What mallets & hammers do you use?

[Greg Portland]

I have some lignum vitae and ash that I want to turn into hammers (ash for the handle, LV for the heads). My typical usage for mallets & hammers includes "coaxing" joints together, heavy mortising in 4x4 material with large mortise chisels, wooden or Japanese plane blade adjustments (brass head for this?), & dovetail chiseling. I'm currently using a 1 size fits all lightweight mallet.

My questions are as follows:

- What combination of weights and dimensions do you find useful around the shop?
- What head styles would be appropriate (flat face, curved face, completely round, etc.)?
- Do you put lead shot in any of the heads (deadblow style mallet)?
- Is adding leather to the face of the mallets a good idea?
- Should the hammer face be end grain or face grain?

[Greg Portland]

BTW, I plan on making a few test mallets before cutting up the LV...

[Gary Curtis]

While putting my shop together I bought most of my handtools on the UK eBay website. Shipping was free for me (I worked for FedEx)

I bought a few planes from one gentleman, he offered to sell tools that weren't listed on eBay. One was a gorgeous cabinetmaker's mallet. The head is of lv wood. Extremely heavy and dense. When not in use, I keep it in a plastic storage bag to prevent checking and cracking of the wood.

If you wish to make your own, any number of books on wood handtools will show you clear photos to use as a model for making your own. I have the Andy Rae book published by Taunton Press.

[Brander Roullett]

I have made and use two wooden hammers in my shop.

I turned a round small applewood mallet for gentle coaxing, and light chisel work, and a monster Maple and Myrtle for heavy mortising.

Both were easy to make, and took me less than an evening.

Bigger:
http://www.badgerwoodworks.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/hammer_thundergod2.jpg

Blog Post:
http://www.badgerwoodworks.com/2010/06/meet-the-thundergod/

Smaller:
http://www.badgerwoodworks.com/wp-content/gallery/toolbox/applehammer.jpg

Blog Post:
http://www.badgerwoodworks.com/2010/03/apple-hammer/

badger

[Frank Drew]

Greg,

I like a steel hammer for heavy work like mortising with a chisel; a rubber hammer/mallet for knocking together joints (too easy to bruise the wood with a harder mallet, IMO); and I've got a couple of wood mallets for tapping carving tools. For bench work, I've got a couple of Japanese hammers and one of those English Warrington pattern hammers.

I'm also thinking of making a wood hammer out of Lignum Vitae, for tapping plane bodies and blades; I'd orient the end grain to be the striking face.

[Greg Portland]

Another question: would some form of metal banding around the face's edge of each mallet be useful (to limit checking)?

[harry strasil]

http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?t=117719&highlight=mallet

[Sean Hughto]

I made this from some scrap hickory. It has become one of my favorites for both its shape and durability. For what it's worth.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4079/4881250862_7bb0bda4ae_z.jpg

[harry strasil]

The large demo mallet I use when demoing has some banding material around the end I use on holdfasts.

[Tony Shea]

Wow Sean, I really like the looks of that mallet. Makes me want to go out and pick up a lathe this evening. I've been heavily contemplating one but just can't get over all the dust that thing creates. I'm mostly a hand tool guy and use my table saw, jointer, and planer once in a great while. But the small partuculate dust in my basement shop just covers everything. That was the ultimate factor in my deciding to do most my work neander style. Don't get me wrong, handtools create just about as much dust. They just don't shoot it all over the entire room.

But then again I really just come across so many great uses for a lathe that I just can't even come close to producing by hand. And your mallet is another amazing example of such a use.

[Trevor Walsh]

Face grain, for joint assembly I'd go with leather, some thick cowhide or something. I make my mallets with beech or sugar maple heads, square in cross section, with oak or ash or whatever handles, cross pinned into the head.

The small wooden hammer is maple head, 1 1/4" sqaure by 2 1/2" long with a 6 1/4" haft. I use this for adjusting planes and wedges. Light stuff.

The larger is beech, 2 1/8th square, by 3 1/2" long with an 8 3/8th long haft. I use this for driving chisels and chopping. I just made it, so I still have to add a leather face for joints.

The other is a metal cross peen I use for small punches and tack/brad driving. It's 1/2" square and 3" long with a 13 1/2" long haft. Oval handle.

[Greg Portland]

has some banding material around the end I use on holdfasts.Harry, I'm used to seeing holdfasts that are 5/8" metal rod (bent @ an angle with a flat end for holding the workpiece). Could you give a bit more detail about the material you use for the banding? Thanks!

