How to Make Wood Flooring From Shipping Pallets

Planing and Jointing

• 1

  Disassemble the pallets with a hammer and pry bar -- and stack the 1-inch-thick boards that formed the surfaces in a pile separate from the 2-inch material to which they were attached. Save the 2-inch material for another building project.

• 2

  Examine each of the 1-inch boards carefully for nails, staples and screws, removing any you find. Check the board for straightness, and discard it if it's severely warped. If a board is damaged, you may be able to save part of it by cutting the damaged section out. If the remainder is 12 inches or more in length, it's still useful as a flooring board.

• 3

  Cut each end of each board square with an accurately adjusted chop saw.

• 4

  Place one of the boards on the in-feed table of a thickness planer, and adjust the planer depth so the machine will remove 1/16 inch of material or less when you run the board through. Turn on the machine and run all the boards through at that setting.

• 5

  Lower the planer blade by 1/16 inch and run the boards through again, with the same face toward the blade. Repeat this procedure until the top face of all the boards, which is the face that will form the surface of the floor, is smooth.

• 6

  Turn the boards over, lower the blade by another 1/16-inch increment, and run the boards through once to even out the opposite face of each board, which is the one that will face the subfloor.

• 7

  Set the blade of a jointer 1/16 inch above the in-feed table. Turn one of the boards on its edge with the smoother side facing out, and run it through the machine to shave the edge and make it square. Repeat the procedure with all the boards. If some edges are still rough, run all the boards through, raise the blade by 1/16 inch and run them all through again.

• 8

  Set the blade depth back to 1/16 inch if you raised it, turn the boards over and run them through the jointer on the opposite edge. Raise the blade to remove more material, if necessary, only after you've run all the boards through once.

Making Tongues and Grooves

• 9

  Measure the thickness of one of the boards with an accurate ruler, then adjust the fence of a table saw so it's half that distance from the far edge of the blade. Adjust the height of the blade to 3/8 inches, and run each board through the saw on its edge with the smoother side facing the fence.

• 10

  Move the fence 1/8 inch closer to the blade, and run each board through again. When you're done, each board will have a groove 1/4-inch wide by 3/8-inch deep on one edge.

• 11

  Readjust the fence so it's a distance equal to half the thickness of a board from the near side of the blade. Lower the saw blade to 1/4 inch, turn the boards over and run the opposite edge through the saw.

• 12

  Move the fence 3/16 inches closer to the blade, and run the boards through again. The wood that remains between the cuts will become a tongue, but first you must cut out the material between it and the edges of the board.

• 13

  Measure the distance from one of the lines you cut on one of the boards to the edge of the board. Set the height of the saw blade to that distance, and set the fence 1/4 inch from the far side of the blade.

• 14

  Place the board flat on the table, so that the line from which you took the measurement is below the other one. Push the board against the fence and run it through the saw to cut off a small section of wood and form one side of the tongue. Run all the other boards through the saw, being careful to keep them in the same orientation as the first one.

• 15

  Repeat the procedure, measuring from the other line to the opposite edge of the board on which you made the first measurement. Set the blade height, adjust the fence 1/4 inch from the far side of the blade and run each board through the saw to form the opposite side of the tongue.