I made pallet kindling today.

I find it easy to make kindling from pallets. I use my circular saw and if needed my power miter . Nice oak and maple wood.

 

Nothing wrong with that kindling!

 

I chopped up some elcheapo softwood pallets for kindlin and its the best...lights so easily and burns clean n hot quickly.

 

I do the same thing. I even have a couple businesses that ask me to take their pallets, because they get so many. I use it for kindling and on days where I just need to take the chill off in the garage.

 

Pallets for my kindling. I get them from work and run them through their bandsaw and put in boxes all I have to do is bring them home. When the box gets empty I just repeat the process.
Great fire starting wood for sure and free makes it even better.

 

I tore out the kitchen pine subfloor in my 110 yo house and made kindling out of it about 3 years ago. Man that stuff would light a fire fast.

 

I just started doing this and they work great. I use my kindling cracker on the a few of the wider planks to give even small splits. Great way to reclaim pallets that are no longer good for stacking.

 

Bought a kindling cracker couple years ago. What a GameChanger for starting fires. Great for my pizza oven too.

 

Awesome stuff. I always do it on the clock.

 

Hey, somebody is gonna hafta clean up the mess anyways, right?!

 

I just scrounge the chunks and slivers that fall off from splitting. last cycle of splitting gave me over a 27 gallon tote of kindling.
Sometimes I bring home the hardwood scraps when I fix pallets at work. I can sell scrap pallets for 4 bucks a piece so they all get sold.
Good pallets are going for 6 a piece.

 

Surprised junk pallets bring that much...

 

inflation and shortages - they were only $2 for years. Not really worth it.

 

Nice stuff there Thom.

Ive done that plenty of times over the years. I get nice clean ones from suppliers. I cherry pick. Sometimes torn between using for stacks or firewood.
Id kill all the batteries on my cordless circular saw cutting them up.

 

I want one that mounts on the wall and you pull down on the handle. But man, not 200 bucks of want!
Current system of hatchet in the bench vise sharp side up and hammering boards on has been working.

Wall Mount Steel Firewood Splitter, Kindling Wood Cracker Cutting Tool for Home?Not Easy to Deform and Rust – Vrshrub


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I have not seen one like that. Very cool. Sure seems overpriced, though. Heck, seems you could have a fabricator make one for that. But I've never hired one, so, that may be a pipe dream.

 

Geez....I have a buncha that from cutting pallets in half. The pieces are outdoor seasoned, but have nails in them. I was going to toss them in my burn barrel, but if you're interested in them, we could arrainge a short gtg. I'm maybe an hour from you (if that).
Sca

 

So today, I had to make some kindling and had some time. And beer.

So here’s my version 1 of a kindling splitter.
I bought a 48” piece of 2x2”x1/4” angle iron and a Fiskars machete. Since it has a “lifetime guarantee “ wink wink.

First I cut the 48” angle iron into 16” pieces. I planned using it all but that wasn’t necessary I found.



Then I drilled 6 holes in the angle iron. 3 in each. Two for mounting and one for the pivot. I used a 3/8” drill bit because that was what size the hole in the machete blade was.

Though I have a bandsaw, welder, shop tools, I wanted to make this easy to do if possible with ordinary tools most guys have.
So no welding involved.

I cut the angles out with an angle grinder. (You can use a hacksaw but it sucks to be you then).

Lag bolted it to a shop 4x4 and started testing.


To my surprise, it worked really well! After cleaning up a pine pallet, I cut up an old oak one to test. Then there needed to be a couple more notches made. I used the angle grinder with the splitter mounted. Looked at a “good” angle with a test piece of kindling and then made the steps a 90 degree angle to keep things simple.

Easy 2 beer project. Split two 5 gallon cans of 12” x 1” pine and oak in roughly 15 minutes. Like an old time paper cutter.


The machete is held by a 3/8” bolt and self locking nut. It can be removed to go murder zombies if needed or replaced with the lifetime guarantee as no changes were made.
I didn’t even sharpen it more.

Though it works fine, the 4x4 mounting is a bit thin for me at the sides.
I’d rather see the contraption on a 6” piece rather than 4. I was thinking using a 2x6 as a base and then mounting that to whatever post, wall, etc. on second thought, drilling the mounting holes closer to the centerline would work to leave plenty of “meat on the sides of a 4x4.

The factory holes in the blade for the pivot made the blade and end set past the back of the 2x2 angle when swinging over center. To make it work properly, either redrilling the hole in the blade(voiding the guarantee) or using larger angle iron to set it “out” a bit more would be the right thing to do or trimming the blade down around the pivot point(again voiding the warranty).
Or do as I did and circular saw a kerf in the mounting board so it has clearance to swing.

As I said. Fun project. And those thin pine pallets that nobody like using are perfect for kindling.
Lenny


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Great work Lenny! That’s a really nice setup! Thanks for sharing with us.