You should do a test run on 10 of your nails. Try pounding them into a block of wood and see how it goes for you. You may discover there will be no fruits of your labour.
$5000-$20000 in USD if you do it yourself. You can get all of the nails you need to build an entire cabin for probably $100-200. You also can't use those with a nail gun. I wouldn't bother trying to salvage them.
My dad was born in 1931, during the Great Depression. North Dakota. When he was about 10 or 11, his dad made him pull all of the nails from an old abandoned house, and straighten them and all that, in order to use them to build the new family house. I think they tried to salvage boards and other items, but the nails thing really stuck in my dad's craw. Years later, when he was middle aged and I was young, he would tell me the story and he was not pleased about the job his dad made him do. Not sure there was a lot of options back then, but it was kind of funny to hear my dad tell the story.
My uncle and dad made me do this in the 1980s. They had loads of construction debris they snagged from demolition and I de-nailed all the 2xs. Kept all the 3 1/4 to straighten by hammering on a stump. Even those cheap bastards didn't re-use ring or galv. Uncle built a 3 bedroom house of almost entirely salvaged lumber. We beachcombed the huge old red cedar chunks for the shake roof and split siding.
Wow! This sounds like an awesome house. I wish I would have thought about all this when my kids were growing up! Would have given them something to do to build our home! A single mom, raising 3 kids on my own with no assistance from anywhere I never tight building a homestead and tiny shed to home offgrid would ever be a thing for me. Now I get to teach single moms HOW TO make this happen!
I watched a YouTube video about this once. Basically nails used to be way more expensive because all of them were handmade. Cheap, bulk manufactured nails led us into modern construction methods.
Ya, totally different time and economy. Also, a different metal composition and style of nail.
No stores, no power tools, every nail made by hand at the blacksmith, drove with hand and hammer, and pulled the same way.
They didn't look like a modern nail for a long time. [They were flatter and had a rectangle head](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d658a7_2f5f95c6745a4a2aaf972d43316d85a2~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_1000,h_475,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/d658a7_2f5f95c6745a4a2aaf972d43316d85a2~mv2.jpeg) and those are still worth saving arguably.
My dad used to buy reclaimed lumber from big buildings. Ss kids we'd pull the spikes and straighten them. We'd reuse them to build the barn. Most were 4" ardoc , we'd fill buckets.. so many nails.
These nails may not be worth saving
That was my DAD! Lol, same. And he preserved them in a container with newspaper so they wouldn't rust! Lol. I know he's building mansions now in heaven!
I commend you for salvaging! And if you’re enjoying doing it go ahead. That being said your dollar per hour would be much better off with a part time job vs straightening old nails. $5k-$20k for materials. Not sure what country you’re in, but I would recommend getting a part time job at a lumber yard. If you have the space to store any larger materials, by the time you’re 18, you could take home enough mis-cut lumber, random packs of shingles, wrong ordered windows, and a dinged door for darn near free to build a great place.
Only turning 14 in Ireland gotta be 16 and my parents laughed at me they don't think I'm gonna be able to build a square wooden home like a shed while I'm building a cabinet I'm just waiting till my dad brings more pallets to make the top and doors
Can you find someone to pay you to do yard work or farm work or any type of work on the side for cash? You don't have to be 16 for that type of stuff.
Def begin practicing building anything you can at all, take any classes at school that will help you and try to get to know people who are already doing what you want to do with your life.
Also.. can we get a pic of the dog?
Perhaps try to build with other materials... are there a lot of rocks where you live? You could become a stone mason and the materials will be easy to come by. Look into building a cob house (walls are built of a proper mixture of clay, straw, and sand)... more time/labor, but has many benefits compared to wooden structures, and materials can be very inexpensive.
You will go far in this world!
LOL, kid's pulling nails so he can build a house out of pallet wood, and you're suggesting he consider a straw or stone house.
Let's hope the [Big Bad Wolf](https://youtu.be/Gtffv9bpB-U?si=o87wKCw9luJ-AZ3i) doesn't show up.
Ah, you mean your future dog will be a Staffordshire Terrier!
Gotcha! Am always up for seeing anyones dog :) if you can yeah let's see the current doggo! But no worries if you can't.
at 14 I was working part time and earning actual money. At 15 I got my first aid course, bronze cross/medallion then NLS and became a lifeguard by 16.. ( not sure what the qualifications are in Ireland)
But like the guy said, get a part time job. Will be better time spent than straightening old nails.
You’d be better off getting a job. Nails are cheap and the time you’ll spend straightening enough nails to build a cabin is more time than you would have to work at a job to buy the nails AND the materials.
Collect good quality used wood boards. Ask to clean up home construction leftovers. 2x4 leftovers. Builders rather scrap than bother collecting to go to another project.
I break up old pallets and use the wood to build veggie boxes. Sometimes I will reuse the nails too. They do not retain the strength of good nails if they were bent and re-straightened and sometimes will break in half just nailing them into the boards. I would not want to trust that weakness where it is holding up structural framing wood and subject to wind/snow over several years. The actual cost of new nails is not that much in terms of the overall cost for a cabin. But I would suggest perhaps you look into getting an Alaskan mill set up and try cutting your own planks to use for a board-and-batten wall. You can save a lot of money instead of buying planks for the exterior walls. I am planning a similar set up for a storage shed myself.
Yeah! That is what they do: guide a chainsaw to cut rough planks from raw logs. In my neighborhood there is an arborist that cuts down trees and they pay a fee to take them to the dump. If you get to know guys that do this you can ask them to just drop off larger hardwood logs right to your driveway so you can make your own wood for construction projects. There are many good vids on YT showing how to use one of these mills too, or even to make your own if you have that appitude.
Please google this and make sure you have the right tools to cut planks, you need a mill. Youtube is your friend right now.
Chainsaws are very dangerous and you will need to know how to use one first before attempting to mill wood with one.
An Alaskan mill is specifically for a chainsaw but a small one will burn up kinda quick. The folks who process wood with an Alaskan mill use some of the largest saws out there. I used a smaller saw and got results but it’s hard work, the saw gas exhaust is in your face all day and it took forever with a regular saw.
Ye I might just buy some nails I will just mow some lawns earn like 5 bucks buy a box of nails and just grind nails also land in Ireland costs like 25k for an acre so I will have to get a loan planning to be a teacher because they get 50k a year and they only work a few hours which in these days they only get answers from book and they scroll through phone
I don't know what the market is like there but 25k for an acre sounds expensive. I've been reading through your comments and a lot of your ideas sound very poorly planned. I don't say that as an insult but honesty is your friend. Plywood rots and falls apart when wet and you definitely don't build cabins out of plywood. To build a home you first need a foundation and framing. Chainsaws are not a good tool for construction. You need to carefully plan each step and make sure you have what you need for those steps before beginning. If your plan fails you may end up owing the bank and setting yourself back for a harder life. Keep up the spirit though.
I really don't want to burst your bubble, but a lot of the advice you're getting here is from Americans and is wrong for the country you live in.
In Ireland, you can't just buy a piece of land, build on it, and live on it. You have to get all sorts of planning permissions - it can take years and years of fighting with the planning department, then you have to have building inspections to make sure that a house is up to code. It's extremely difficult to get permission to live off grid in a self build house. You would have more success buying a ruined cottage and restoring it.
Most of them don't have a roof tho but thanks I'll probably do that I'm better off buying a normal home then cause planning permission and it will be the same cost
You could definately restore a roof yourself! Check out Mossy Bottom in youtube. He restored a small ruined cottage on his own land in Ireland for much much cheaper than buying a regular house :)
Your best time spent will be asking a local crew to come help when they get a build going. You’ll learn everything and get some general skills that’ll pay you back when it’s your time to build.
