[Greenbuilding] Plybooboo

[Rob Tom]

On Thu, 08 Feb 2007 01:44:18 -0500, Adam wilson <sitcomfilter at hotmail.com>  
wrote:

> I'm curious as to how you would propose to use shipping pallets for a  
> finish flooring  (solid wood?)
> In theory, it sounds great, but have you ever had the pleasure of taking  
> a pallett apart?

Sure. I've dismantled enough pallets to know that you wouldn't go at it  
one nail
at a time if you were going to do it a lot.

Even the Green-conscious-before-there-was-Green Heepees of Olden Days  
figured that out.
I think it was one of the Whole Earth Catalogues or Domebooks that had  
stories about how they used to do it. Sledge hammers and long levers  
figured prominently in the scenario IIRC.

But I think that I'd devise a low-tech rig that would use pairs of 3 ft  
long, hydraulically operated steel forks (like those on a fork-lift come  
to mind) to pop the pallets apart and another rig to push the nails out  
all at once.

If that proved to be too much of a challenge, I think I'd look at devising  
a rig that has something like a multi-chuck drill press that uses gang of  
plug-cutter-like bits to bore rings around the nails or staples to pop off  
the slats.

I haven't thought about what to do with the ribs but at the very worst,  
they could be ground up into chips and used to make wall-building blocks  
whose characteristics are quite similar to strawbale. [See CMHC Proof of  
Concept report: "Bioblocs"]. I would prefer to see a higher-grade use  
though, where they are ripped/jointed and glued-up into slabs or planks  
(formaldheyde-free, of course).

As for turning the slats into flooring, the usual methods of ripping,  
planing,jointing & shaping as one would find at any small,efficient,  
milling outfit that makes T&G or plank flooring would be fine. But rather  
than producing the typical labour-intensive-to-install 3/4" T&G type  
flooring, I think I'd look at producing something more akin to engineered  
flooring. Perhaps the rib are used to make the cores and the slats are  
resawn to use as veneers for the finish surface.

And I'd look at setting it up as an operation that would be used to  
provide employment for mid-to-high-level-functioning  
developmentally-challenged adults in the shop and street people for the  
outdoor harvesting/gathering/warehousing operations.

I can see the possibility of municipal govts or service orgs being  
involved initially to help get the operations off the ground but given the  
increasing Green awareness that is afoot these days, the Green cachet of  
pallet flooring would likely have a great appeal to urban loft-dwellers  
and the operations could quite likely become self-sustaining in short  
order. And that should be enough. It need not be a hefty bottom line  
enterprise making millionaires out of everyone involved.

But I do think it is important to keep it small so that a prototype  
operation is easily repeatable in urban centres all over the continent.

=== * ===
Rob Tom
Kanata, Ontario, Canada
<A r c h i L o g i c   at  c h a f f y a h o o   dot   c a >
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