If you are anything like me, you're cheap. Or broke. Or any combination of the terms, depending on who is talking about you.
So, when you need a mallet at 2 pm, and can't stand thinking about taking the time to go to the hardware store, dishing out the measly 6 bucks, and don't really want to spend much more time than the drive would take chopping mortices or turning a really nice one on the lathe, you go this route. . .
Take a baseball bat handle that you have propping your widow open, turn a round tenon on it , grab the chunk of maple firewood you were attempting to use as a mallet, drill hole, thread maple and bat handle, and voila! 5-7 minutes spent, and out not a dime. . .
...Not much of a post, and there is going to be a follow up with real items and such, but this does get daily use, and has for the past four months. I cant say its the best mallet I ever had, but dang it, it drives a center punch, letter and number punches and, most importantly, the centers for my lathe, without getting dings in my carving mallets.