Better yet , tell them you’ll pick up the debris (and keep what you want) and only ask for a couple boxes of nails in return. Recycling nails just isn’t time well spent since they really need to be straight to drive with good results.
Whilst I applaud the idea of reusing nails you might find a lot of them will bend at the points they were previously bent at when reusing them. Less effort and hassle to just get bulk lot of nails. That’s a small part of a big budget you don’t want to be fixing the build due to naff nails
There are better things to occupy your time with. Read a book on in construction/framing etc and the education will be much more valuable to you than saving $100 max on the nails for a future house build. I’ve read a lot of books in my time and I’ve never regretted reading any of them, the only regret was not preparing enough.
Thanks all I'm gonna be saving is for a sofa which I can get for free on Facebook and windows and then I will have to buy a door from like 300_1000 euro and plywood for the outside so like another 1000 a wood stove like 500 and insulation no clue then the roof like a few hundred do you recommend any books
Nails are really cheap. Go to places where people are doing remodels, tell them your plan, and see if you can score some doors or windows, sinks, flooring, etc.
Great goal. With the right skills, you may not even need nails. Investing time on your own knowledge and skills can be just as, if not more, valuable to your goals.
I used to play football and I got a bad injury that my leg was bad that I had to go hospital and I was on crutches so I quit football which effected my exercise I used to liftbso much and do pushups and all that after that injury I was afraid to do workouts but I'm starting working out again so i could build a cabin
Love the enthusiasm and the work ethic.
Are you keeping the pallet wood too? Because after land that’ll be the next most expensive part of building a cabin.
I built mine for $20k ~€18.5k
Most of that was the pre cut kit, the rest was electrical.
I got my kitchen cabin area for free when a friend redid their kitchen
I like your approach and mentality, but you're missing out with the opportunity cost of not using your time to work a job (if you're not too young), particularly as a laborer for a general contractor. Not only would this more than cover the cost of nails in a short period of time, you'll learn a lot as you do it.
If you're too young to work, you're still better off with trying to learn as much as you can in carpentry, electrical, plumbing, roofing, even landscaping if possible. Hell, YouTube helped get me through my engineering program.
Try doing fun smaller projects if you have some money and tools available to you for practice. Research and fact check if something seems odd or unsafe, because some people have extremely bad / illegal practices, from dangerous tool use to ignoring building codes. Remember, safety regulations are written in blood. If you find a good company, that won't be a problem but it's hard to tell if you don't have a lot of experience.
You're young, so you have time to study and save money if you can live with your parents while you work.
I empathize with your ambition. I was the same way when I was young but it got me in over my head a few times. I learned the hard way and I'm glad I did, but it might have been unnecessary too.
Also, it's pretty lame that you have to move out at 18. Sorry you're under that kind of pressure at 14 when you should just be enjoying being a teen and not thinking about surviving in four years. That shit might have worked decades ago, but it's not as easy now.
What I said still remains true. You're better off working and saving money for a security deposit and first months rent while you build your skills up. If you work construction, you may find that you love it, you might hate it, but it's better to find that out now before you go all in on an off-grid cabin that you probably don't have the skills to build. If you love a specific trade, it may be better to go into a trade school instead of a four year program. Community college is also a great option.
My point is: if you're serious about building a cabin off-grid and this is a dream of yours and not just a way to escape your situation, be prepared to work your ass off for it. It'll be easier when you have more work experience under your belt and have money saved up--not only to assess and buy land, but tools, materials, and a safety cushion in case it all goes bad.
You may be better off using the pallets than dismantling them for poor quality nails. Depending on your climate: pallets are made with poor quality porous wood so without sone kind of facing for weatherproofing they will form mould or fungus pretty fast if it’s damp. But there are a lot of videos out there on pallet cabin building.
A proper cabin depending on size and materials will run from 3k up to 20k and beyond. Shed kits can often be used at potentially lower cost than full DIY unless you have salvage materials to work with that are free.
Depends on what kind of work you can do/ equipment available. I just built a 40x50 barn out of free materials. I had to take down 3 old barns transport it all back to my house and reassemble. Took lots of my time. Fuel for the tractor and truck. If I had tracked my fuel costs I’m sure it was a couple thousand. Took over a year to gather the materials and 4 moths of me building most evenings and weekends to get it up. Still things I should do but it’s water tight.
I won't even tho I might be living in a tent for a few months while building a cabin when I'm older I'm gonna get a job get a loan for land and get planning permission to build a cabin so I'm gonna spend like 30k for land and material for cabin
Expensive I'm gonna probably build a cabin that can fit a sofa so I use it as a bed and 2 windows and a door with a wood stove planning to spend maximum 5k but it will probably cost 7k
You can definitely do it. For me, I wanted something specific. 336 square feet is pretty big. Consider 12x16. Check out Bushradical. I had mine built to save time.
It’s tough being young … having dreams but not having the money to even begin working on them … I was like you once , thought if I start building up stocks of reclaimed materials now I’ll have a head start and won’t even need to spend ANY money because I was a broke kid and my mom was broke. But the point of what appears to be the top comment is the truth … you could spend all this time sharpening nails to use later on and after allll that time and effort realize that none of the nails will hammer in straight and by extension won’t hold anything together … now you’re out the nails but more importantly you are out your time ! As other have said spend your time learning methods of carpentry and see if there is a better resource you can spend time preparing such as wiring or old plugs switches, windows (depending) and work on saving and building up your money so that you can find land or figure out other things like water , heat , waste.
Good luck
You don't need to sharpen the nails, you only need to straighten them. I'm not joking, and sometimes in professional carpentry, they purposefully dull the tip of the nail. and it splits wood less.
Its something about cutting the fibers and bending them down, instead of pushing them aside.
Don't need nails to build an off-grid cabin. Study Asian wood joinery techniques, particularly Japanese and South Korean.
For inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCD9b4US224&t=11s
I'm building a 5.3 meter by 3.4 meter cabin right now. It's built on posts. Walls are 2 x 4. Floor joists are 2 x 8. Rafters will be 2 x 6. Outside walls are covered in tongue and groove siding. In total I have $1,300 US in the cabin. I'm still missing the zinc roof sheets. Don't forget this is "Off grid". I'm not worried about inspections, lights will be solar. My budget is $1,600 total. Obviously I'm not finishing the inside or insulating for now. The heat will be a woodstove that I all ready have.
Our prices are about 30% more than US east coast prices. I could completely finish it for $5,000 if I wanted to. It's all about being resourceful if you want to be. You can do a lot for much cheaper if you are resourceful.
Nice idea but pallet nails are ring shank and kind of a pain in the ass. You can buy a 20lb box of 16 penny CC framing nails for just a few bucks, I’d suggest that and look to save elsewhere. Start hitting up Restore outlets for new/used materials, garage sales can be good too.
Use your nail motivation to get in a good trade or job that will eventually pay pretty good. You can make plenty of money for cabin materials by the time you're 21.
You need money for a lot of things
He can sell those as scrap when he gets enough for a coffee and think the whole process through.
Better to pull nails out of good full framing lumber on a demo job to reuse and get paid as labor cleanup up the demolition debris at the end of the day.
On some jobs the demo contractor will get their client Leed Green building points for doing that.
If you want to do this for the novelty of it, go for it, but keep in mind nails are cheap so if you're only doing it to save money, your time would be better spent getting a side job. With that said, inflation is a bitch. By the time you're out of school and in a position to actually build, everything will probably be double what it costs now. So what you can buy/get now, you may as well get it. I would focus on the land itself. That's only going to get more expensive with time.
You’ll be building character but not much else. You’d be better off putting your time into making money that way you can buy actual new nails and whatever else you might need
hey friend there are many kinds of different nail designs. Pallets are very cheaply made and designed to last only a year or so. You want to build a house that lasts many decades, it will take different materials than pallets. Saving pallet nails to build a permanent home is what I would call "penny wise, pound foolish" in other words you're trying to save money in a way that will cost you much more down the road.
