Thread: Wooden Mallets - Another failure!

Paul,
I would say your Mallet is off it’s head.

Cheers Matt

Did you make your mini mallet like that?


Martin.

If you want to keep experimenting, you might try putting your lead plugs in at right angles to the mortise for the handle - that is, side to side on the head. What you did created sections of short grain between three mortises. Side to side placement of the plugs would give you stretches of longer grain. Or you could just make the whole mallet head from lead, but then you've got the health and safety problem of lead bits coming off, lead poisoning, etc. Maybe a cast lead head dipped in plastic of some sort...oh, I know, let's elaborate this project beyond all reason!

Or, if you can find them there, you could just get a Garland split-head hammer and have all the grunt you'd ever want:
garland splithead_lg.jpg
Split-Head Hammer Garland Manufacturing

Paul, first up, I agree there was no need to re-invent the wheel. If you 'expand' the mortise in the head on the exit side & wedge adequately, there is no way a head should come off. As for getting more mass in a mallet head, I just make 'em bigger!

There is an inherent problem with wood as a medium for mallet heads - it has many lines of structural weakness and sooner or later, any mallet used for heavy bashing is likely to fail. I used to split quite a lot of firewood for MIL's wood heater, and I often put aside the really stubborn bits for mallet heads, but even the worst splitters tend to fail if given enough provocation. Fortunately, it's easy enough to make a new head and the handle has usually been nicely separated from the busted one & ready to refit, so it only takes 20 minutes or less to remedy the situation, at least temporarily....

My everyday bench mallets are no problem, I have a selection of 3 of different weights & the one I use most frequently has a head that weighs about 450g, which I find just right for tapping chisels when dovetailing or doing other 'light' chores - the bigger ones are for serious mortising in hard woods, etc. The light-duty" mallet is >20 years old & still going strong. The faces of the head are a bit marked up from fitting ferrules on turned handles so I recently replaced it. I wanted to try a new handle wood and a bit of 'found' wood for the head. I've no idea what it is, it's almost black and extremely dense & was a pita to chop a mortise through, so I reckon this one will easily see me out.

One way I destroy mallets with monotonous regularity is bashing the deck of the mower straight again after hitting some obstruction at full mowing speed. Steady erosion of the steep half of our yard keeps bringing roots to the surface; I don't see them, but the mower manages to find them, no problem. Another good way to destroy mallets is bashing the very cheap tomahawk I use in lieu of a froe to cleave billets....

Just look on a busted mallet head as an opportunity to try a new species.....

Cheers,

Originally Posted by old workshop

Did you make your mini mallet like that?


Martin.

Martin

The blade adjuster mallet was made like those supplied by HNT Gordon.

P1070862 (Medium).JPGP1070863 (Medium).JPG

The handle is threaded into the head. At some point I used it for something I shouldn't: Hence the splintered piece.



However, it was a test with unknown timber. One day I will make up a nice one.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bill Houghton

I

Or, if you can find them there, you could just get a Garland split-head hammer and have all the grunt you'd ever want:
garland splithead_lg.jpg
Split-Head Hammer Garland Manufacturing

Bill

I do have a couple like that:

P1070859 (Medium).JPG

Plus some club hammers, which, on your side of the ocean, I think you would describe as lump hammers.

Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by IanW

Paul, first up, I agree there was no need to re-invent the wheel. If you 'expand' the mortise in the head on the exit side & wedge adequately, there is no way a head should come off. As for getting more mass in a mallet head, I just make 'em bigger!

There is an inherent problem with wood as a medium for mallet heads - it has many lines of structural weakness and sooner or later, any mallet used for heavy bashing is likely to fail. I used to split quite a lot of firewood for MIL's wood heater, and I often put aside the really stubborn bits for mallet heads, but even the worst splitters tend to fail if given enough provocation. Fortunately, it's easy enough to make a new head and the handle has usually been nicely separated from the busted one & ready to refit, so it only takes 20 minutes or less to remedy the situation, at least temporarily....

