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00:06 Shane Conlan: Good day knuckleheads.
Uncle Knackers here.
Today what I intend to do is to make a chair out of an old pallet and some old hardwood
fence palings.
Now I don't wanna make one of those big bulky pallet chairs.
I wanna make a fairly simple lightweight chair out of the parts or the components of this
pallet and the hardwood fence palings.
For the seat support, I'll use these rails and for the legs I will use some of these
slats and for the seat or the part that you sit on, I want to use these fence palings.
00:40 SC: Now just a quick disclaimer.
I've never made a chair out of an old pallet before, so I'm just gonna wing it and see
how it goes.
Now, if it doesn't turn out that at flash, don't give me a hard time.
Got it?
Good.
00:52 SC: So the basic components for my chair is that we need two long legs for the back.
Now mine are about 900 millimetres long which is about 35-1/2 inches.
We need two legs for the front which are 440 millimetres long or about 17-1/4 inches and
a base support for our seat.
And the length is 450 millimetres, which is about 17-1/2 inches, and the width is 420
millimetres, which is about 16-1/2 inches.
01:33 SC: Now very quickly with the seat support, you'll notice that I've mitred the corners
and it's screwed together with a couple of screws on either end.
Now the sides have screws in them, but the front and the back don't because these are
going to be exposed and I didn't want the screw holes to be seen.
And with the side, the leg is going to cover those screws.
And like all pallet wood jobs, it's a great idea to plane and sand prior to assembly because
it will make your job a lot easier.
02:07 SC: So once you get all your legs cut to the correct length, we'll need to cut a
check out for our seat support to sit into.
So measure up from the bottom of the leg up 440 millimetres, which is about 17-1/4 inches,
something like that.
And then for the length or the depth of that cut is the width of your seat support.
An actual depth of the cut itself is about 10 millimetres, something like that.
And on the front legs, you just do the same process, but from the top down.
Once you've run a series of lines through with a circular saw, then get your chisel
and just chisel it out nice and flat.
[background noise]
03:14 SC: So there you go, all checked out.
And looking beautiful.
Now just a little tip: If you can lay your hands on one of these little palm planers,
they're absolutely fantastic for doing the finishing touches on things.
And actually they're quite addictive.
If you've got a nice sharp blade, you can't help but just plain things down.
They're fantastic.
With the legs all cut out, it's now simply a matter of gluing and screwing the leg to
the seat support.
Now make sure before you screw, that you pre-drill using a countersinking bit, otherwise, you'll
split this old timber.
[background noise]
04:04 SC: So there you have it.
The legs are on and it's looking pretty good.
Now I want to reduce some of the chunkiness of these legs so I'm going to run a taper
and to do that I'm going to go in 45 millimetres from the bottom edge, put a mark there.
Go down 60 millimetres from the underside of the seat support, put a mark there and
then run a line down and cut that off.
Now for the top of the leg or the backrest, we need to cut a similar taper which will
make reclining back in the chair more comfortable.
[background noise]
04:45 SC: Beautiful.
So there you go, the tapers are all cut and for a first crack, it's looking pretty good.
To finish this project off, all we need to do is attach these old fence palings to the
seat support.
How easy is that?
[background noise]
05:14 SC: There you go.
And now look, don't forget to put a couple across the top here for a backrest.
[background noise]
05:33 SC: So there it is, my rustic pallet chair made from pallets and old hardwood fence
palings.
What an absolute ripper.
Now this job took me about two hours to build and the total cost was around $2 and that
was for the screws and the nails.
The timber was free.
Now the chair itself is very strong due to this halving joint on all of the legs.
Now if you do intend to build this chair, I strongly recommend using that type of joint.
Now the chair's reasonably light and easy to move around and if there's one recommendation,
for the taller person, I'd make this back support about two to three inches taller.
06:22 SC: Now I'm in two minds about the colour, I love it in it's natural state like it is
there, but I wouldn't mind experimenting with this colour palette here for the seat and
the back support.
But regardless of all that, I absolutely love it and it's amazing what you can do with other
people's trash.
06:45 SC: So there you go, what a top little project.
Great tip knackers.
And don't forget, subscribe to my channel and give the video the old thumbs up, it will
be all greatly appreciated.
So that's me down and dusted for 2013.
Thanks to everybody for watching and I'll be back again early in 2014.
So until then, have a great Christmas.
I'm out of here.
Cheers.
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