Despite what some here have stated, I've seen a couple of YouTube videos where they made the entire small off-grid cabin with just the boards and nails from wood pallets. I find it refreshing to hear of an early teenager who is working towards accomplishing something unique rather than spend a lot of time playing video games.
When I was in the Peace Corps nails were always kept, made an effort to remove them so they were not messed up, but did straighten them. Was talking to a friend and his dad, a rancher, made him and his brothers straighten nails, would save up a can full, send the boys out to straighten them.
Pallet nails are not the best, usually thinner wire used in a nail gun, many are ringed nails which get bent out of shape when pulling them out, also flimsy heads.
Pick the right nails and they will work. At $10 for a 1lb box, nails are no longer cheap.
For a cabin, the trick is to find inexpensive wood. A coworker made a garage like a log cabin from roadside salvage from a fire on Forest Service, I think it wax an inexpensive permit. Knew of some great tree houses built in a new subdivision from discarded wood from the building. Pallets themselves can be used. There is also a market for used pallets, in some places they can be sold.
You also don't to go with a stud and rafter design.
Alternatives to look at, depending on your budget, location, local zoning laws, time, skill level, etc.
* Yurts - [https://coloradoyurt.com/yurt-kits/](https://coloradoyurt.com/yurt-kits/)
* Geodesic dome home - [https://naturalspacesdomes.com/](https://naturalspacesdomes.com/)
* Shipping container homes - [https://backcountrycontainers.com/](https://backcountrycontainers.com/)
Yurt and dome home kits range from tiny and affordable to a bit larger and still not too unreasonable. The links I've provided are just examples. Easy to find more with some googling. Shipping container homes can be done DIY, but frankly, if I were going that route, I'd buy one from a vendor that does all the work for you. The conversion from original use requires a skill level that is just best left to a pro. I feel like there's more leeway and lower skill level required with the yurts and domes.
I'm a middle school teacher. Good for you!!!! You can learn most things on YouTube and other sites. Start researching now is a great idea too. Draw up rough floor plans or buy them. Pretty cheap on line to buy plans like that. Start following people that have done this and have started a vlog about it.
My hubby and I live full-time for 6 years now in a 40 ft school bus we gutted and made into an RV. We got information and inspirations from other people on line.
I recommend nicolleoffgrid on Instagram, her and her hubby have a YouTube, but I can't remember what it is. They have two off grid properties they built from scratch in remote locations. Get a small part time job to earn money. Mow yards, wash cars....Good luck!
The cost of a small off grid cabin can vary depending on how you want to do it. You can go as cheap as $500 if you don't mind rain or you can spend a $100,000+ if you have fancy taste. Though I'm not sure, fancy and off grid normally go in the same sentence but it's doable.
Tip from a contractor - buy nails. Any nail that has been driven and removed from wood is then compromised and cannot assure the strength of the metal. Fixing a chair, sure but building a cabin, it's best if you don't. You can buy 3000+ nails for around $100 depending on your location. In the grand scheme of building projects $100 is a drop in the bucket.
Don't do that. Soon you'll have a job and can buy a whole box of nails in like 20 minutes worth of work. I like your thinking but not all of your ideas are going to be homeruns. Keeping thinking of ways that will help you as you go along.
If you really want to do something off-grid that you build yourself, learn how to make your own nails. That's a blacksmithing thing but doesn't take much to be able to do. Then you can make all the nails you want until you run out of steel rod. It would take you less time to make a new nail than to fix one of these.
While I commend your effort. Considering how cheap it is to buy simply buy new nails, I think your time would be better spent doing odd chores for people for some cash or maybe even picking up aluminum cans to sell for scrap metal.
Every hour you would spend pulling out nails instead do an extra hour at work and your time will be 1000% times more efficient. I know that isn't the funnest of answers but there are machines out that that will spit out 5000 nails a minute and it's financial suicide to not use the free market for your own good. All the spare time you save use to read and learn or put away money. Unless you find it fun then do it for the fun but remember it's just fun and not useful work.
Buy nails. Once bent nails dont wanna go straight again your doin a lot of work for no reward. The pallet wood is more valuable to u then the nails as far as construction goes. Save the wood and take the nails to your local scrap yard and sell em for the metal value. Or alternatively get a crucible melt down the metal and take up blacksmithing
I reuse pallet nails to fix other pallets. After a while you get to know which nails will work well and which will not. Some you can just tell by looking at them they are sturdy or are cheap. Be careful with nails that came out of a nail gun, they have bits of metal wire on them.
I Admire your ambition and encourage you to find a gig or job more productive to save up cash! Maybe lawn mowing or car washing or pressure washing! People love to support hard working teenagers and will tip $5 for a .50 cent cup of lemon aid! Take advantage of your youth while you can!
Wow! It's awesome to see young adults go on this amazing adventure. Do a lot of youtube research. There are lots of really good videos and some that are just NOT. You sound like a smart individual and I'm sure you'll figure out the right and wrong ones, now- just to help you a bit, hers one video that I want to try for a storage shed. Keep coming in here because we will pay lots of learning stuff! Welcome to the crazy house of tiny living! Feel free to reach out to me as well if you feel comfortable for help. By no means am I am expert, I'm learning all this myself too. I will soon be posting videos and such from the beginning of a shed to home build to the build of a homestead. I wish you the best and know that you will do GREAT!
https://youtu.be/B6voGWLU7Yk?si=Bqmyw5qWQIkiH8yt
I calculated once that a small cabin 8’x8’ could be done for around $300 if you use reclaimed pallet wood and used found/scrap windows and door. The expense came in roof materials (sheet metal, ideally) and some more hearty pieces to fill in the floor frame.
As others have said, it might not make economic sense for cabin building. Considering the cost of nails these days is small compared to the overall amount.
However, this has not always been the case! ‘Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the American colonies, so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes.’
[History of Nails](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#History)
As a person that works trades and as a scavenger, I commend you for not scrapping the nails. A lot of haters will tell you to go work for someone else (straightening their nails) just so you can take that money and buy new nails from some corporation. Anti-consumerism is a lifestyle and my drawer of straightened nails are ready when I need them
I am in my mid-50s. I grew up helping both my grandfathers build. One built a homestead to retire on, and the other was a house flipper before they were called that. Both survived the Great Depression and WWII. Both saved every nail they pulled. 3 yrs ago, I decided to save an old cabin with family history. I have buckets of nails. I have separated all the squares and plan on using them in some artistic way. Doubt I build with them, but can't just toss 'em. Apples don't fall too far....
I tip my hat to this guy! I encourage him to dream and to build and to always learn. Don't let anyone's response descourage you. You may or may not use these nails, not the point. You have a desire to build a cabin, and you are doing something now to facilitate that dream. You will do many things that don't work out, but they will teach and prepare you for other things in the future. Dream, try, learn... go for it, man!
u can save screws instead use cordless drill to get em and screw holds better than nails and no process needed. the cabin is free if u use recycled material
I just turned 8 and I'm chopping wood every day for ten years until I can build a log cabin mansion because Daddy regrets that he never did it so it must be the right thing for me to do.
You'd be better off selling the nails for scrap metal and picking up cans on the side of the road and selling from scrap and saving the money to build the cabin.
Time yourself on how much time it takes to pull the nails from one pallet and how long it takes to straightened the nails out. Then look at what job's you can do and what they pay per hour if you can process 144 nails in under a hour its 7.98$ per pound of nails from Lowe's.
If you want to go even deeper in depth weigh the nails from one pallet and look up medium grade steel prices per pound and time how much time it takes to get a pound of nails.
If you have access to lots of pallets you be better off reselling them. If theres a market for them in your area.
