Thread: Chiselling Mallet

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Jack

It depends on your chisels.

For Japanese chisels and all others with steel hoops, use a Japanese genno (steel hammer). Get one around 400 gms.

Avoid brass unless you are carving.

For all chisels without steel hoops, use a wooden mallet. I prefer a round one to a square-headed one, but this is personal. Make it slightly softer than the chisel handle - I'd rather replace the mallet than the chisel.

Regards from Perth

Derek

Jack,

I have made half a dozen or so and spread them all around Victoria with friends and relatives. I used some tight-grained softwood that came as a packing crate for a neighbour's furniture when she moved from Kenya - something African. It is similar to "Lithuan" or "Phillipine Mahogany" that was once available here.

I purchase a 300mm engineer's hammer handle and glue it in with a wooden wedge; the mallet head is assymetrical to allow for fine work with small chisels; one end has a longer taper and about a 30mm strike face.

These are very balanced and easy to use, and more disposable than my nice restored Titans! Ten minutes on a wood lathe......

BR,

Fraser

I have;
A set of Titan Firmers (steel hooped),
Some pig sticker morticing chisels (unhooped),
A set of bevel edged Narex chisels made in Czechoslovakia, cheap but surprisingly good (steel hooped),
A set of blue handled Marples bevel edged (unhooped),
A tuckload of odds and sods, Stanley, Titan etc,
A couple of skews and a corner chisel.

I have watched the Wood Whisperer chiselling mortices with what appears to be a small but heavy brass mallet, it looks much easier than using a large wooden mallet.
That being said I don't have any problems using a large wooden mallet, I'm just wondering if there is a better way.

I will also soon have a nice set of paring chisels but don't plan to use a mallet on these

Cheers, Jack

I think the ones on the Wood Whisperer uses are the Tite-Hammers by Glen Drake, I think they look very cool, but I'm new to all this so don't really know.

I made a simple mallet out of some bits of scrap as one of my first "real" woodworking projects.