Building a pallet maze, any suggestions?

[Jim Warfield]

I think I once painted osb with 12 coats of paint , it kept sucking it up , finally I got it to smooth out so as not to be splintery but everytime my saw blade had to cut it my face was bombarded by speeding splinters from that crapp!
I don't like it.

[DrSmith239]

Question about pallet walls. Have you ever had problems with people getting snagged or injured (splinters) off of these walls.

I've used pallets for everything but walls. Let's face it free pallets = free building supplies. Oddly enough, my day job is actually building these freaking things and unless you get pallets that are made of heat treated lumber and are in fairly decent condition they're a fairly dangerous animal.

On another note. If you folks are looking for inexpensive building materials you may want to see if you have a local pallet building facility in your area. You'd be amazed at the amount of lumber some of these places have on had and they usually don't have a problem selling it off cheap.

[Spookyfinder]

Yes... A quick solution would be:

-Sand down the planks that actually may come into contact with your guest.
-Add padding to "danger" areas
-Sand AND Pad ALL corners!
-Remove or "fix" any loose nails or structural obstructions!

This is what I've done in the past and works VERY well! -Tyler

[Gore Galore]

We have used pallets for our outside maze. It made it easier to construct it this way. All we did was drive 4x4 into the ground 4' and screwed the Pallets to them.
We did pilot holes. 1 guy doing pilot holes and another screwing the pallets into place. We build 3,000 sq feet of pallet walls in 1 day with this method.

[DrSmith239]

Thanks for the reply regarding the problems with pallet walls. Here's my next question.

If you have to go to all the trouble of repairing, sanding and padding the pallets isn't it easier just to use plywood or OSB?

I mean sure you might get a deal on a truck load of pallets, but if they're a bunch of lightweight, heat-treated, hardwood pallets from Mexico you're looking at a HUGE amount of work to make 'em safe enough to use.

Even the lumber on those pallets is mostly useless. I'm not even sure how they managed to build 'em in the first place.

[phrase]

We have only had good luck

We built an 1500 square foot pallet maze last year and are working on a 2800 square foot maze this year. Bracing is by far the most important element to consider when making a pallet maze. Last year ours took winds in excess of 40 miles and hour and was fine. I have a few pics on my website: http://www.agonyacres.net/TheMazePt1.htm
I hope this helps!

[SteveR]

Large pallets from hot tub dealer

We get large 8ft x 8ft pallets from a hot tub dealer, and use them to build a maze, make sheds, and the like. They're essentially pre-made walls. We screw OSB sheets to them where the walls need to be solid. They've still got the same problem as any pallet - the splinters, daggers, and flammability - but they're so easy to work with it's worth the extra effort to correct those problems.

[UnDeRTaKer313]

wow agony acres pallet maze looks really cool

i have a home haunt,, and need to fill a large amount of space, but need some cheap walls so i figure thi would be a good idea

[Jim Warfield]

Many years ago a guy was trying to sell metal haunt walls. His designer told me in confidence, that metal was worse than wood because it can rip and tear too only is then more hazardous to people and is more time consuming to repair than wood.
No perfect walls, I guess?

[DrSmith239]

Hey, the maze looks pretty slick, I'd love to see pics of it in operation.

I'm assuming there were no major problems with the pallets attacking people. How much repair time did you put into the pallets themselves? Also didn't the mulch draw damp? and how much of a problem was that? Did you add any supports to the walls or were they just free standing and supported by each other. Sounds like that would leave the interior walls a little shaky.

[phrase]

Actually supports are the most important aspect of our pallet maze. I had five different people look at it and build up the walls. Two of which were contractors of some degree. We took 2x4s across the tops of walls over three pallets long, and used as many triangles as possible to secure everything. The only other trick we used was to never make a wall more than 3 pallets long without another wall (even if it was only a single pallet wide) supporting it. Any wall that is longer than three pallets will get tired and sag by the end of the season. Before we opened it up to the public, I had my three biggest actors (all of them over 6'2' and somewhere between 260 and 360 pounds) just charge into walls and let them determine which walls still needed work. They didn't break anything, they would just kind of bounce off the wall, and mark the wall with trail tape. After that kind of abuse and re-bracing, there wasn't much to worry about. You gotta love those guys.

[phrase]

Oh, another interesting note; we had seven strobe lights inside the maze (all of them set to flash out of sink with each other) to help disorient guests, and keep them from running around. We also had two monsters inside to frighten, monitor, and assist anyone who ventured in. The pallet maze was the first part of our haunt, and our "door-man"/ticket taker, Trey did an outstanding job of making sure that everyone that got out, was stable on his or her feet before continuing. Those strobe lights can really mess with your head when you are in there for a while. We are adding another thousand square feet of maze this year taking it up to 2800, and I am psyched to see the reaction it gets.