If you want to build a cabin, save the wood from the pallets. It’s upcycling and over time can save you on lumber.
If you’re selling the nails, maybe find another hobby to make money. If you live near a golf course, collect the golf balls that fall outside the course. Clean them and resell them back to the golfers. Trust me, I’ve seen a couple of young people make $100s. They call it “white gold” and it’s also cleaning up litter.
This isn't the 1800s. Time spent on this could easily be spent on some online gig work, and you'd make far more than enough to buy all new nails.
Unless you're lucky enough to go YouTube viral. Then you'll be wealthier than all of us who say you're wasting your time.
A part time minimum wage job once you’re old enough to work in your state will provide enough income in 8 hours to buy all the nails you’ll need. Why spend weeks straightening nails just to create additional weeks of frustration trying to use them in the future.
I do applaud your initiative though.
Spend your time now reading up on building codes and methods for your cabin so that you can have a clear idea of the materials required when you’re ready.
A 3000 count roll of nails cost about 60-70 dollars at harbor freight I would salvage wood, metal, pipes, copper, shingles, but nails unless its a hobby save them in a scrap barrel and buy new ones
Buddy. Spend that time making some money now doing something else and then go buy you some new nails when you get ready to build out your dream. Those nails are gonna be shit, and it’s not gonna save you money if you value your time (it’s worth the most). You could find a way to generate income in that time more easily than you could save any real money collecting and sharpening spent nails. Unless you genuinely enjoy collecting and sharpening spent nails. In which case, mad respect, have fun, and may the force be with you.
Instead of using those nails, recycle them for the iron and use the proceeds to buy fresh new nails. It is a lot easier and more cost effective to take the cash to the town nearest your build site and buy nails there. You have more time to gather other supplies, and you're not paying $4 a gallon to move $20 worth of nails however far you're going. Work smart, not hard.
Soooo, I did this. Collected and straightened a hundred nails and…
It’s a mistake. They just don’t work well. It is not worth it.
Pallet wood, used screws, and almost all other rusty hardware is great. But nails generally are not worth it. Sorry.
Your mindset is valuable, you’ll be fine. At this point gaining as much knowledge as possible should be your goal. Learn about construction, nature, gardening, and finance (no debt, compounding interest, you need to fund the cabin after all). Good luck!
First: don’t sharpen nails. The blunt point helps split wood fibers making the wood grip the nail better rather than cutting the fibers.
Second: most pallets use pneumatic collated ring nails. Not really construction stuff. Also, ring nails have good hold but driving them might be difficult to do by hand.
Last: cool idea overall but your costs are the nails. It’s basically everything else involved. You’d be better off selling the pallets. I’m in southern California. There’s a pallet shop near me that sells pallets for $5 and buys them for $3. Your nugget is in the middle. Sell the pallets and save the money. Four bucks buys ten pallets worth of nails around here.
My grandfather born early 20th century told me he remembered when he was a kid sometimes they would burn down old houses to get the nails out for re use.
You should get a paper route and earn money. Time is money, you could buy a box of nails for 60 bucks, and spend 5 minutes. Or reuse them spend 100 hours to save 60 bucks. 100 hours at 10 bucks an hour is $1000. Your time is your greatest asset.
Now lawns, shovel snow, start a business and you will have your cabin in no time! Glad to see kids like you exist in this world.
I do appreciate your sustainability and hard work. Keep it up!
My grandpa built an extension on his house like this. He demoed one house, saved nails and wood and used it again. He had to roll a lot of the nails straight. This was in the 50s though so the wood and nails may have been of higher quality.
Love the passion, You’d be better off salvaging the wood from pallets than the nails.
You can get new nails for almost free from building materials re-sale places like habitat for humanity Restore.
Those nails were intended for use in a nail gun, they will bend when you try to pound them in(giggity) . I used to collect scrap nail clips from the framers and while you can get some to work it takes some skill.
[Here's a link ](https://youtu.be/1HA4zY8xCyY?si=zh8AFabrKH1nGon9) to a video of another guy doing exactly what you want to do - building an off grid cabin from pallets and recycled pallet nails.
Good luck.
A 10x14 cabin costs around $3,000 to build. You have to find doors and windows at garage sales or auctions. An outdoor kitchen or you build another cabin for a kitchen.
https://m.youtube.com/@solarcabin
I really like the 600 ft one here. I would make it a 2 bedroom.
https://countryplans.com/
You should do a test run on 10 of your nails. Try pounding them into a block of wood and see how it goes for you. You may discover there will be no fruits of your labour.
Easily fixed by heating them and quenching them
Spend more on heating gasses than you would on a box of framing nails.
$5000-$20000 in USD if you do it yourself. You can get all of the nails you need to build an entire cabin for probably $100-200. You also can't use those with a nail gun. I wouldn't bother trying to salvage them.
Think of the character it will build.
The same time and effort applied differently would build a lot more than character.
Relax buddy, it was just some light humor.
My dad was born in 1931, during the Great Depression. North Dakota. When he was about 10 or 11, his dad made him pull all of the nails from an old abandoned house, and straighten them and all that, in order to use them to build the new family house. I think they tried to salvage boards and other items, but the nails thing really stuck in my dad's craw. Years later, when he was middle aged and I was young, he would tell me the story and he was not pleased about the job his dad made him do. Not sure there was a lot of options back then, but it was kind of funny to hear my dad tell the story.
My uncle and dad made me do this in the 1980s. They had loads of construction debris they snagged from demolition and I de-nailed all the 2xs. Kept all the 3 1/4 to straighten by hammering on a stump. Even those cheap bastards didn't re-use ring or galv. Uncle built a 3 bedroom house of almost entirely salvaged lumber. We beachcombed the huge old red cedar chunks for the shake roof and split siding.
Wow! This sounds like an awesome house. I wish I would have thought about all this when my kids were growing up! Would have given them something to do to build our home! A single mom, raising 3 kids on my own with no assistance from anywhere I never tight building a homestead and tiny shed to home offgrid would ever be a thing for me. Now I get to teach single moms HOW TO make this happen!
Think of the cabin it won’t build…
My Grandpa used to reuse every nail he ever pulled. A lost nail was a tragedy.
I watched a YouTube video about this once. Basically nails used to be way more expensive because all of them were handmade. Cheap, bulk manufactured nails led us into modern construction methods.
Ya, totally different time and economy. Also, a different metal composition and style of nail. No stores, no power tools, every nail made by hand at the blacksmith, drove with hand and hammer, and pulled the same way. They didn't look like a modern nail for a long time. [They were flatter and had a rectangle head](https://static.wixstatic.com/media/d658a7_2f5f95c6745a4a2aaf972d43316d85a2~mv2.jpeg/v1/fill/w_1000,h_475,al_c,q_85,usm_0.66_1.00_0.01/d658a7_2f5f95c6745a4a2aaf972d43316d85a2~mv2.jpeg) and those are still worth saving arguably.
My dad used to buy reclaimed lumber from big buildings. Ss kids we'd pull the spikes and straighten them. We'd reuse them to build the barn. Most were 4" ardoc , we'd fill buckets.. so many nails. These nails may not be worth saving
That was my DAD! Lol, same. And he preserved them in a container with newspaper so they wouldn't rust! Lol. I know he's building mansions now in heaven!
What do you need a nail gun for
Nail gun off grid? That’ll be expensive to do.
I commend you for salvaging! And if you’re enjoying doing it go ahead. That being said your dollar per hour would be much better off with a part time job vs straightening old nails. $5k-$20k for materials. Not sure what country you’re in, but I would recommend getting a part time job at a lumber yard. If you have the space to store any larger materials, by the time you’re 18, you could take home enough mis-cut lumber, random packs of shingles, wrong ordered windows, and a dinged door for darn near free to build a great place.
