Wooden mallet making

[woodwormer]

Hi
Iv been getting back into woodworking over the last few months and have been thinking about making a few mallets and was wondering if anybody has advice on the best timbers to use for them. I was thinking of using redgum but i just want to hear what other people have used and how they "turned out". I will be making some for working with chisels, light sheet metal and even for driving wooden steakes into the garden (or drakulas heart, hey you never know)

thanks for your ideas guys

Woodwormer

[Dalboy]

I made this mallet from lignum vitae Bom a Bowling ball and a chestnut handle

http://i702.photobucket.com/albums/ww21/diggerdelaney/General/th_mallet.jpg (http://s702.photobucket.com/albums/ww21/diggerdelaney/General/?action=view&current=mallet.jpg)

[arose62]

I've made a few mallets - it's great with your own lathe, to be able to fit the handle *exactly* to your hand :)

I've got a 'beetle / beat-all', which is just a chunk of hefty tree branch from a gum, roughly turned round-ish, with a handle. This gets used for thumping jobs, and has an array of scars and dents to tell it's story.

At the other end of the scale, I made a mallet to use with my chisels, and used a section of heavy duty plastic tube from Bunnings slipped over the head, to protect both the mallet, and the chisels. I think this was also from euc. botryoides (sp?)

My local Bunnings has these heavy tube joiners on clear-out special at the moment for a couple of $$, but I've seen them for 20c at other Bunnings.

I've also made a mallet from laminated jarrah, back when you could buy jarrah palings from Bunnings.

Cheers,
Andrew

[FenceFurniture]

Woodwormer, you'll probably find some helpful info in this thread (http://www.woodworkforums.com/f152/carpenters-mallet-145217/)

[rsser]

Nice work Diggerdelaney.

WW, Redgum is plentiful and good mallet material. It's very durable and you can make a range of mallets to suit the varied applications that Andrew mentioned.

One source is old house stumps, typically 100 x 100, but if fresh out of the ground give them a few months to be sure they're dry.

[woodwormer]

Thanks for the advice guys, I think ill be starting out with redgum as iv got some under the house that is nice and dry. Iv also had a look on youtube and there are some great videos of different designs on there. As far as im concerned there is nothing better than being able to make something yourself that not only looks good, but is also functional will last alot longer than anything you can buy in a shop

once again thanks for the advice:2tsup: