Thread: That's not a mallet!

Nice walloper Ian. I like making mallets. Not sure why. I guess their use could be therapeutic.

Perhaps the first one split because it was heartwood? Seems to have busted right along the ring.

However, ahem, I seem to recall a reply to DC a year or two ago along the lines of "Corr, you must really like to give 'em a whack Derek" when he posted his new rather hefty Jarrah & Brass mallet......

Originally Posted by NCArcher

.... I like making mallets. Not sure why. I guess their use could be therapeutic.

Me too, NC, & also not sure why. It's partly because it's an easy way to use up scraps of hardwood, and the handles can come from stock that's got the odd small grub-hole or minor imperfection that prevents it being used on furniture or suchlike...

At least we don't get very upset when we bust one ....

Cheers

Originally Posted by IanW

.... stock that's got the odd small grub-hole or minor imperfection that prevents it being used on furniture or suchlike...

....or mallets.....

Originally Posted by FenceFurniture

Perhaps the first one split because it was heartwood? Seems to have busted right along the ring.

However, ahem, I seem to recall a reply to DC a year or two ago along the lines of "Corr, you must really like to give 'em a whack Derek" when he posted his new rather hefty Jarrah & Brass mallet......

Right on, Brett, it let go along growth-rings. Odd thing to me was not that it split there, (many woods split far more easily tangentially, as you very quickly learn when sentenced to the wood-heap to split firewood ), but it split on two different rings on each side of the handle hole. To be honest, I wasn't all that surprised that it busted, though I did hope I'd get a little more use out of it than I did!. I'd previously put the chunk aside as looking a bit dodgy. It came from a tree brought down by a wild storm a few years ago (which just missed taking out our porch ), and this bit was from near the first branch & a very veiny, so I was dubious about its ability to take punishment..

And umm, yeah, I did put a bit of enthusiasm into those 3 wallops.....

Cheers,

Wow... You really let it have it.

This looks like a fantastic opportunity for some embellishments.

And by embellishments I mean bolts going through it to keep the next one together!

Good Grief Ian, that's 52oz!!!!

Even larger than my 36oz mortice mallet that is beefed up with brass sides ...



Now here is the thing that I find interesting - I was chopping mortices a few weeks ago with some pre-production mortice chisels to assess the handles. Instead of my mallet I used a 450gm Japanese gennou. That is just under 16oz - way below the heft of either of the brass-sided monster. Well I was surprised! The gennou drove the chisel into the wood with greater authority than the much heavier mallet. Of course it did not do much for the handle, which was unhooked, but the power was amazing and the mortices were created in a fraction of time and effort. Something here about concentrating the force in a smaller head ...

Regards from Perth

Derek

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Now here is the thing that I find interesting - I was chopping mortices a few weeks ago with some pre-production mortice chisels to assess the handles. Instead of my mallet I used a 450gm Japanese gennou. That is just under 16oz - way below the heft of either of the brass-sided monster. Well I was surprised! The gennou drove the chisel into the wood with greater authority than the much heavier mallet. Of course it did not do much for the handle, which was unhooked, but the power was amazing and the mortices were created in a fraction of time and effort. Something here about concentrating the force in a smaller head ...

or

it's related to the elasticity / resilience of a steel head compared to a Jarrah head.

and possibly

you subconsciously accelerate a "relatively" small steel mallet more than you accelerate a large Jarrah mallet

Originally Posted by derekcohen

Instead of my mallet I used a 450gm Japanese gennou.

I started out doing this. The hammer was absolutely destroying the handles of the chisels. I figure it's easier to spend an hour or so making a new mallet head than it is to periodically rehandle all of my chisels.

How do you avoid serious, untimely damage to your chisel handles through the use of a metal hammer?

Cheers,
Luke

Ian

Ironbark, whilst being pretty hard, can be quite brittle depending upon which of the Ironbarks it is. You may recall that some split easily and some are almost impossible. I think you will have much better luck with the Forest Red Gum. Grey Gum would have been even better.

I have the same problem about to occur in that I am making up a largish froe. The traditional walloper is a maul rather than a mallet. I suspect that the end grain doesn't stand up to the punishment well. The maul, of course, entails striking on the cross grain.

