When I was working on my lumberyard scene I built up some wooden pallets using HO scale ties. They looked great, but were about 25% oversize. That didn't bother me at the time, but the more I look at them the more I realize they are too large. But cutting lots and lots of stripwood to make scale ones didn't interest me. So I turned to Ebay.
I found some that were laser cut wood which needed to be assembled, and some cast resin pallets. While both involved work, the resin ones seemed easier because I only had to paint them. I bought mine from a seller named ThatTrainPlace, and the price for 20 pallets was just over a dollar each. Not great, but having tried the easy way first (HO ties) I was willing to pay a little bit more for something nicer.
I took ten and sprayed painted them Rustoleum camouflage tan. Then, based on picture I saw online, I painted ends and boards various colors. I don't really know what pallets were painted in the 1980s... do you? In any event, I tried to do everything random and kept pulling ones I did before to add coloring or weathering washes of brown acrylic paint. In the end, I had a motley bunch that look a bit odd as a group but when spread out over the layout will look fine.
You can see in the picture below six of the new, scale size pallets and one of the older, larger ones I built from wood.
I won't get rid of the ones I already built though. I swapped them for resin ones on the layout, and took all the rest and set them aside for now. The next time I build a boxcar with a door open I can stick some in there, where their excess size won't be noticeable on a moving train.
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