I got my hands on some free wood the other day, three glorious shipping pallets worth of it. Of course they are stuck together with tenacious, power driven spiral nails.

In my experience, prying boards off a pallet with a crowbar and hammer is a horribly difficult endeavour that takes forever. The time I tried it, I ended up damaging wood that wasn't in the best shape to begin with.

Another method I'd tried in the past was to run a circular saw alongside all three stringers, slicing the planks into short pieces. It worked fine, but I was only left with stubby planks of wood to play with.

The method I use now is to cut behind the planks with a reciprocating saw. I can speedily rip an entire pallet down in about 5 minutes.

(There is a full-contact, action-packed, 5 minute challenge video at the end of this post.)

I like to to use an aggressive blade instead of a fine toothed bi-metal one. My favorite so far is a demolition blade with carbide tipped teeth. I'd picked up a Diablo 6-in Wood Cutting Blade a couple years back when I'd torn down our bizarre tunnel / front porch overhang. I ripped through nails, shingles, and wood, no problem.

The Diablo Demo Blade

Next time I buy a blade, I think I'm going to buy the 9 inch for a better reach. For now, this beast is still ripping through stuff and I don't need to buy another yet. The only thing that's worn down is the paint. It really makes quick work of the nails. Plus, if the board is on super tight, it has no problem shaving the wood down enough to slide through and get those tightly gripping meanies. 

Reciprocating it's heart out. 

Pallets are designed for a long life, carrying heavy loads while bouncing on trucks and getting thrown around on forklifts. They are tough.  The problem with breaking them down is that they are put together with spiral nails that do not want to back out.  Furthermore, the nails are power driven deep into the slats. They are an absolute bugger to pull. Slicing through the nails is the speedy solution to that problem.

I chuck the stringers (side pieces). They are oddly-shaped, usually horrible wood, and will be absolutely riddled with buried nail pieces. 

     Buried Nail Pieces

     [ber-eed] + [nayl] + [pees-ez]

     noun.

1. Fragments of cylindrical fasteners embedded sub-surface in a material, specifically designed to damage, ruin, and / or destroy cutting blades in finishing tools.

Dammit! These buried nail pieces tore the hell out of my brand-new $75 table saw blade!

A fine example of Buriedis  Nailuss Piecicus, in its natural habitat

Once both the side stringers are loose, I drive into the more difficult center section. I'm confident that a longer blade would speed up my method. The 6 inch one gets pinched a little in this section, but it can still do the deed.

In no time, I have a heap of delightfully free wood. Not all of it is usable for projects, but there are usually a few tasty bits, ripe for building something. 

I lop the stingers in half to make it easy to get rid of them in the weekly trash. Again, I do not use a nice circular saw blade on this, with buried nail pieces lurking. The demo blade does the trick.

I don't need no stinkin' sawhorse 

The spoils of war.

The nail heads are easy to remove from the planks. I just line up a nail set on the underside and whack it with a hammer. Most fly right out. The rest can be easily popped out with the hammer claw.

I don't know of a project that requires a bunch of rusty, cut-off nail heads, but I am the proud owner quite a collection.  Don't be jealous; get your own.

Don't be jealous

That's it. I have some nice, rustic planks to use in an upcoming pallet wood project. (Stay tuned)

I tore down a couple pallets before I decided to shoot a video of the action. I slipped a fresh battery in the camera and challenged myself to rip one down in 5 minutes or less. 

Yeah. I didn't exactly remember to charge up my old, 18 volt batteries before I started. I missed the 5 minute mark by 30 seconds or so.  Still, it was a fun video to shoot, my first talking directly into the camera. I may do more of these in the future. Maybe,... just maybe, I'll actually fit my entire, giant head in the frame.