Choice: Woodworking Mallet

Wednesday, February 5, 2014

Woodworking Mallet

I had to stay home with my sick son on Friday so while he was taking a nap I was able to finally start on my Wood Working for Mere Mortals woodworking mallet. I bought enough material to make 2 mallets so the first one is pretty much going to be just like the one Steve made in his video and the second one will be more personalized to my style. It all depends on what I learn while making the fist one. I bought 2 - 1x2x2s and 2 - 1x3x2s. 1 each in maple and 1 each in Oak. The first mallet I am making is with an Oak head and Maple handle. The second will be reversed. This will also be my first project not involving Pine.

You can view Steve Ramseys video here
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JcaV5jWpR1k&feature=g-user-u

I started by cutting the maple 1x2x2 in half to glue together to make the handle. I cut the oak 1x3x2 into 3 pieces. 2 at about 8 inches and 1 at about 6 inches. I took the 6 inch piece and measured in 2 inches and marked the center. I then realized that the board was 2 1/2 inches wide so I remeasured to 2 1/2 inches and re-marked the center.

I made a 1 1/2 inch hole to be able to add some weight to the mallet.

It turns out that speed really does matter. The drill press came setup at the max speed of 3100 RPM.
I changed it to the middle setting of 1720 when I assembled the drill press.
I cut the hole on the right at 1720 and it kept stopping as I lowered the Forstner bit
and it also burned the wood some.
I adjusted the belts down to the lowest setting of 620 and drilled the hole on the left with no issues.

I set my mitre saw to 2 degrees to cut the inside of the wedge.

I flipped the board over to cut the other side. The piece of wood was pretty small so I used the push
stick from my table saw to hold it in place when I cut it.