Making Use of Old Wood

I have parts of an old pergola.  They were originally meant to be rebuilt to a half size to provide privacy outside the bathroom window.  But this is one of those projects that fatigue delayed.  As a result, this year the woodpeckers and carpenter bees have just chewed the wood.  And yeah, it's almost all new damage.  I'm not happy about it but I also refuse to waste the wood.

So today was spent first measuring it to make sure that it would work for what I was going to repurpose it to, which is the frame for another garden bed.  This bed will be slightly smaller on one side, which is actually good.  This garden bed will be going close to a water company access spot.  So slightly shorter on one side will give a better gap around that spot.

The next step was removing a few screws that were blocking my ability to remove the carraige bolts.  That done, I was going to use the drill to get out the carraige bolts.  But even on the hammer drill setting, it couldn't move them.  I had my suspicions why so I grabbed the socket wrench and went to work.  I lost count at 13 or 14 bolts.  All but one of the bolts are out.  All but 3 of the bolts snapped, leaving a good 2" in the wood.  I will have to be careful when cutting these boards.  Sometimes human strength and stubborness can do what power tools cannot.

As for the last bolt?  I'm waiting for feedback from someone who has used and abused many more wood projects than I have.  But I don't really want to pull out a demolition/fire rescue blade for this.  I already tried hammering the notched pieces back together some so I could possibly get just a bit of grip with the socket and work it from that.  That didn't work.  So my next resort, barring other suggestions, is to find my smallest wood chisel and clear out some of the wood around the head of the bolt.

And then, because my body said I needed more exercise, I did another foot and a half of mattock tilling.  By the time I finished the tilling and then getting all the weeds out of that section, I was done.  Now to take care of inside things.  Like those sewing totes.