How to make a rustic pallet Christmas tree

I had some pallet wood laying around, and I decided to make a Christmas tree.

First of all I roughly sanded my pallet boards with my orbital sander, using 50 grit sandpaper.

I then cut off the edges of my tree’s main branch, using my cross cut sled, on my table saw. You can also do that with a regular saw and a jitter box.

I glued and screwed my center piece of the rest of the tree. I first pre drilled some pilot holes, before screwing my piece.

I added thee screws which I connected with string, in order to have the basic triangle, of my piece’s shape. I used a chalk to trace around that triangle, my tree’s shape.

I cut out the shape of my tree with my jigsaw.

I then cut the pieces of the tree’s base using my cross cut sled, on the table saw.

I glued and screwed them together.

I marked the positions of the screws of the base and drilled the holes. I also counter sinked them to the bottom of my base.

I clamped the tree on my vise upside down, used the screws of the bottom as marking pins and predrilled the holes on the tree. 

I didn’t glue the base to the body, because I wanted to be able to take the tree apart for storage. 

I finally screwed the bottom and the main body of the tree together.

I sanded again the piece and applied three coats of clear water based satin varnish with light sanding between coats.

I wanted to add Christmas lights to the back of my tree, in order to create a back light effect.

I added screws on the back and mounted the lights on the screws, using zip ties.

My tree is ready.

Merry Christmas to all!