Day 7, Walnut Mallet
Today's entry in #mygaragegems is a woodworkers mallet that I made a couple of years ago as one of my introductory woodworking projects. It is made from some walnut scraps that I had lying around, with some red oak serving as the handle. The basic construction was to make the head out of a sandwich of three pieces which are glued together. The middle part of the "sandwich" has a gap put in it, so that you can insert the handle. This avoids having to make a deep tapered mortise, which for a novice like me still appears to be pretty daunting. Walnut is a decent hardwood, but isn't ideal, but given the relatively light duty that this gets, it is entirely sufficient. I did bore out a cavity in the middle layer so that I could fill it with BBs, which helps increase the weight slightly. As a result, it does make a slight "maracas" sound when you use it, which I find amusing. I keep thinking that I will make another one of these, perhaps using some harder, denser wood like osage orange or lignum vitae, but I haven't got a chunk of those yet, so this one will suffice. I'll likely also do more shaping of the handle to make it a touch more ergonomic, although I find this one to be reasonably comfortable for my hands.
It sits in a rack I made for it to hold my (modestly priced) chisel set. I should find projects to justify its prominent position, but I still like it.
Hope you all are having a good Monday!