Mike Henderson
04-23-2009, 1:01 AM
While this is a turning project, I'm not much of a turner and don't monitor the turning forum - so I'm putting it here for it's use in hand work.
116358
There's a back story on this mallet. Tomorrow I'm being interviewed at Cerritos College for the position of part time instructor in the Woodworking Department. For part of the interview, I have to give a five minute lecture on a subject. They gave me four options and one of them was offset turning, which I chose. I'm mainly a spindle turner because I do turning for furniture so I developed the idea for this mallet since it's spindle turning but offset.
Start with a block of wood that's significantly larger than the mallet head you want. I used poplar here because I have to have samples of the steps along the way so I chose a cheap wood. For a real mallet, use a better wood than poplar.
116359
Note that I've squared the ends - cut them off on the miter saw really - then used the ends to draw a line along one side in the middle of the block. I've taken the line down both faces. Then, mark the center on each end, and along the top of the block.
On each side of the center mark on each end, I put two additional marks. These will be your offset centers. I spaced them 5/16" from the center but 1/4" will do. The more the offset, the more "bent" the mallet will be.
116360
Then drill a hole through the top of the block. I think I used a 3/4" drill but 7/8" would be okay, also. This is where your handle will go.
116361 116362
continued
116358
There's a back story on this mallet. Tomorrow I'm being interviewed at Cerritos College for the position of part time instructor in the Woodworking Department. For part of the interview, I have to give a five minute lecture on a subject. They gave me four options and one of them was offset turning, which I chose. I'm mainly a spindle turner because I do turning for furniture so I developed the idea for this mallet since it's spindle turning but offset.
Start with a block of wood that's significantly larger than the mallet head you want. I used poplar here because I have to have samples of the steps along the way so I chose a cheap wood. For a real mallet, use a better wood than poplar.
116359
Note that I've squared the ends - cut them off on the miter saw really - then used the ends to draw a line along one side in the middle of the block. I've taken the line down both faces. Then, mark the center on each end, and along the top of the block.
On each side of the center mark on each end, I put two additional marks. These will be your offset centers. I spaced them 5/16" from the center but 1/4" will do. The more the offset, the more "bent" the mallet will be.
116360
Then drill a hole through the top of the block. I think I used a 3/4" drill but 7/8" would be okay, also. This is where your handle will go.
116361 116362
continued