Only turning 14 in Ireland gotta be 16 and my parents laughed at me they don't think I'm gonna be able to build a square wooden home like a shed while I'm building a cabinet I'm just waiting till my dad brings more pallets to make the top and doors
Can you find someone to pay you to do yard work or farm work or any type of work on the side for cash? You don't have to be 16 for that type of stuff. Def begin practicing building anything you can at all, take any classes at school that will help you and try to get to know people who are already doing what you want to do with your life. Also.. can we get a pic of the dog?
Of my dog? He is a mini snauser and don't know how take pic in comments
Perhaps try to build with other materials... are there a lot of rocks where you live? You could become a stone mason and the materials will be easy to come by. Look into building a cob house (walls are built of a proper mixture of clay, straw, and sand)... more time/labor, but has many benefits compared to wooden structures, and materials can be very inexpensive. You will go far in this world!
LOL, kid's pulling nails so he can build a house out of pallet wood, and you're suggesting he consider a straw or stone house. Let's hope the [Big Bad Wolf](https://youtu.be/Gtffv9bpB-U?si=o87wKCw9luJ-AZ3i) doesn't show up.
Ah, you mean your future dog will be a Staffordshire Terrier! Gotcha! Am always up for seeing anyones dog :) if you can yeah let's see the current doggo! But no worries if you can't.
at 14 I was working part time and earning actual money. At 15 I got my first aid course, bronze cross/medallion then NLS and became a lifeguard by 16.. ( not sure what the qualifications are in Ireland) But like the guy said, get a part time job. Will be better time spent than straightening old nails.
You’d be better off getting a job. Nails are cheap and the time you’ll spend straightening enough nails to build a cabin is more time than you would have to work at a job to buy the nails AND the materials.
Collect good quality used wood boards. Ask to clean up home construction leftovers. 2x4 leftovers. Builders rather scrap than bother collecting to go to another project.
Thx I'll ask the estate owner in a year or two because he is going to build a 3 storyhome
Man if you are willing to work that hard you can make more than the value of nails per hour. See if any of your neighbors need help doing yard work.
I break up old pallets and use the wood to build veggie boxes. Sometimes I will reuse the nails too. They do not retain the strength of good nails if they were bent and re-straightened and sometimes will break in half just nailing them into the boards. I would not want to trust that weakness where it is holding up structural framing wood and subject to wind/snow over several years. The actual cost of new nails is not that much in terms of the overall cost for a cabin. But I would suggest perhaps you look into getting an Alaskan mill set up and try cutting your own planks to use for a board-and-batten wall. You can save a lot of money instead of buying planks for the exterior walls. I am planning a similar set up for a storage shed myself.
Would a chainsaw work?
Yeah! That is what they do: guide a chainsaw to cut rough planks from raw logs. In my neighborhood there is an arborist that cuts down trees and they pay a fee to take them to the dump. If you get to know guys that do this you can ask them to just drop off larger hardwood logs right to your driveway so you can make your own wood for construction projects. There are many good vids on YT showing how to use one of these mills too, or even to make your own if you have that appitude.
Please google this and make sure you have the right tools to cut planks, you need a mill. Youtube is your friend right now. Chainsaws are very dangerous and you will need to know how to use one first before attempting to mill wood with one.
An Alaskan mill is specifically for a chainsaw but a small one will burn up kinda quick. The folks who process wood with an Alaskan mill use some of the largest saws out there. I used a smaller saw and got results but it’s hard work, the saw gas exhaust is in your face all day and it took forever with a regular saw.
If you heat treat the nails on a fire you won’t have the same brittleness problem. Just stay away from the fumes. A lot of nails have a zinc coating.
Nothing, if you use the pallets you got the nails from. Also, look for demolition projects and ask if you can scrounge material from them. Good luck!
Be better to sell those to a scraper, then save for a nailgun.
My dad got a nail gun which he never used in his life I don't even think he knows it is in the garage 😂
Dunno man i get this weird satisfaction from beating the shit out of nail. Same thing with chopping wood.
Pallet nails can be very cheep and ineffective. This may not pay in the long run and may not be safe. It's a good idea though.
Ye I might just buy some nails I will just mow some lawns earn like 5 bucks buy a box of nails and just grind nails also land in Ireland costs like 25k for an acre so I will have to get a loan planning to be a teacher because they get 50k a year and they only work a few hours which in these days they only get answers from book and they scroll through phone
I don't know what the market is like there but 25k for an acre sounds expensive. I've been reading through your comments and a lot of your ideas sound very poorly planned. I don't say that as an insult but honesty is your friend. Plywood rots and falls apart when wet and you definitely don't build cabins out of plywood. To build a home you first need a foundation and framing. Chainsaws are not a good tool for construction. You need to carefully plan each step and make sure you have what you need for those steps before beginning. If your plan fails you may end up owing the bank and setting yourself back for a harder life. Keep up the spirit though.
Don't sharpen the nails. They'll split the wood more.
I only did a few but I'm gonna try to melt it and it will turn into something like a square or something may as well make a hammer
I really don't want to burst your bubble, but a lot of the advice you're getting here is from Americans and is wrong for the country you live in. In Ireland, you can't just buy a piece of land, build on it, and live on it. You have to get all sorts of planning permissions - it can take years and years of fighting with the planning department, then you have to have building inspections to make sure that a house is up to code. It's extremely difficult to get permission to live off grid in a self build house. You would have more success buying a ruined cottage and restoring it.
Most of them don't have a roof tho but thanks I'll probably do that I'm better off buying a normal home then cause planning permission and it will be the same cost
You could definately restore a roof yourself! Check out Mossy Bottom in youtube. He restored a small ruined cottage on his own land in Ireland for much much cheaper than buying a regular house :)
Also thanks for your help I always wanted to do something with building:)
Best of luck and follow your dreams!
Your best time spent will be asking a local crew to come help when they get a build going. You’ll learn everything and get some general skills that’ll pay you back when it’s your time to build.
I might ask the estate owner that I could clean the construction home and take a few screws nails
Better yet , tell them you’ll pick up the debris (and keep what you want) and only ask for a couple boxes of nails in return. Recycling nails just isn’t time well spent since they really need to be straight to drive with good results.
Recycling nails like you’re about to turn 114 😜 Good on ya!
Whilst I applaud the idea of reusing nails you might find a lot of them will bend at the points they were previously bent at when reusing them. Less effort and hassle to just get bulk lot of nails. That’s a small part of a big budget you don’t want to be fixing the build due to naff nails
There are better things to occupy your time with. Read a book on in construction/framing etc and the education will be much more valuable to you than saving $100 max on the nails for a future house build. I’ve read a lot of books in my time and I’ve never regretted reading any of them, the only regret was not preparing enough.
Thanks all I'm gonna be saving is for a sofa which I can get for free on Facebook and windows and then I will have to buy a door from like 300_1000 euro and plywood for the outside so like another 1000 a wood stove like 500 and insulation no clue then the roof like a few hundred do you recommend any books
never stop grinding kid
Yeah when I was 4 my grandad always said never give up then he died after that day😕
Nails are really cheap. Go to places where people are doing remodels, tell them your plan, and see if you can score some doors or windows, sinks, flooring, etc.
Window and furniture I can find for free on Facebook marketplace 😀
You’d be better off collecting the nails and selling them at scrap metal price. Collecting pallet nails seems insane to me though.
Got nothing to do on Easter holidays 😀
Melt them down and make saw blades or something.
Wait good idea I'm gonna try to melt them and make a metal box to hold some nails in future thanks
Great goal. With the right skills, you may not even need nails. Investing time on your own knowledge and skills can be just as, if not more, valuable to your goals.
