The Mallet Making Video Is On YouTube

ByPaul Sellers

DSC_0125 Here is the video we made on making my mallets. My old mallets follow a copied pattern I took from a true beauty I discovered in a box of tools I bought back in the 1970s. When I saw nestled amongst moulding planes and a couple of Norrises, it it just impacted me so much that, even lying alongside a very rare and beautifully made Howarth Rosewood Ultimatum brace, I would have left the brace, though worth over £1000, when the mallet was worth no more than say £5 maximum.

The blog I wrote on making your first mallet starts here and is a four part series if I remember rightly. The mallet you make does need to have good weight and density and especially so if using the traditional heavyweight variety like these. DSC_0113 Even though for most of my work I use a Thorex 712, the Thorex will never replace the traditional mallet for a few simple reasons and not the least of which is aesthetics. DSC_0504

I do hope if you haven’t seen this that you will enjoy it as much as I did making the video. Yes, it is important for the preservation of the skills in making it, and also the detailed shaping of it and the careful deliberations of the man who thought through the dynamics of it, but more than that, it’s the passing on of another craftsman’s life in a very simply work of art. I don’t do it justice, I know that, but here it is, preserved in the lived lives of those woodworkers yet to be born. Make it by hand as he did. Stretch yourself and master the skills. Keep real woodworking alive for others, for your family, your children and grandchildren. This mallet takes me about an hour to make. Enjoy it and pass it on.

2 Comments

  1. Thanks Paul. I’m working on this now and made my first mortise hole today. Wasn’t as scary as it looks, although it wasn’t perfect. I used some very old mahogany I found at a 2nd hand market as it seemed very dense.

  2. Last time in New Orleans I found a guy selling some live oak firewood. It was surprisingly hard to find live oak because the only time a tree can be cut is for maintenance or construction. Anyway, 1600 miles later in the trunk and an interminable drying time in the basement, part of it is now one of these mallets.

    With it’s heft, it only takes a tipping of the wrist for most chisel blows. The Thorex often took a mighty whack for the same result. Oddly, the heavier mallet seems less tiring.

    And the wood! Oh the wood, so dense with tightly interlocking grain, looks like a forever mallet.

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