Thread: Dead blow hammers

I can't imagine why

No, but I sometimes use a 20oz Thor (right). See here with a Veritas Cabinetmakers Mallet (left), which is my other choice.



Regards from Perth

Derek

Not as brutal on chisel handles, less bang more punch and very less reverberation through the forearm.

Richard Maguire (The English Woodworker & Maguire Workbenches) uses a small sledge hammer!

See Mallet Rant – VIDEO –

Originally Posted by springwater

Not as brutal on chisel handles, less bang more punch and very less reverberation through the forearm.

Can't argue with that statement, Springwater, but struth!, how hard do you wallop your chisels? I use either a carver's mallet or a 'carpenter' style mallet. They each weigh between 500 & 600g and something between a gentle tap (cleaning out dovetails) and a mild wallop (mortising hardwood) will drive any chisel I own far enough into the wood to satisfy me. Some of my chisels have done a lot of work over quite a few years, and none is bearing any visible scars so far, so I think I'll just go on whacking them with my lumps of wood.......

Cheers,

I have been using an offcut of 2x4 bunnings pine, about a foot long. It's also my push stick for shoving things that last bit through the bandsaw.

I've used everything other than a rubber hammer (including a dead blow hammer), but I generally mortise large mortises with a japanese bench chisel, and small ones with a japanese mortise chisel. I like more direct, and since the handles are hooped, it doesn't matter too much. For reasons I can't explain other than preference, I don't like using a metal hammer on japanese chisels, so I use a heavy verawood mallet (which is still fairly musical).

(I didn't like the dead blow mallet too much....too soft feeling).

I have a particular hatred of dead blow hammers and I don't think I could bring myself to use one.

It stems from a time gone by when at work we used to free up wet coal in the chutes by hitting the feeder tube with a sledge hammer. It turned out, correctly as it happens, that this was denting the tube after a protracted period of time. The depression caused wear prematurely on the inside eventually causing a hole from the friction of sliding coal.

The solution should have been to provide dedicated striker plates. The actual action taken was to prohibit the use of a traditional sledge hammer and provide a plastic dead blow hammer. The official line was that it imparted more energy to each blow. It practice I couldn't see this at all and I came away from that episode concluding that the person had never swung a sledge hammer in anger himself and was presuming to advise our group how to do this.

It was a bit like me advising a woman on the experience of childbirth.

For me, wooden mallets are the device with which to hit chisels.

Regards
Paul

+1 more for wooden mallets. I use a 0.6 lb. round brass mallet for chopping the mortices for saw backs (Journeyman's Brass Mallet - Lee Valley Tools) but that work is an exercise in gently tapping.

I must be a philistine, then. 'Cos yes. Yes I do.

When I have a large batch of mortises to clean up (we use a Wadkin chain mortiser for the bulk, but it's getting a tad sloppy in it's old age) I use a small mesh hammer. It's not like I'm driving star pickets with it... I let it's own weight supply the force.

At the end of the day, I find it less tiring than the round wooden mallet I use for more precise work.