two-faced leather

[Curtis Niedermier]

I'm finishing up a new jumbo chisel mallet that is intended to maximize the wood slaughtering capabilities of my Iles mortise chisels. I plan to line the faces of the mallet with leather, but I'm not sure which side of the leather to glue to the face. One side of a piece of leather is smooth, while the other is rough, or fuzzy (for lack of a better term). Which side gets the glue, and which gets the punishment? Or are there some types of leather that are smooth on both sides?

Also, does a place like Hobby Lobby sell leather? Anyone know?

[Michael N Taylor]

I am no expert but I would glue the smooth side and leave the rough side out.

[Jim Koepke]

My easy solutions to problems like this would be to do each mallet face different. That is if the mallet has two striking faces.

My first thought would be to have the smooth faces out since that looks nicer when it is new. After a lot of hits, the rough side might not show the wear as much.

Another solution would be to look at sites like inthewoodshop.com/ (Derek Cohen's site) to see what if he has anything about how he does his mallets.

jtk

[Cody Kemble]

I know A.C. Moore sells leather scraps pretty cheap. I picked up some there for the mallet I'm making. I was planning on leaving the rough side out if only for ease of gluing.

[Tom Vanzant]

Tandy shops usually have a bin of reasonably priced scraps.

[Andrae Covington]

...I was planning on leaving the rough side out if only for ease of gluing.

So far on vises and such, I have glued the smooth side (I believe this is called the grain side). Spreading glue on the rough skin side seemed like it would be a hassle. Plus I can entertain myself for hours writing "hi" in the suede.


...Also, does a place like Hobby Lobby sell leather? Anyone know?

There's some tooling leather on their website, so they probably have some in the stores.

[Joe Tilson]

Bought a bag from Hobby Lobby just the other day. I think it is up to the each store as to what they stock though. The mixed bag was the best deal. It may not be thick enough for a mallet, but it is worth a shot.

[george wilson]

Cordovan,or horse butt leather is a good hard leather for a mallet.

[Brian Holcombe]

Cordovan,or horse butt leather is a good hard leather for a mallet.

+1. That stuff is incredibly tough.

Smooth side out.

[Maurice Ungaro]

You want to the smooth side out for two reasons:
1) The rough side will glue better to the wood - remember that the smooth side is smooth because it is tanned, and the pores are sealed.
2) The smooth side will wear better.

[Curtis Niedermier]

Thanks for the advice. I'm going to see if I can find cordovan online.

I made the handle out of hickory. It turned out really nice. I'll post photos once I finish the head and get it put together. A weird thing about hickory, in my experience, is that it doesn't plane worth a darn with my LV Bevel Up Jack (25 degree iron), but it works fairly well with rasps and my old Stanley spoke shave. When I plane it, I'll get two good shavings in a row, then the plane will grab and ear out a stringy piece off the surface. It reminds me of the base of an asparagus stem - stringy and tough.

Maybe this is just the wood I'm using, which was what was left of a local sawyers "reject" pile - a lot of knots, checks and squirrely grain. I got it for $5 because he just wanted it gone, and I only needed small pieces for making tool handles and could easily cut out what I need. I just love the way hickory looks with a little boiled linseed oil. And a sharp saw usually leaves a very clean surface on end grain, which is wonderful for a saw junkie.

The pieces I used for the handle (it's actually a glue-up) have a mix of light and dark wood, with some black "stuff" connecting them (spalting? rot? anyone know? I don't even know what spalting is). I'm not sure if the lighter wood is weaker, but I noticed no difference in the way it responded to my tools.

[Curtis Niedermier]

If you need leather and don't want to go looking for it, check out ebay. I just looked, and several companies sell boxes of their scraps. You don't get much say in color, thickness, size, etc., but if all you need are small pieces it'd be a cheap way to get it.

Of course, instead of buying the 1-pound box of scraps for $5, I bought a really sexy looking piece of dark brown cowhide leather for $10. It says it's 3.5 mm thick. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or not for a chisel mallet face, but it's worth a try.

[Mike Brady]

You want to the smooth side out for two reasons:
1) The rough side will glue better to the wood - remember that the smooth side is smooth because it is tanned, and the pores are sealed.
2) The smooth side will wear better.

The new Blue Spruce mallet has very thick smooth leather on one face. You can get a piece of the leather at your local shoe repair where it is used for resoling. It's about 1/4" thick and very tough. While you're there, get a tube of Barge cement to glue it to the wood. Great stuff. Epoxy would work too, I suppose.

[Maurice Ungaro]

The new Blue Spruce mallet has very thick smooth leather on one face. You can get a piece of the leather at your local shoe repair where it is used for resoling. It's about 1/4" thick and very tough. While you're there, get a tube of Barge cement to glue it to the wood. Great stuff. Epoxy would work too, I suppose.

Mike, good point about the Barge Cement. That's the only stuff my brother used in his leather business. The downside of epoxy is that it's a little tougher to change out the leather faces when time comes for that.

[Malcolm Schweizer]

I glue it with epoxy and have done both- smooth side out, and "fuzzy" side out. You can sand the fuzzy side with sandpaper and even work it with a hand plane if it is too fuzzy. Also if gluing the smooth side hit it with sandpaper first. For chiseling I would put the smooth side out. If being used as an assembly mallet you might prefer to put the fuzzy side out to soften the contact with the part being assembled.

I prefer thick veg-tan leather and get mine on eBay. Lots of people sell scraps there.