Stringer pallets: three boards and a deck

01 Anatomy

The stringers run the length of the pallet. Deck boards are nailed across them, and a bottom set of boards often joins their lower edges. The gaps between stringers are the fork pockets. Notching the stringers can open the other two sides for partial four-way entry.

02 Where it fails

The stringer is both the strength and the weakness. A crack near the fork pocket is the most common repair on grade B stock, answered with a plate hammered over the break or a companion stringer nailed alongside. See plugs and plates.

03 When to choose it

• Light to mid loads packed in cartons.
• Docks that enter from the ends.
• Where a lower price per pallet matters.
• Where used grade A or B supply in 48 x 40 is the target.

04 Stringer pallets in numbers

05 Stringer terms

Stringer boards are sometimes called runners. Notched stringers have cut-outs that let forks enter from the stringer side. Winged pallets have deck boards that overhang the stringers, which suits some stretch-wrap and strapping jobs but exposes the board ends to knocks from forklifts.

06 Stringer pallets in the standards

Millwood describes the GMA pallet as a wooden stringer pallet with a typical deck of seven top boards and five bottom boards, and partial four-way entry. Interlake Mecalux calls the stringer build the most popular in North America. PHS says the first number in a size is the stringer length and the second the deck-board length, which is why 48 x 40 and 40 x 48 describe different orientations of one footprint.

07 Stringer dimensions

PHS describes pallets with three or four stringers beneath several deck boards. For the heavy-duty IPPC pallet it gives three stringers nominally 4 x 3 inches (102 x 76 mm) under a 30 mm plywood deck, and for the GMA pallet deck boards 3.25 inches wide and 5/16 inch thick. Square or nearly square footprints, it adds, resist tipping better.

08 Stringer pallets and board counts

A GMA stringer pallet typically has seven top boards and five bottom boards, and the first dimension of 48 x 40 is the stringer length. That gives twelve boards to inspect, nailed to three timbers, or fifteen pieces of wood in all.