So I decided that one of the first projects I wanted to take was a wooden mallet. Honestly, I’ve seen plenty of builds of a wooden mallets. So while this may be helpful for those of you are interested in taking your first stab at a mallet, it isn’t the most exhaustive video or article on the process. For some other great examples click on the two videos below:
So I started out with some Walnut and Oak from a friend of mine named Stevn Ukena over at Dove Tails and Dados (Youtube channel: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCoHG-j_gm0qPcqYYLwdwxJg)
He gracious sold me some cutoffs and really generous price. Once I decided on those two species of wood, I then started trying to nail down the design and size. For me, I’ve seen plenty of uniquely shaped mallets out there and at first I wanted to build something like that. But, I soon realized that I didn’t have the tools necessary to build something super fancy and this mallet was going to be built for function, not style. So I stuck with a rectangular shape and a pretty simple handle.
The center portion of the mallet is made out of hard oak. The outside pieces and handle are made from walnut.
I first took the piece of oak over to the miter saw. With the center marked, I cut it at 90 degrees, so that had two pieces at the same size. Then I took those two pieces over at did a little test run with the handle and other portions of the head.
I decided to make a tenon on the portion of the handle that was going to be in head of the mallet. I took it over to my table saw and attempted to trim down the handle. This is where I made my first mistake. I was cutting the tenon to the mark I had made on the top of the handle, but didn’t realize or forgot that the table saw blade was going to go deeper into the handle on the portion of the handle that was facing down on the table saw…. DOH!!!
No biggie. I just adjusted the tenon to stop further down on the handle and then used a flush cut saw to finish the trimming.
Instead of cutting everything to the proper length before assembly, I decided to get the oak positioned on the outside walnut pieces and glue them up. Once the glue dried and the head was fully assembled, I then took it back over to the miter saw and trimmed the head to it’s final dimensions. Honestly, that worked like a charm. I ended up with clean and flat edges on all sides.
From there I glued the mess out of the tenon before sliding it into the head. I always prefer to be very liberal with my glue. You can always clean up squeeze out, but you can’t out more glue in there after it has already been glued up. I figured the more the better. After I fit the tenon into the head, I used a fast food straw to clean up all the squeeze out. This is something I’ve found to be extremely useful and it leave the piece free of any glue.
Once the glue dried, I did a quick finish sand on all sides and shaped the handle slighting. Finishing it off with a coat of boiled linseed oil.
Honestly, I was pleased with the way this thing turned out. I’m going to send it off to a Youtuber that has made some awesome videos and has inspired me quite a bit.
If you have any comments, any suggestions or any critiques you can leave them in the comments section below. Hope you all have a great day and see you next time!
