be there full time starting June 2018, so expect a lot more of these types of posts soon!!!
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Hello my friend. I have seen you around in Discord, but our paths have not crossed yet, topic wise.
I am an avid DIY'er and have learned how to make a living by scavenging. I love it when people share their idea's, such as this and you taught me something new. I did not know how to tell which method was used to treat the wood.
Thanks to you, now I know and I will only scavenge Heat Treated pallets for building.
I look forward to seeing your future projects and if you could use a few extra hands, just put out the call.
Thank you so much @notconvinced, I'm glad I could teach one thing today, that feels really good!
The other treatments are mostly bad...heat treating is a very old technique called shou sugi ban which involves burning the wood and shocking it with water, it originated in Japan in the 18th century. It looks really good too!
I love to scavange...but lately with a 500 square foot apartment and no yard I've had to almost stop entirely. I am interested in finding out how you make a living scavanging by the way.
Thanks for the heads up, I will make a call for help this summer.... we will hold a few Natural Building workshops.
Gave you a follow!
Great, @coyoteom and I are working with @greenhomeacres to create a platform to bring steemizen's together for workshops, homestay's and help exchanges and such. I look forward to seeing your post for this, as I know you will find it useful.
I simply dumpster dive for building materials, electronics and metals as well as pallets and seperate the metals and recycle them for cash. There is a market for used pallets as well, which pays up to $4 per pallet. I of coarse, upcycle some items I find and sell them to second hand stores, antique shops and on craigslist.
I frequent Industrial and Business Districts, which tend to be quite wasteful and make anywhere from $300-$1200 a week doing it. I also acquire many items this way, which I don't have to purchase, saving money.
I like to call myself a professional Scavenger, but the common title given is Scrapper.
I plan on frequenting Natural Building Workshops this summer and earning certificates in all the processes involved.
Yes yes yes! Thanks for linking me to this article @notconvinced, I think these kinds of projects would be perfect to share and utilize the idea we are working on! What better than making a post ablut natural building workshops and then having a bunch of steemians show up at your place to lend a helping hand 🙏
This bridge design is really fantastic. We have lots of little river run off dutches and could definitely manage some pallet bridges.
While I knew about the poor practice of chemical treatment, this stamp is news to me as well, you are teaching us all @senorcoconut 😍
Yo you guys are giving me goos bumps (it's a good thing)!!! Thank you so much, Teaching is something I would love to get into. Now that we have the space in the Catskills (New York), we will start doing workshops.
The first one is coming late June, We will build an outdoor kitchen with a live roof and most likely a wattle and daub structure. There's camping areas and beautiful swimming hole on the property!!!
Thank you again for your nice comment!!! Both of you @coyoteom and @notconvinced!
Yes man!! This is what I'm talking about. I like what you do. I have family in england who are great scrappers... it's a big part of the traveling community but England has now made scrap yards only give out checks for the stuff. Always trying to beat down the people.
Well, professional scavenger, I think you have found a friend! If you're ever near NYC, tel me I'll show you around the film studios dumpsters, they're gold mines!
Is it not @greenacrehome?
I love this and it turned out beautiful. :)
Thank you very much, I thought so too. I am very proud of this bridge. It is our very first "natural/upcycled material" structure on the property. A dream is coming true! Next will be an outdoor kitchen made of cobb or just wattle and daub.
Wow, so exciting. This was always our dream, too. I'll just have to live through your dream for a while. I love cobb structures, too! I was so obsessed with them a few years ago - no limits to the imagination. Don't rush your cobb kitchen, but I'm excited to see how it turns out ;)
Oh yea I love cobb too! It's true there are no limits to the imagination! Thanks, I have to remember not to rush things sometimes.
Thank you and remember Dreams Come True
I found this rock a few months ago :) Thanks for your kind words and sharing your creations and dream.
![DSCN5719.JPG](https://steemitimages.com/DQmceV2rw4gq3VpzafeWpvEJHSpCW7FT7KvA1iMjb7ddBSK/DSCN5719.JPG)
That's a nice find, it's cool that you kept it too! Rocks don't lie.
We intend to pay it forward to someone else. But I thought it was such a special gesture and reminder.
Lol good intention that can always be put off to another time! Apparently you need it right now
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Great job on the bridge. I love that you recycled pallets to make it and now the railings will be made of natural stuff from the surroundings. I look forward to watching you build everything up. Thanks for sharing it all.
Thank you, I am so exciteded to get started! Happy to show what we do. Hopefuly I'll still have time to post when it all starts!
Never mind that, I'll make time.
Such a good idea. Why didn't I think of this?
There is at least one spot on my property where a pallet bridge would be perfect. I honestly think this is a better use for pallets then some things I have seen. Rough cut wood that has nails and are odd sizes is a lot of work to clean up for interior use.
Haha happy to spread the ideas around @canadianrenegade! We didn't have to sand it down or plane it so it did dave some time.
BmAt first we built the bridge to be an outdoor shower, so we would have sanded it down, but we love it so much like it is... there was talk of painting each board a different color and calling it Rainbow Bridge, what do you think?
Personally I like the natural look but if you guys are into the techno colored dream bridge I say go for it. :)
You know, after posting the bridge build... I am not convinced we should paint anything on it at all. I also lpol the natural colors that it has now, it blends in.
Thanks for your pinion
PS: And a really big THANK YOU for that Re-Steem!
"We need more bridges than walls" Congratulations !
Lol yeah for sure @solarcoach!
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