Hello

I'm trying to make a wooden carpenter's mallet, and I'm
looking for a few tips on how to cut a tapered dado in each half of
the mallet head pieces, and have the matching tapered handle fit
properly in the tapered through mortise which I will have after gluing
the two head pieces together. I'm using osage orange for the mallet
head, so any errors could be expensive.
I have tried making a prototype from some maple offcuts using
a crosscut sled and wedge's, but the results were not so good. Now
I'm leaning towards using a top bearing straight cut routerbit, and a
template.
My brain is a bit sluggish on this one so any suggestions would
be greatly appreciated.

Ken

PS A google search didn't yield much in the way of technique

Ken wrote:
Hello

I'm trying to make a wooden carpenter's mallet, and I'm
looking for a few tips on how to cut a tapered dado in each half of
the mallet head pieces, and have the matching tapered handle fit
properly in the tapered through mortise which I will have after gluing
the two head pieces together. I'm using osage orange for the mallet
head, so any errors could be expensive.
I have tried making a prototype from some maple offcuts using
a crosscut sled and wedge's, but the results were not so good. Now
I'm leaning towards using a top bearing straight cut routerbit, and a
template.
My brain is a bit sluggish on this one so any suggestions would
be greatly appreciated.

Ken

PS A google search didn't yield much in the way of technique


laminate them together first, or start with a bigger chunk, then chop
the mortise with chisels. it'll be good fer ya....

On Wed, 09 Aug 2006 15:44:36 GMT, Ken wrote:


Hello

I'm trying to make a wooden carpenter's mallet, and I'm
looking for a few tips on how to cut a tapered dado in each half of
the mallet head pieces, and have the matching tapered handle fit
properly in the tapered through mortise which I will have after gluing
the two head pieces together. I'm using osage orange for the mallet
head, so any errors could be expensive.
I have tried making a prototype from some maple offcuts using
a crosscut sled and wedge's, but the results were not so good. Now
I'm leaning towards using a top bearing straight cut routerbit, and a
template.

I agree with Bridger on this. I think you are trying to apply too much
technology to a problem which is relatively easy to solve with simple
techniques and is actually a better solution anyway.

I built mine out of a chunk of patternmakers stock (laminated oak). I
may have had to glue a couple of pieces together to get the size I
needed (can't remember now), but I cut the mortise in the whole block.
It's not that hard. Even the layout isn't particularly tricky. You can
waste away much of the material with drills (either auger bits with a
brace, or spade or Forstner bits in the driver of your choice), then
fine tune with sharp chisels. I tapered mine slightly and machined a
handle to fit. With such a taper, you actually have a fairly large
margin for error, as you can make the handle too long, and then cut
off the part not needed.

I made mine so that the handle fits the head like a pick rather than a
hammer or ax. In other words, the handle slips down through the top of
the head, rather than in from the bottom. By doing that, I eliminate
the need to wedge the handle, making replacement or interchanging
quite easy--just tap the handle of the mallet on the floor and the
head will slide right down. Also, you will be confident that it will
never fly off due to wedge failure or whatever.

The one thing I did wrong (fifteen years ago) was to make the handle
too short to stand proud of the head. If I had, it would have been
VERY easy to tighten it by just tapping the protruding shaft on the
floor or bench to tighten it to the head. I'll get around to fixing
that one of these days. In the meantime, I get FAR too much use out of
it as a mallet for chisel work, destruction (I banged a LOT on my
wonder bar doing the demolition in my house remodel), or any of many
tasks in between.

I also faced the ends of the mallet with ½" (roughly) thick pieces of
maple. I glued them initially with yellow glue. One of the faces came
off during demo (I really beat up on that thing) and I reglued it with
polyurethane. I also need to resurface the faces one of these days
because of the hurting I put on them in the aforementioned demolition.

Good luck with yours.

--
LRod

Master Woodbutcher and seasoned termite

Shamelessly whoring my website since 1999

http://www.woodbutcher.net

Proud participant of rec.woodworking since February, 1997

email addy de-spam-ified due to 1,000 spams per month.
If you can't figure out how to use it, I probably wouldn't
care to correspond with you anyway.

LRod wrote:
I built mine out of a chunk of patternmakers stock (laminated oak). I
may have had to glue a couple of pieces together to get the size I
needed (can't remember now), but I cut the mortise in the whole block.
It's not that hard. Even the layout isn't particularly tricky. You can
waste away much of the material with drills (either auger bits with a
brace, or spade or Forstner bits in the driver of your choice), then
fine tune with sharp chisels. I tapered mine slightly and machined a
handle to fit. With such a taper, you actually have a fairly large
margin for error, as you can make the handle too long, and then cut
off the part not needed.

I made mine so that the handle fits the head like a pick rather than a
hammer or ax. In other words, the handle slips down through the top of
the head, rather than in from the bottom. By doing that, I eliminate
the need to wedge the handle, making replacement or interchanging
quite easy--just tap the handle of the mallet on the floor and the
head will slide right down. Also, you will be confident that it will
never fly off due to wedge failure or whatever.

The one thing I did wrong (fifteen years ago) was to make the handle
too short to stand proud of the head. If I had, it would have been
VERY easy to tighten it by just tapping the protruding shaft on the
floor or bench to tighten it to the head.

I made mine similar with the handle from the top of the head. The head
is laminated from 3 peices of oak, with the center lamination being the
same stock as the handle. The lamination was glued up with the handle
in place (I did remember to remove the handle after the head was
clamped), so the angled sides are identical to the angle on the handle,
and the mortise is perfectly sized to the handle.

Look at the jointers mallet on this page- http://www.shavings.net/

On 9 Aug 2006 13:26:58 -0700, "d" wrote:




Thanks to all for the tips , information and the link to the
galoot page.
Reading your replies helped lift the brain fog . What I
think I'll try, is to cut a straight dado in each of the mallet head
pieces, laminate them and then as Bridger suggested, I'll do some
chopping to get the neceassary taper. Thanks again

In article ,
Ken wrote:

Hello

I'm trying to make a wooden carpenter's mallet, and I'm
looking for a few tips on how to cut a tapered dado in each half of
the mallet head pieces, and have the matching tapered handle fit
properly in the tapered through mortise which I will have after gluing
the two head pieces together. I'm using osage orange for the mallet
head, so any errors could be expensive.
I have tried making a prototype from some maple offcuts using
a crosscut sled and wedge's, but the results were not so good. Now
I'm leaning towards using a top bearing straight cut routerbit, and a
template.
My brain is a bit sluggish on this one so any suggestions would
be greatly appreciated.

Ken

PS A google search didn't yield much in the way of technique

Don't make the head from 2 pieces, make it from 3 (actually 4 before
you are done) Make 3 identical pieces for the head to be glued
together; before gluing cut the center piece as required to match the
shape of your handle.


--

Larry Wasserman Baltimore, Maryland

I didn't bother making a mortise for mine. I just carved out an entire
mallet shape from a single piece of 3/4" jatoba, then laminated
matching head-sections to the head part to make it the proper thickness
.. Used handsaw, chisels and rasps mainly to make the handle part and I
love it.