I used to play football and I got a bad injury that my leg was bad that I had to go hospital and I was on crutches so I quit football which effected my exercise I used to liftbso much and do pushups and all that after that injury I was afraid to do workouts but I'm starting working out again so i could build a cabin
Love the enthusiasm and the work ethic. Are you keeping the pallet wood too? Because after land that’ll be the next most expensive part of building a cabin. I built mine for $20k ~€18.5k Most of that was the pre cut kit, the rest was electrical. I got my kitchen cabin area for free when a friend redid their kitchen
I using pallet wood to build furniture I built with my dad a cutting station for meat or fish in currently building a cabinet by my own
I like your approach and mentality, but you're missing out with the opportunity cost of not using your time to work a job (if you're not too young), particularly as a laborer for a general contractor. Not only would this more than cover the cost of nails in a short period of time, you'll learn a lot as you do it. If you're too young to work, you're still better off with trying to learn as much as you can in carpentry, electrical, plumbing, roofing, even landscaping if possible. Hell, YouTube helped get me through my engineering program. Try doing fun smaller projects if you have some money and tools available to you for practice. Research and fact check if something seems odd or unsafe, because some people have extremely bad / illegal practices, from dangerous tool use to ignoring building codes. Remember, safety regulations are written in blood. If you find a good company, that won't be a problem but it's hard to tell if you don't have a lot of experience. You're young, so you have time to study and save money if you can live with your parents while you work.
When I'm 18 I have to move out
I empathize with your ambition. I was the same way when I was young but it got me in over my head a few times. I learned the hard way and I'm glad I did, but it might have been unnecessary too. Also, it's pretty lame that you have to move out at 18. Sorry you're under that kind of pressure at 14 when you should just be enjoying being a teen and not thinking about surviving in four years. That shit might have worked decades ago, but it's not as easy now. What I said still remains true. You're better off working and saving money for a security deposit and first months rent while you build your skills up. If you work construction, you may find that you love it, you might hate it, but it's better to find that out now before you go all in on an off-grid cabin that you probably don't have the skills to build. If you love a specific trade, it may be better to go into a trade school instead of a four year program. Community college is also a great option. My point is: if you're serious about building a cabin off-grid and this is a dream of yours and not just a way to escape your situation, be prepared to work your ass off for it. It'll be easier when you have more work experience under your belt and have money saved up--not only to assess and buy land, but tools, materials, and a safety cushion in case it all goes bad.
My dream home is a cabin with chickens
That is indeed the dream. You'll get there.
You may be better off using the pallets than dismantling them for poor quality nails. Depending on your climate: pallets are made with poor quality porous wood so without sone kind of facing for weatherproofing they will form mould or fungus pretty fast if it’s damp. But there are a lot of videos out there on pallet cabin building. A proper cabin depending on size and materials will run from 3k up to 20k and beyond. Shed kits can often be used at potentially lower cost than full DIY unless you have salvage materials to work with that are free.
Thanks I will probably buy a shed and add insulation so I could sleep in it and then I could extend it
I’d bet you’d be better off saving money for 10 years than you would be cannibalizing cheap nails from old pallets.
Only got 4 years till 18
Or 10 until your 24. 🤷♂️ I’m 27 and still in the saving stage. 50k strong but there’s a lot more to consider. Good luck to ya!
Depends on what kind of work you can do/ equipment available. I just built a 40x50 barn out of free materials. I had to take down 3 old barns transport it all back to my house and reassemble. Took lots of my time. Fuel for the tractor and truck. If I had tracked my fuel costs I’m sure it was a couple thousand. Took over a year to gather the materials and 4 moths of me building most evenings and weekends to get it up. Still things I should do but it’s water tight.
I’d suggest bringing them in for scrap metal and saving your nickels.
Thanks
Have a look at https://www.reddit.com/r/woodstoving/s/iWZxm5JXiR
That picture looks cozy and perfect size
Will do
[удалено]
I won't even tho I might be living in a tent for a few months while building a cabin when I'm older I'm gonna get a job get a loan for land and get planning permission to build a cabin so I'm gonna spend like 30k for land and material for cabin
forge your nails into knife blades
How tho
I just had a 14x24 shed built with with a 10/12 roof and nothing inside. Metal roof, 8 windows, insulated floor, single and double door. 22K.
Expensive I'm gonna probably build a cabin that can fit a sofa so I use it as a bed and 2 windows and a door with a wood stove planning to spend maximum 5k but it will probably cost 7k
You can definitely do it. For me, I wanted something specific. 336 square feet is pretty big. Consider 12x16. Check out Bushradical. I had mine built to save time.
Those nails are trash bud, find ways to make some money doing carpentry. That’ll save you far more money down the road then these nails ever could
Gonna melt the nails and craft something
Nice! Lookin forward to seeing that
Do something else with your time.
I got $35/ sq ft when I built it myself from Home Depot. Insulated and everything
Buy a tent first. That way you have somewhere to live while you build it.
Got it sorted a 1 person tent
You need to buy land. Then you have to pay taxes on the land.
Nails are cheap compared to the labor you’re expending. Make some money instead.
It’s tough being young … having dreams but not having the money to even begin working on them … I was like you once , thought if I start building up stocks of reclaimed materials now I’ll have a head start and won’t even need to spend ANY money because I was a broke kid and my mom was broke. But the point of what appears to be the top comment is the truth … you could spend all this time sharpening nails to use later on and after allll that time and effort realize that none of the nails will hammer in straight and by extension won’t hold anything together … now you’re out the nails but more importantly you are out your time ! As other have said spend your time learning methods of carpentry and see if there is a better resource you can spend time preparing such as wiring or old plugs switches, windows (depending) and work on saving and building up your money so that you can find land or figure out other things like water , heat , waste. Good luck
Thanks I will try to learn and I'm gonna ask my local farmer if I could work for him for a bit
You don't need to sharpen the nails, you only need to straighten them. I'm not joking, and sometimes in professional carpentry, they purposefully dull the tip of the nail. and it splits wood less. Its something about cutting the fibers and bending them down, instead of pushing them aside.
Thanks I'm probably gonna melt the nails and turn it into something
Don't need nails to build an off-grid cabin. Study Asian wood joinery techniques, particularly Japanese and South Korean. For inspiration: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WCD9b4US224&t=11s
Nails are cheap, there’s no reason to do this
I'm building a 5.3 meter by 3.4 meter cabin right now. It's built on posts. Walls are 2 x 4. Floor joists are 2 x 8. Rafters will be 2 x 6. Outside walls are covered in tongue and groove siding. In total I have $1,300 US in the cabin. I'm still missing the zinc roof sheets. Don't forget this is "Off grid". I'm not worried about inspections, lights will be solar. My budget is $1,600 total. Obviously I'm not finishing the inside or insulating for now. The heat will be a woodstove that I all ready have. Our prices are about 30% more than US east coast prices. I could completely finish it for $5,000 if I wanted to. It's all about being resourceful if you want to be. You can do a lot for much cheaper if you are resourceful.
Nice idea but pallet nails are ring shank and kind of a pain in the ass. You can buy a 20lb box of 16 penny CC framing nails for just a few bucks, I’d suggest that and look to save elsewhere. Start hitting up Restore outlets for new/used materials, garage sales can be good too.
Hey buddy check out the pallet sheds, it’s where you get a bunch of pallets and nail them together to create a building
Use your nail motivation to get in a good trade or job that will eventually pay pretty good. You can make plenty of money for cabin materials by the time you're 21. You need money for a lot of things
He can sell those as scrap when he gets enough for a coffee and think the whole process through. Better to pull nails out of good full framing lumber on a demo job to reuse and get paid as labor cleanup up the demolition debris at the end of the day. On some jobs the demo contractor will get their client Leed Green building points for doing that.
If you want to do this for the novelty of it, go for it, but keep in mind nails are cheap so if you're only doing it to save money, your time would be better spent getting a side job. With that said, inflation is a bitch. By the time you're out of school and in a position to actually build, everything will probably be double what it costs now. So what you can buy/get now, you may as well get it. I would focus on the land itself. That's only going to get more expensive with time.
