Wood for Mallet

[Kurt Bird]

Hi,
I turned a carving mallet out of maple (from a 3x3 blank) about 5 years ago, and have used it for 100's of dovetails. It hardly looks used, and the weight always felt like it was just right. Of course, that might be because it's the only one I've ever used regularly. Anyway, I can recommend maple.
Kurt

[Jim Becker]

Mine is Osage Orange for the head and some scrap white oak for the handle. (I didn't have a piece of OO that was long enough at the time to do the whole thing in the size I wanted)

[Dennis Peacock]

I have a mallet made from Osage Orange and I have used it a LOT. Works great, right weight, and thank you Mr. Cothren for making it for me.

[Mike Henderson]

I use a mallet quite a bit for carving. The problem with all woods is that eventually the wood delaminates from the pounding. The best wood I've found is lignum vitae. You don't have to make the whole mallet from lignum vitae - you can make just the head of lignum vitae, or you can laminate the lignum vitae to the outside before you turn it (as I did - see pictures below).

Below are a couple of pictures of some of my mallets - I turn them by the dozen because I teach carving and I loan them to my students to use in the class. The first picture shows some of the student mallets, made from whatever scrap I have in the shop. There's oak, maple, walnut, and I don't know what else.

The second picture shows my mallets: from left to right - figured maple, maple with ebony accent, small lignum vitae, large lignum vitae, large oak, and finally bloodwood.

[Glenn Hodges]

I made a couple for a professional saddle maker out of wild black cherry. He bought one, and liked it so much he returned and asked me to make him another.

[robert baccus]

All good wood choices----other good domestic wood would be dogwood and hornbeam, dogwood being the besy probably. very shock resistant and was once a highly prized industrial wood.-----------ol forester

[Glenn Hodges]

In the old weaving mills the looms used dogwood and persimon for the shuttle because they were so hard and tough they would never wear out. Persimon was almost depleated around Georgia for golf club woods because it is so hard. Difficult to find, but extremely hard and tough is boxwood. Hickory has been mentioned, and along with its cousin, pecan is a useful wood because of its toughness and hardness. All the aforementioned woods will make great mallet heads. I have used persimon and dogwood in my shop with wild black cherry handles with good results.

[Thomas Bennett]

If you want a heavy mallot try an old bowling pin. I made several with the outer plastic left on the striking part. They are fun to turn and last a long time.