Clothes rail/shelving build

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Hi all, my girlfriend has just moved in with me in the Tooting area, and she’s conscripted me into several DIY furniture building projects. Can anyone recommend a reliable person or place to pick up pallet wood or spare timber that’s in decent condition?

We’re both new makers and we really appreciate the help :smiley: I also recommended we document the builds here and get tips from the community as we go – so look forward to that.

Look for houses having their lofts converted. Skips will often feature stout, lengthy and (very) well seasoned pieces of timber.

NOTE: Do not feed such timber to the wood workshop’s machine tools. Even if you’re sure you got all the nails out.

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No reclaimed timber in the workshop machines – duly noted.

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Local industrial estates often have pallets stacked up, check they are not for later use…generally they are happy to get rid of them!

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Fulham Timber Merchants near Tooting Bec tube have a two piles of pallets, one of which is free to tale from.

Crowbars are a pretty essential tool if you get into building with pallets.

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Easy. Go to the nearest block of council flats. Non-residents seem to feel they have a right to fly tip whatever they want outside the building, in the full knowledge that Wandsworth council will come and remove it. At our (the residents’) expense of course - it goes into our monthly service charge. When I catch the Chelsea tractor-driving residents of neighbouring uber rich streets (Trinity Crescent for example) red-handed, they seem unconcerned and sometimes offended that one of the little people dares to question their right to offload little Giles’ outgrown bedroom furniture in our recycling bin. The haul includes old furniture , pallets, assorted wood, you name it. If you can’t find what you need, come back tomorrow.

Rant over. Seriously, in Tooting Bec you can find whatever you need out on the street.

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+1 This. The paladins by my wandsworth block are a treasure trove of interesting flytipped stuff.

Ditto. Although yesterday I got 12m of good 3" poles I’ve turned into lawn edging out of my local “recycling zone” so it’s not all bad.

I prefer a reciprocating saw, car jacks and 2 lengths of 2x4.

Yes, you’ve done some great things with pallets!

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I live in tooting and never had much trouble finding palettes outside businesses. Plenty of industrial estates near micham as well. If you have some storage space it;s useful to pick good clean looking ones, crowbar them and remove nails and then have a stash of wood for when you get around to working on the project.
Most palettes come apart quite easily with a crowbar, but a few will snap when getting the initial prising apart done.

I echo other sentiments regarding no tools. Sometimes there are quite big nails buried out of sight and it’s so easy to mess up a blade.

Also people seem to chuck pretty decent stuff outside their houses around here. I got some decent pine shelves which i sanded and trimmed for future use.
alo an abandoned crib which i got around 50 dowels from which i’m deciding what do to with!

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There is a tile place on Lordship Lane that I think advertises as part of some open pallet network that always has them. Not sure how well known this is but try and find pallets from places that sell electricals/appliances as they use custom sized pallets which have only been used once or twice.

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Thanks everyone for your help! We found a construction materials vendor a short drive away that had some pallets in good shape going for free.

If you see a couple of hipsters gingerly tearing pallets apart in front of the space in the next week or so, say hi!

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Hi, be mindful not all pallets are safe for reuse due to the chemical content. Worth doing a little research on how to tell which is safe to use. Usually blue painted pallets are safe as I think they are used to transport food. But do double check.

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Note that the blue pallets are almost always the property of the blue pallet company who are most officious about recovering them and thus re-using them is probably unwise.

Most officious up until it comes to actually doing it.

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I had seen them around and promised myself I’d grab some when the opportunity arose! Thanks for the valuable warning :sweat_smile:

Yesterday we bought some 15mm copper pipes in lengths of 2 meters. What would be the best tool to cut them into the lengths we need, and do we have such a tool at the space? I checked the tools section here but nothing leapt out at me.

Copper is soft, so you can just use a hacksaw, then a file to take off any burrs

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Pipe cutter? (The type you screw/rotate) - think i saw one in a box in metal shop a while ago…

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