Repurposing pallet wood into a Pallet Clock!

I made a pallet clock using some old pallets.

I finally tore apart the pallets that have sat in my backyard.  I took the easy way and used a circular saw instead of keeping the boards long.   The pallets I had were pretty beat up and a lot of the boards were not in good shape, so I just cut them, and had a bunch of 12 to 18 inch boards.

I found this clock at a garage sale a long time ago thinking I would use the clock hands and movement on some other project.   

I learned a few things about clock movements.  The middle post is called a shaft and these shafts come in different lengths.  DING, DING, DING, that is the bells going off in my mind.  I had no idea you needed different lengths until I drilled the hole in my pallet and the shaft was not long enough.  Since I already had the clock movement and did not want to buy another,  I was determined to figure out a way to make this one work.  I decided I could hollow out the back of my pallets.  I measured how much I needed taken off and then set my table saw blade.  I began to run my pallet over the table saw.  I only hollowed out a section large enough for the clock movement.   You can see in the picture above where I used the table saw to hollow out a section.  I placed 4 pallet boards together and used scrap pallets to make the support brackets for the back of the clock.  I screwed the support brackets to each pallet piece.  I used the base of the old clock to trace out the size of my pallet clock.  I decided to keep it the same size and use the numbers from the old clock.

I used a jigsaw to cut out the pallet.  I decided to stain the clock using  Minwax 30808 Water Based Express Color Wiping Stain and Finish, Onyx.  My advice is to stain the pallet boards before screwing together.  After I stained the clock, the pallet boards shrank a little and I had too much space between the boards.  I also did not have stain in between the boards and this really showed after they shrunk.  I had to take the boards apart and stain in between and put back together.  So take my advice and stain before you begin, lesson learned!

I spray painted the clock hands and numbers with a silver paint.  I love how the silver gives the clock a modern feel.

I will be on the look out for old clocks at garage sales to make a few more of these to sell at the shop.

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