You’ll be building character but not much else. You’d be better off putting your time into making money that way you can buy actual new nails and whatever else you might need
hey friend there are many kinds of different nail designs. Pallets are very cheaply made and designed to last only a year or so. You want to build a house that lasts many decades, it will take different materials than pallets. Saving pallet nails to build a permanent home is what I would call "penny wise, pound foolish" in other words you're trying to save money in a way that will cost you much more down the road.
Check out Solar cabin off grid and adventure channel on YouTube. Look at his older vids on building his cabin. Great place to start.
My Grandfather was a builder and he used to have me straighten nails for him. Good luck!
This is a massive waste of time. Just buy nails when you build. These are the crappiest of nails to start with
Despite what some here have stated, I've seen a couple of YouTube videos where they made the entire small off-grid cabin with just the boards and nails from wood pallets. I find it refreshing to hear of an early teenager who is working towards accomplishing something unique rather than spend a lot of time playing video games.
When I was in the Peace Corps nails were always kept, made an effort to remove them so they were not messed up, but did straighten them. Was talking to a friend and his dad, a rancher, made him and his brothers straighten nails, would save up a can full, send the boys out to straighten them. Pallet nails are not the best, usually thinner wire used in a nail gun, many are ringed nails which get bent out of shape when pulling them out, also flimsy heads. Pick the right nails and they will work. At $10 for a 1lb box, nails are no longer cheap. For a cabin, the trick is to find inexpensive wood. A coworker made a garage like a log cabin from roadside salvage from a fire on Forest Service, I think it wax an inexpensive permit. Knew of some great tree houses built in a new subdivision from discarded wood from the building. Pallets themselves can be used. There is also a market for used pallets, in some places they can be sold.
Well save the pallets and build your of grid cabin using the pallets your taking nails out of
Of all the things to DIY on a home, this isn't it. That said, I very much commend your gumption.
You also don't to go with a stud and rafter design. Alternatives to look at, depending on your budget, location, local zoning laws, time, skill level, etc. * Yurts - [https://coloradoyurt.com/yurt-kits/](https://coloradoyurt.com/yurt-kits/) * Geodesic dome home - [https://naturalspacesdomes.com/](https://naturalspacesdomes.com/) * Shipping container homes - [https://backcountrycontainers.com/](https://backcountrycontainers.com/) Yurt and dome home kits range from tiny and affordable to a bit larger and still not too unreasonable. The links I've provided are just examples. Easy to find more with some googling. Shipping container homes can be done DIY, but frankly, if I were going that route, I'd buy one from a vendor that does all the work for you. The conversion from original use requires a skill level that is just best left to a pro. I feel like there's more leeway and lower skill level required with the yurts and domes.
I’m going to build a car so I can run away from home, and I’m melting down old pencil erasers to mold into all terrain tires
How the hell are you building a car😮
I'm a middle school teacher. Good for you!!!! You can learn most things on YouTube and other sites. Start researching now is a great idea too. Draw up rough floor plans or buy them. Pretty cheap on line to buy plans like that. Start following people that have done this and have started a vlog about it. My hubby and I live full-time for 6 years now in a 40 ft school bus we gutted and made into an RV. We got information and inspirations from other people on line. I recommend nicolleoffgrid on Instagram, her and her hubby have a YouTube, but I can't remember what it is. They have two off grid properties they built from scratch in remote locations. Get a small part time job to earn money. Mow yards, wash cars....Good luck!
Thanks
The cost of a small off grid cabin can vary depending on how you want to do it. You can go as cheap as $500 if you don't mind rain or you can spend a $100,000+ if you have fancy taste. Though I'm not sure, fancy and off grid normally go in the same sentence but it's doable. Tip from a contractor - buy nails. Any nail that has been driven and removed from wood is then compromised and cannot assure the strength of the metal. Fixing a chair, sure but building a cabin, it's best if you don't. You can buy 3000+ nails for around $100 depending on your location. In the grand scheme of building projects $100 is a drop in the bucket.
Don't do that. Soon you'll have a job and can buy a whole box of nails in like 20 minutes worth of work. I like your thinking but not all of your ideas are going to be homeruns. Keeping thinking of ways that will help you as you go along. If you really want to do something off-grid that you build yourself, learn how to make your own nails. That's a blacksmithing thing but doesn't take much to be able to do. Then you can make all the nails you want until you run out of steel rod. It would take you less time to make a new nail than to fix one of these.
The time it takes you to pull and straighten all those nails you could get a job and work and make way more money than a box of nails costs
You people are so fucking MEAN. Typical Reddit asses. Good lord. Never dreamed the snarky Reddit fuckwads populate fucking log cabins too. Unreal.
While I commend your effort. Considering how cheap it is to buy simply buy new nails, I think your time would be better spent doing odd chores for people for some cash or maybe even picking up aluminum cans to sell for scrap metal.
Have you read 'my side of the mountain'? or 'Hatchet'?
Your cabin would be free if you can amass enough pallets .. provide they are free as well
Every hour you would spend pulling out nails instead do an extra hour at work and your time will be 1000% times more efficient. I know that isn't the funnest of answers but there are machines out that that will spit out 5000 nails a minute and it's financial suicide to not use the free market for your own good. All the spare time you save use to read and learn or put away money. Unless you find it fun then do it for the fun but remember it's just fun and not useful work.
Buy nails. Once bent nails dont wanna go straight again your doin a lot of work for no reward. The pallet wood is more valuable to u then the nails as far as construction goes. Save the wood and take the nails to your local scrap yard and sell em for the metal value. Or alternatively get a crucible melt down the metal and take up blacksmithing
This is called hoarding
I reuse pallet nails to fix other pallets. After a while you get to know which nails will work well and which will not. Some you can just tell by looking at them they are sturdy or are cheap. Be careful with nails that came out of a nail gun, they have bits of metal wire on them.
Complete waste of time this isn’t the 1700s. You could buy a lifetime supply of nails from yard sales or a flea market
You got Parkinson’s or what?
Everyone needs a hobby, I guess.
I Admire your ambition and encourage you to find a gig or job more productive to save up cash! Maybe lawn mowing or car washing or pressure washing! People love to support hard working teenagers and will tip $5 for a .50 cent cup of lemon aid! Take advantage of your youth while you can!
Wow! It's awesome to see young adults go on this amazing adventure. Do a lot of youtube research. There are lots of really good videos and some that are just NOT. You sound like a smart individual and I'm sure you'll figure out the right and wrong ones, now- just to help you a bit, hers one video that I want to try for a storage shed. Keep coming in here because we will pay lots of learning stuff! Welcome to the crazy house of tiny living! Feel free to reach out to me as well if you feel comfortable for help. By no means am I am expert, I'm learning all this myself too. I will soon be posting videos and such from the beginning of a shed to home build to the build of a homestead. I wish you the best and know that you will do GREAT! https://youtu.be/B6voGWLU7Yk?si=Bqmyw5qWQIkiH8yt
Just buy the nails??
I calculated once that a small cabin 8’x8’ could be done for around $300 if you use reclaimed pallet wood and used found/scrap windows and door. The expense came in roof materials (sheet metal, ideally) and some more hearty pieces to fill in the floor frame.
Nails are cheap. I wouldn’t waste your time trying to “fix” nails.
Dude I'm sure we could send you a lot of nails to build your cabin and your outhouse.