[Chris Friesen]

Harry, I'm used to seeing holdfasts that are 5/8" metal rod (bent @ an angle with a flat end for holding the workpiece). Could you give a bit more detail about the material you use for the banding? Thanks!

I think Harry was saying that he put steel banding around the end of the mallet that he uses to bang holdfasts with.

[Johnny Kleso]

I started using these as a patternmaker
http://www.garlandmfg.com/mallets/images/hammers/splithead_lg.jpg
http://www.garlandmfg.com/mallets/split.html

I now own several in different sizes..
You can pick them up at eBay for a song some days I also bought a bag of tips for a few bucks once :)

[Kirk Poore]

After wearing down a lignum vitae mallet and another unknown wood mallet (both round) to the point where I was getting nasty splinters from the heads just by looking at them funny, and also getting black marks on furniture by using a dead blow mallet to assemble, I got one of these:
http://www.woodcraft.com/Images/products/13T41_400.jpg

I don't recall the exact size (20 oz? 24 oz?), but I use it for pretty much everything that doesn't require a steel hammer. No splinters, no marks, drives chisels well. Of course, it screams modernity, but hey, everybody needs a little of that in measured doses.:)

Kirk

[Greg Portland]

Kirk, do you prefer that mallet due to the material of the head or the shape (or both)?

[Kirk Poore]

Kirk, do you prefer that mallet due to the material of the head or the shape (or both)?

Mostly the shape of the head. I started off doing a fair amount of carving, and with the round mallet I could just pay attention to the gouge, not how I was holding the mallet. The flat faced mallet I initially used kept caroming off and hitting me in the hand.:)

This mallet was initially a cheap backup for when I was teaching a class, but the more I used it the more I liked it. Then I started using it to set mortise & tenon joints and I didn't have to use a scrap piece to prevent marring or denting the work, and it's been an every day tool since.

Kirk

[Roy Lindberry]

This is a shop made mallet that I use for everything right now. It is a walnut handle with a hickory head - just some scrap I had laying around. The head is roughly 6x4x2.5 with a split handle wedged in.

I don't know how much it weighs, but it is really a little too bulky and heavy for light chisel work. That is a Bailey #5 next to it, if that gives any reference. I plan to make a smaller mallet one of these days. I also want to rework the handle, because its a bit wide and uncomfortable.

[harry strasil]

Greg, Chris is right. What I used is the thin, black, springy metal used to strap stuff down to pallets.

[Tony Shea]

Roy, I really like your mallet, the wood combination looks wonderful. Does the face have a forward cant of 5deg or so that is common with that type of mallet? If not, would you make it with an angled face or does a straight 90deg face work fine? And also, does the hickory hold up well to the abuse and enviormental changes?

Again, that mallet is very nice looking and something that has inspired to me to make on for myself. At the moment I use a Wood is Good rubber carving mallet, japanese barrel mallet, and a dead blow to pound joinery together. I think your style of mallet would be better suited for my to pound my joinery together.

[Roy Lindberry]

Roy, I really like your mallet, the wood combination looks wonderful. Does the face have a forward cant of 5deg or so that is common with that type of mallet? If not, would you make it with an angled face or does a straight 90deg face work fine? And also, does the hickory hold up well to the abuse and enviormental changes?

Again, that mallet is very nice looking and something that has inspired to me to make on for myself. At the moment I use a Wood is Good rubber carving mallet, japanese barrel mallet, and a dead blow to pound joinery together. I think your style of mallet would be better suited for my to pound my joinery together.


Thank you for the compliment, Tony. Though I can't take credit for the design...I found it somewhere on the web and really liked it, though the wood choices were my own, since that is what I had on hand.

It is just a straight face, and so far I haven't seen any reason to desire the angled face. I used hickory scraps because I know it is a dense and strong wood, and at this point I am not disappointed. I haven't used it a ton, but for what I have, it seems to hold up very well.

The head is actually three slabs with the middle one sectioned out for the handle (I didn't want to worry about mortising a solid block, nor did I have a solid block anyway). I liked the character of the arched head and as a bonus the offcut from the arch was used for the wedge. All in all, I'm happy with it, but still being a relative newbie I don't know if other woods would make a better choice. One thing about the hickory is that it gives the mallet some heft, so it does make it good for some heavier work.

[Ken Kimbrell]

Knocked this one together using red oak from the BORG... kind of plain looking, but if you want to give something a really serious whack it gets the job done.
The small one works OK as well.
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EDIT:
Just realized that this topic was a couple of years old. For some reason it came up in the results of my ‘New Posts’ search and I posted without first looking at the dates... Sorry.
(The delete option is not working for me, otherwise I would done so; maybe I'm doing it wrong?)