My everyday bench mallets are no problem, I have a selection of 3 of different weights & the one I use most frequently has a head that weighs about 450g, which I find just right for tapping chisels when dovetailing or doing other 'light' chores - the bigger ones are for serious mortising in hard woods, etc. The light-duty" mallet is >20 years old & still going strong. The faces of the head are a bit marked up from fitting ferrules on turned handles so I recently replaced it. I wanted to try a new handle wood and a bit of 'found' wood for the head. I've no idea what it is, it's almost black and extremely dense & was a pita to chop a mortise through, so I reckon this one will easily see me out.

One way I destroy mallets with monotonous regularity is bashing the deck of the mower straight again after hitting some obstruction at full mowing speed. Steady erosion of the steep half of our yard keeps bringing roots to the surface; I don't see them, but the mower manages to find them, no problem. Another good way to destroy mallets is bashing the very cheap tomahawk I use in lieu of a froe to cleave billets....

Just look on a busted mallet head as an opportunity to try a new species.....

Cheers,

Ian

Yes, mallets should be regarded as sacrificial.

You may recognise this one:

P1070860 (Medium).JPGP1070861 (Medium).JPG

It was gifted to me at one of the Brisbane woodworking shows for services rendered. Being a gift, it is not used indiscriminately

In anticipation of an inevitable sometime catastrophic failure, I have had this mallet head waiting patiently in the wings:

P1070868 (Medium).JPGP1070869 (Medium).JPG

It is Spotted Gum so I am hoping it will last a little longer than some of the others, which generally were made of an unknown timber including the original subject of this thread. if I don't get a handle on it any time soon I am confident it will last for ever.

At times I have experimented with different shapes:

P1070870 (Medium).JPG

I think you have seen my "maul," which I use for walloping the froes:

P1070864 (Medium).JPGP1070865 (Medium).JPG

Very definitely sacrificial!

And these are my favourites; The carver's mallets.

P1070866 (Medium).JPGP1070867 (Medium).JPG

They still look in good nick, although a little dusty. That is because I never use them. I don't do any carving! But I do so love their shapes. If the angular mallets are male then the curved mallets are female.



Regards
Paul

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Plus some club hammers, which, on your side of the ocean, I think you would describe as lump hammers.

Lump hammer was originally a British term that, in recent years, has made some inroads; but it's not common, in my observation. "Drilling hammer" is maybe more common; or, on jobsites, probably just, "Bring me that heavy hammer, the one with the short handle there," followed soon after by either, "There! That'll do it!" or "[words not suitable for a family-friendly forum]!!"

Hi Paul and Bill. I have always referred to the short handled sledge hammer headed hammer as a "mash" hammer.

Originally Posted by Bushmiller

Mallet.jpg

So ... the mallet needs a new head; what's the problem?

Mallet on second handle, needs second head - seems par for course.

So will this Family heirloom Mallet be past down through the generations ?.
Great Great grandad Paul, made this, four new heads, three different handles, but it’s all original[emoji6].

Cheers Matt.

We always called them mash hammers too.

Originally Posted by Simplicity

So will this Family heirloom Mallet be past down through the generations ?.
Great Great grandad Paul, made this, four new heads, three different handles, but it’s all original[emoji6].

Cheers Matt.

great minds think alike.

BM, I like you collection of mallets, mauls, etc but I never really considered that they may have a gender, or perhaps an agenda .

Dad had a couple of 10lb & 12lb iirc sledge hammers that we referred to as "Big Bertha's" rather than that "long handled heavy ba$tard of a hammer."

So I guess they did have genders back then - but not now - its politically incorrect to assign a gender. Maybe maul hammers have gender dysphoria and really want to be a nice curvy carvers mallet.

I use a number of wooden mallets for various metal working related activities, and before I got myself a press, for removing bearings and pulleys from shafts I used a home made large mallet made out of WA redgumm. Despite considerable brutalisation it lasted for about 6 years and one day it suddenly went POP and split in half.

I replace the head with something called Rockoak (Casuarina huegeliana) which looks like but is significantly harder/denser than Casuarina Faseriana, and WA redeem.
Some also call huegeliana, Bulloak but its not the same.
This head lasted until I had to try and remove a large (250 mm) diameter pulley from a large electric motor that I could not fit under the press and that mallet now has a couple of serious cracks in it. BTW It did not even budge the pulley which I subsequently found out had been heated to fit over the shaft.

I eventually got the pulley off by extending the press but I still need a decent whacker so am thinking of replacing the head with some Wandoo.