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Short Summary
Main recommendation: Build miniature pallet-style drink coasters from real pallet wood, thinning and detailing the slats so the coasters look like tiny pallets while keeping the aged, weathered surface. The creator presents this as a fun follow-up to earlier pallet projects, finishing the coasters with Spar urethane to seal in the dirt and protect against moisture.
Key Points
- Keep the aged look by sanding or planing only one face of the slats, leaving the weathered side and imperfections intact.
- Use a planer with a feather board set about 3/8 inch from the blade, then shift the fence over for each pass so all strips come out the same thickness.
- Recreate the pallet's bottom-runner cutout by hot-gluing small blocks to a carrier board, routing the cut, then heating the glue to release and peel the pieces off.
- Orient the worst-looking pieces to face up and the better-looking pieces underneath, aligning them with a square.
- Seal the finished coasters with Spar urethane to lock in the pallet dirt and protect against moisture.
Details Worth Noting
- Concrete instructions:
- Cut the slat strips to 3 1/2 inch lengths using a miter box.
- Set the planer's feather board 3/8 inch from the blade, run one strip through, then move the fence over for each subsequent strip so all are uniform.
- Cut the bottom runner pieces to the same width as the top slabs, 4 inches long, needing two per coaster.
- Hot-glue the small runner pieces to a carrier board with two marks showing where the router cut starts and stops; the piece breaks free after routing.
- Remove leftover glue by reheating it and peeling it off.
- Arrange the slats with the worst-looking pieces facing up and the better ones on the underside, using a square to keep them aligned.
- Finish with a coat of Spar urethane, the same finish used on the creator's earlier outdoor pallet project.
- The creator takes artistic liberty by using eight slats per coaster, while real pallets typically have about 11.
- The creator uses a belt sander only on one side to preserve pallet character, noting that sanding is slow, so the planer method was chosen instead.
- The cutout pieces are routed rather than cut by hand for safety and consistency.
Bottom Line
Making these coasters is a practical way to repurpose pallet wood into small, rustic decor, with the planer setup and hot-glue routing method being the key techniques to reuse.
