Solid Wood Products 2609 



PALLET TYPES CLASSIFIED BY USE 



Expendable pallets. — Expendable pallets are used to ship products and are 

 intended for a single trip or a limited number of shipping cycles. They are 

 therefore designed for minimal cost consistent with use and load. Designs 

 incorporate lumber in thicknesses from 'A-inch, plywood from 5/16-inch, and 

 stringers as small as "/s-inch by 2y4-inches, wood blocks of various sizes, 

 fiberboards, paper tubes, plastics, and metals. 



General purpose pallets. — General-purpose pallets are usually heavy duty, 

 double-faced, designed for stacking and racking, and repairable for long life 

 with low maintenance cost. Reusable (permanent) warehouse pallets are in this 

 category. General-purpose pallets may be designed for two-way entry to permit 

 entry of forks or pallet hand trucks from two opposite ends. They may also be 

 designed for partial four-way entry to permit fork entry from all four sides, but 

 hand-jack entry from the two ends only (fig. 22-20 top). A block design (fig. 22- 

 20 bottom) permits full four- way entry. 



Special-purpose pallets. — Special-purpose pallets may be of any design and 

 size appropriate for the job intended. They may be designed for loads of low 

 density and distributed, heavy and concentrated, regular or irregular in shape, 

 small or large size. 



PALLET TYPES CLASSIFIED BY CONSTRUCTION 



General-purpose wooden pallets may be single-faced with one deck on top 

 (fig. 22-19), or double-faced with both top and bottom decks (fig. 20-20 top). 

 The double-faced pallet may be reversible with identical top and bottom decks 

 so that goods can be loaded on either deck, or non-reversible in which top and 

 bottom decks have different openings and goods are loaded only on the top deck. 



Wooden pallets may be constructed with flush stringers so that outside 

 stringers or blocks are flush with the ends of deckboards (fig. 20-20). In single- 

 wing pallets, outside stringers are set inboard of the top deck, but flush with the 

 ends of bottom deckboards. In double-wing pallets, outside stringers are set 

 inboard of both top and bottom deckboards. Wing-type pallets (fig. 22-22) 

 permit use of slings (which loop around extended deckboards) as well as fork 

 lifts to handle loaded pallets. 



Almost all pallets are assembled with nails or staples. Bolted assemblies lack 

 rigidity and are expensive. Adhesive bonded pallets lack needed impact resis- 

 tance. Nail styles are discussed in text related to figure 22-36 and nail and staple 

 performance related to wood species is summarized in table 22-15 and related 

 text. 



PALLET STANDARDS 



Pallet production is increasing rapidly throughout the world, and pallet use is 

 pervasive throughout manufacturing, warehousing, shipping, and merchandis- 