In fact when I first made up the froe I used an Ironbark lump out of the firewood pile and I ended up snapping it, but that was indeed a branch containing heart.

I have to heat treat the froe this weekend and make up a proper maul. I suppose I will have to put in a report now .

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

I have to heat treat the froe this weekend and make up a proper maul. I suppose I will have to put in a report now .

Regards
Paul

Bingo!

I will look forward to reading it.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

...Ironbark, whilst being pretty hard, can be quite brittle depending upon which of the Ironbarks it is. You may recall that some split easily and some are almost impossible. I think you will have much better luck with the Forest Red Gum. Grey Gum would have been even better......

Paul, one of the main problems with Eucalypts and their close kin, the Corymbias is they are so darned variable. What you say is true in general, but individuals within the 'better' groups can be fragile whilst some in the 'splittier' group can be like metal! If you see little veins running around the growth rings, it's a very good sign you've got a splitter - there were some in that piece of Ironbark , & it was! It's 'red' Ironbark (E. sideroxylon), as far as I can determine, btw.

As I said, I suspected this was a dodgy bit, but it was the largest dry lump I could lay my hands on easily. I usually choose my wood for mallet heads at the wood-heap, when splitting firewood....

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

.....I have the same problem about to occur in that I am making up a largish froe. The traditional walloper is a maul rather than a mallet....

In fact, a maul (or 'beetle' as our cousins over the Pacific call them) would have been a far better choice for what I was doing, too, but I wanted a large mallet for other purposes. Time will tell how the Bluegum stands up - it was an absolute cow to split for firewood, that's for sure!

On the topic of what to clobber things with, Luke, I think it's pretty clear that in a wood vs metal contest, the metal head will be an easy winner in delivering maximum transfer of kinetic energy to the struck object, for the reasons put forward - inelasticity and concentration of the force in a smaller area transfers more energy to the object struck. We used to split a lot of fence-posts up where I grew up. Some old blokes favoured great awkward wooden hammers because they didn't damage the steel wedges. But they were a bear of a thing to swing compared to the 16lb steel hammers we used. You had to put 3 times the effort into the down-swing to get the same effect on the wedge! I reckon air resistance alone, added to the problem of the wooden hammers. My old man wisely decided that a few wedges were cheaper to replace than worn-out arms...

So it's a trade off - efficient transfer of energy vs preserving your tools. If I had to chop out mortises and trenches in hard wood all day like the framing carpenters of a couple of generations ago, I think I'd be using steel hammers like they did (which is one reason why you see so many old firmer chisels with trashed handles). I'd consider a new chisel or handle every little while as a minor consumable cost. As an amateur, I can afford to be a bit more precious with my tools. For most of what I do, a hard, dense chunk of wood does the job efficiently enough, and my chisel handles should last a lot longer.....

Cheers,

Hello Ian,

I've just been reading through this topic, and one of the main points was,

Even though there are certain woods that are suited to be used for mallet making,
the actual piece chosen may still have its faults, that only show up once the mallet
is put to work.

As a suggestion, would it help to incorporate iron bands around each end, similar to
an old time maul, and the metal ferrals that are on some chisels, that help to restrain
the wood from splitting.

There is a weight factor that needs to be considered, plus it complicates the build but,
the result would be a mallet that would scare the sh*t out of anything that it was to be used on.

Graham.

Originally Posted by macg

....Even though there are certain woods that are suited to be used for mallet making,
the actual piece chosen may still have its faults, that only show up once the mallet
is put to work.....

Absolutely, Graham, & something I alluded to above - you can never be certain how a chunk is going to stand up to walloping 'til you give it a good workout. To be fair to my piece of Ironbark, I was using it very vigorously! It takes a pretty solid bit of wood to tolerate what I subjectd it to..

Originally Posted by macg

....As a suggestion, would it help to incorporate iron bands around each end, similar to
an old time maul, and the metal ferrals that are on some chisels, that help to restrain
the wood from splitting....

I'm sure that would help a lot, and it's something I have considered myself, but I'm a very poor blacksmith, so making bands would not be easy for me. I'll keep my eyes open for a bit of large diameter tubing that I can cut bands from, & turn up a round head, one of these days. In the meantime, it's pretty easy to simply dig out another chunk of firewood.....

Cheers,