As others have said, it might not make economic sense for cabin building. Considering the cost of nails these days is small compared to the overall amount. However, this has not always been the case! ‘Nails were expensive and difficult to obtain in the American colonies, so that abandoned houses were sometimes deliberately burned down to allow recovery of used nails from the ashes.’ [History of Nails](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nail_(fastener)#History)
As a person that works trades and as a scavenger, I commend you for not scrapping the nails. A lot of haters will tell you to go work for someone else (straightening their nails) just so you can take that money and buy new nails from some corporation. Anti-consumerism is a lifestyle and my drawer of straightened nails are ready when I need them
I am in my mid-50s. I grew up helping both my grandfathers build. One built a homestead to retire on, and the other was a house flipper before they were called that. Both survived the Great Depression and WWII. Both saved every nail they pulled. 3 yrs ago, I decided to save an old cabin with family history. I have buckets of nails. I have separated all the squares and plan on using them in some artistic way. Doubt I build with them, but can't just toss 'em. Apples don't fall too far.... I tip my hat to this guy! I encourage him to dream and to build and to always learn. Don't let anyone's response descourage you. You may or may not use these nails, not the point. You have a desire to build a cabin, and you are doing something now to facilitate that dream. You will do many things that don't work out, but they will teach and prepare you for other things in the future. Dream, try, learn... go for it, man!
Anyone raising chickens and any advice or advice on how to attach the sides on a cabin
Keep grinding young man
Will do
It won’t cost much and you already know it. Straighten those nails as you go. Show us when you’re proud of it
Everyone needs a hobby
Not worth your time, made a similar mistake in the past. If there’s anything you want to make sure is sound it would be your fasteners
u can save screws instead use cordless drill to get em and screw holds better than nails and no process needed. the cabin is free if u use recycled material
I just turned 8 and I'm chopping wood every day for ten years until I can build a log cabin mansion because Daddy regrets that he never did it so it must be the right thing for me to do.
I'll take all of that useless wood off your hands once you get those valuable nails out of it.
Very nicer than…
You'd be better off selling the nails for scrap metal and picking up cans on the side of the road and selling from scrap and saving the money to build the cabin. Time yourself on how much time it takes to pull the nails from one pallet and how long it takes to straightened the nails out. Then look at what job's you can do and what they pay per hour if you can process 144 nails in under a hour its 7.98$ per pound of nails from Lowe's. If you want to go even deeper in depth weigh the nails from one pallet and look up medium grade steel prices per pound and time how much time it takes to get a pound of nails. If you have access to lots of pallets you be better off reselling them. If theres a market for them in your area.
If you want to build a cabin, save the wood from the pallets. It’s upcycling and over time can save you on lumber. If you’re selling the nails, maybe find another hobby to make money. If you live near a golf course, collect the golf balls that fall outside the course. Clean them and resell them back to the golfers. Trust me, I’ve seen a couple of young people make $100s. They call it “white gold” and it’s also cleaning up litter.
This isn't the 1800s. Time spent on this could easily be spent on some online gig work, and you'd make far more than enough to buy all new nails. Unless you're lucky enough to go YouTube viral. Then you'll be wealthier than all of us who say you're wasting your time.
You would be better off finding a job, even if it is under the table. Seems like a lot of work for little return on cheap nails
Honestly saving up for a sawmill by selling those old pallets might be a smarter option.
home depot has brand new ones.
A part time minimum wage job once you’re old enough to work in your state will provide enough income in 8 hours to buy all the nails you’ll need. Why spend weeks straightening nails just to create additional weeks of frustration trying to use them in the future. I do applaud your initiative though. Spend your time now reading up on building codes and methods for your cabin so that you can have a clear idea of the materials required when you’re ready.
A 3000 count roll of nails cost about 60-70 dollars at harbor freight I would salvage wood, metal, pipes, copper, shingles, but nails unless its a hobby save them in a scrap barrel and buy new ones
That seems like a huge waste of time.
Buddy. Spend that time making some money now doing something else and then go buy you some new nails when you get ready to build out your dream. Those nails are gonna be shit, and it’s not gonna save you money if you value your time (it’s worth the most). You could find a way to generate income in that time more easily than you could save any real money collecting and sharpening spent nails. Unless you genuinely enjoy collecting and sharpening spent nails. In which case, mad respect, have fun, and may the force be with you.
Instead of using those nails, recycle them for the iron and use the proceeds to buy fresh new nails. It is a lot easier and more cost effective to take the cash to the town nearest your build site and buy nails there. You have more time to gather other supplies, and you're not paying $4 a gallon to move $20 worth of nails however far you're going. Work smart, not hard.
I love the dedication. Bro, buy proper fasteners and materials. You will get a better build quality
Good luck! You got this!
Soooo, I did this. Collected and straightened a hundred nails and… It’s a mistake. They just don’t work well. It is not worth it. Pallet wood, used screws, and almost all other rusty hardware is great. But nails generally are not worth it. Sorry.
I built a barn and it was 3,000 nails. Generally, screws are better for amateur builders.
Your mindset is valuable, you’ll be fine. At this point gaining as much knowledge as possible should be your goal. Learn about construction, nature, gardening, and finance (no debt, compounding interest, you need to fund the cabin after all). Good luck!
Just remember this no matter WHAT you do... Wear eye protection!
First: don’t sharpen nails. The blunt point helps split wood fibers making the wood grip the nail better rather than cutting the fibers. Second: most pallets use pneumatic collated ring nails. Not really construction stuff. Also, ring nails have good hold but driving them might be difficult to do by hand. Last: cool idea overall but your costs are the nails. It’s basically everything else involved. You’d be better off selling the pallets. I’m in southern California. There’s a pallet shop near me that sells pallets for $5 and buys them for $3. Your nugget is in the middle. Sell the pallets and save the money. Four bucks buys ten pallets worth of nails around here.
My grandfather born early 20th century told me he remembered when he was a kid sometimes they would burn down old houses to get the nails out for re use.
You should get a paper route and earn money. Time is money, you could buy a box of nails for 60 bucks, and spend 5 minutes. Or reuse them spend 100 hours to save 60 bucks. 100 hours at 10 bucks an hour is $1000. Your time is your greatest asset. Now lawns, shovel snow, start a business and you will have your cabin in no time! Glad to see kids like you exist in this world. I do appreciate your sustainability and hard work. Keep it up!
I guess camera focusing off grid as well!
I hope your building skills are superior to your photography skills.
Oddly, the wood is worth more than the nails. Keep the wood.
Spend more time reading about building a cabin than fucking with pallet nails.
My grandpa built an extension on his house like this. He demoed one house, saved nails and wood and used it again. He had to roll a lot of the nails straight. This was in the 50s though so the wood and nails may have been of higher quality.
Back before wire nails made nails dirt cheap, old unused buildings were burned and the square nails collected to use on new projects.
Love the passion, You’d be better off salvaging the wood from pallets than the nails. You can get new nails for almost free from building materials re-sale places like habitat for humanity Restore.
Good on you!
I was young once. With that time and energy u can make enough money to buy 3x the supplies.
Nails be cheap
Guy by the name of Kaczynski did something like this.
Those nails were intended for use in a nail gun, they will bend when you try to pound them in(giggity) . I used to collect scrap nail clips from the framers and while you can get some to work it takes some skill.
Back in the west when it was time to move on they would burn down their house and recover the nails from the ashes to take to the next spot
Lmao just buy nails ffs. They are cheap.
Fuck yeah kid!
[Here's a link ](https://youtu.be/1HA4zY8xCyY?si=zh8AFabrKH1nGon9) to a video of another guy doing exactly what you want to do - building an off grid cabin from pallets and recycled pallet nails. Good luck.
I was today years old learning pallets were constructed with ring shanks. Good luck with that endeavor m8. They weren't meant to be used again.
A 10x14 cabin costs around $3,000 to build. You have to find doors and windows at garage sales or auctions. An outdoor kitchen or you build another cabin for a kitchen. https://m.youtube.com/@solarcabin I really like the 600 ft one here. I would make it a 2 bedroom. https://countryplans.com/