Suggested wood for carving mallets?

One piece mallet, the green walnut might work. It might split but.... I've used greenish hard-maple and other domestic hard woods

IMHO - Not oak - it tends to splinter. I prefer beech, but also make them from maple, birch, etc. My "ironwood" (hop hornbeam/blue beech - and there's debate as to whether those are the same, while ironwood is at least 70 different species across the globe, according to one source) is usually too small to get a good sized mallet from. Walnut would be a bit low-density for my taste in a mallet.

I normally make the one-piece style, from the firewood pile. They end up in the stove when they have been used up.

If making a two piece (either in the same style as the one-piece or in the two-piece hammer-style) and operating with a big budget, you can dig out the lignum vitae. Doing a one-piece in LV these days is a flagrant waste of material unless you go to a lot of effort to trim off usable chunks from the handle area before starting to turn.

I have several. Walnut works but may be a little soft. Wild Cherry is also too soft. Persimmon works great, but doesn't finish up as pretty. The one-piece mallets are easy and fun to turn. Make several in whatever woods you have around and let your friend try them and decide .

Hi, I don't have a lot of experience but FWIW I have made two two piece joiners mallets one maple and the other oak. I also turned a carvers mallet out of dogwood. I find the dogwood is the better/ harder of the three.

Someone here mentioned persimon. The older style golf club heads were made of persimon. Dogwood was also used. I would think that if these two woods would stand up for golfing they might also do well for mallets.

Bob

I have made a few.

Cherry: light and too soft. Osage Orange: really hard but a little light weight. Pear: Very hard and very heavy. Gave it to my dad and he said it is to nice to use.

The commercially made mallets that I have seen have been made from either beech or maple.

Ted

Thanks, Ralph... I turned a little of the walnut last night and it's soft and open grain, so I'll probably use oak.. They are one piece, sorry for not mentioning that.. Same height and handle, but one has a much larger diameter head than the other..

mac

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I work mostly in Desert Ironwood and though heavy, I can't see it as a mallet... Too fragmented and cracked..

I had planned to use oak, but now I'll have to rethink that.. OTOH, these are a freebie for a "soon to begin" carver, so maybe the oak would be ok until he learns a little...

mac

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Thanks, Gerald... As you know, my wood choices are very limited here..

I did just remember as I was reading your post that I have some kiln dried walnut.. I did a set of goblets a few years ago and the client gave me a bunch of walnut

4x4 cutoffs to work with.. That might be an ok choice since it's dry and pretty solid.. Good idea on making several.. There's probably a market here with all the ironwood carvings that the locals sell..

mac

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Thanks Ted.. you rang a real bell there! I have some cuts off maple bowl blanks that might be big enough..

Damn, this group is just too cool..

mac

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Mac - around here the wood of choice for the heads is Live Oak. It is a twisty, gnarled, member of the oak family that isn't good for much. Around here it is bbq and firewood most of the time.

But for as long as anyone can remember it has been a favorite for tool handles, mallet heads, chisel handles (socket type) and anything else that can use a smaller piece of wood.

All the carvers around here use it for their mallets, and also make the old fashioned pattern maker's mallets as well as the cabinet maker's mallets. As a testimony to its endurance, I have a buddy of mine that uses one his grandfather made in the '30s. It was made as a utility mallet and was obviously used to wail the snot out of anything that was in reach.

This link might work - it's a bowl made from Live Oak. You can easily see the interlocking grain. Don't look at this picture and think that's an unusual piece of wood. It's the norm.

This stuff grows around here every where. In the next couple of months I will be making some traditional pattern maker's mallets, probably with either kiln dried white oak heads or Live Oak, handled with some mesquite. Are you making yours for gifts or for personal use?

Robert

Thanks, Kevin.. Not too many apple trees around my neighborhood, though..lol (Baja California)

I'm curious, though, if you turned the apple green or dried.. All my experience with fruitwood has been that it turns really nicely green but immediately cracks..

mac

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Might be what they call "scrub oak" or "piss oak" in California?

I have several logs drying that are this variety..

Are you making yours for gifts or for personal use?

A friend brought me some black walnut branch wood from the States, along with plans for the 2 mallets from some magazine.. (dated 1987)

He wanted to "commission" me to make him a few but I'd rather make it a freebie than do that kind of business with friends.. As others have pointed out, though, there might be a market for them here..

mac

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I don't think so. These trees get to be a few feet around, and some trees will hit about 40 feet or so. I have seen a couple with a total canopy of about 60 feet out on old ranches, and in some old city squares.

While some of the large branches have the size and girth, the wood twists and moves a lot when drying, so no one uses it for furniture, etc. But that same snarly/gnarly grain makes it wonderful for things you don't want to break.

Robert

Might be the same thing.. When they brought the oak down, the trunk wood was about 20" diameter or so.. Don't know how big the tree was, because they used the bottom part of the trunk for paver rounds.. From the bowls I've turned from it, I'd guess it's the same or close to your description..

mac

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I think they're going to be a mix, Kevin..

I have some walnut 3x3 cutoffs and a few 4x4x10 slices from a maple bowl blank that I was going to make goblets out of.. I gave up that idea when I saw how few goblets were selling..

I'd guess that 75% of the pieces that have sold well here are Desert Ironwood..

mac

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I'm surprised that no one has suggested Elm, particularly Rock Elm for this mallet. It's hard, is tough to split and of moderate weight. There's still plenty of American Elm around here, trouble is, it dies when the trunk gets to about 10" diameter.

Pete Stanaitis

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mac davis wrote: