Mallets

[Michael O'Sullivan]

I am thinking of resurfacing some of my mallets with harder woods -- like Ipe.

Does it make more sense to cut long grain or end grain in this application? Obviously, the original mallets are end-grain on the striking surfaces, but I would think long grain would be stronger in thin layers.

[Mike Henderson]

Mallets wear out and then you make a new one. I wouldn't go to extremes to make one last a really long time.

Mike

[Bill Keehn]

Mike,

Tandy leather factory sells these rawhide maul heads in 1, 2 & 3 lbs sizes to replace the poly heads on their Al Stohlman leather tooling mauls.

Have you ever seen these? I've used their rawhide mallet before for assembling hundreds of canvas stretching frames and it was very durable. What do you think? Would it work well for carving?

[Mike Henderson]

Mike,

Tandy leather factory sells these rawhide maul heads in 1, 2 & 3 lbs sizes to replace the poly heads on their Al Stohlman leather tooling mauls.

Have you ever seen these? I've used their rawhide mallet before for assembling hundreds of canvas stretching frames and it was very durable. What do you think? Would it work well for carving?

I haven't seen those, Bill. But the weight would be a bit heavy for most carving.

Mike

[Tony Bilello]

It only takes about 5 minutes to make and it gives me something to do with old 4 X 4's.

The pine may be soft but I think its better for my uses. I build furniture and my mallet is used to sometimes 'persuade' pieces into place. I can tap an oak table (or whatever) into place and only dent the mallet and not my project. Soft as the mallet is, it will last several years longer than you would expect it to. I still have one over 15 years old. Its really beat-up, but still usable. Also works great on chisels.

[Frank Townend]

I'm with Toni.
How about a Bowling Pin Woodworker's Mallet

[Derek Cohen]

I'd rather replace a mallet than a chisel handle (or a set of chisel handles!). Make sure your mallet is made of wood that is softer than that of the handle. The exception is when the handle is reinforced with a steel hoop, such as Japanese chisels. Those I wack with a steel hammer.

Regards from Perth

Derek

[Gary Herrmann]

Well, I guess I didn't follow Derek's advice. I got a nice chunk of osage orange from my friend Tom and wanted to see how it turns. Its still a bit tacky from the blo. Also shinier than usual - I assume thats because the wood is still wet (hasn't gone oval yet tho).

One hairline crack so far which appeared the first day after turning. I've heard osage likes to split, so I'm wondering if the blo might slow down the drying process and thus split less? I guess time will tell.

[harry strasil]

I tried making a maul to use with a Froe out of Hedge (Osage Orange) it delaminated along the long grain, but the Beatle end grain is still in good shape.

[Tom Sontag]

Derek is right IMO about making mallets from softer wood than your chisel handles. It is logical.

Yet, like Gary, I made one of osage and I whack my persimmon handles all the time with it. Neither has dented from the encounter, although osage will dent when whacking steel. Duh.

In real life use, this may be one of those situations where species choice is just not that critical. As when you make a work bench, some choices are better than others, but lots of alternatives will work fine for your lifetime. As noted above, even pine can work, although I would want more heft for use in harder woods.

Nice looking mallet Gary.

[David Keller NC]

"I am thinking of resurfacing some of my mallets with harder woods -- like Ipe.

Does it make more sense to cut long grain or end grain in this application? Obviously, the original mallets are end-grain on the striking surfaces, but I would think long grain would be stronger in thin layers."

Michael - Based on your post, I'm guessing that you're talking about the classic carpenter's mallet shape, not a carver's round mallet (I really can't imagine how one would "re-surface" a round carver's mallet). From the standpoint of strength, though, end-grain will be a lot more resistant to dents. Face or edge grain tends to split along the grain when whacked hard, and a brittle wood like Ipe would likely shatter pretty quickly in this orientation.

I can see, though, that a lamination of thin (1/16") face-grain layers might be considerably stronger to split-out, particularly if a slightly flexible glue is used between the laminations like certain kinds of epoxy.

Post a picture if you can - might help with the advice.