chisel mallet

i've been working on building my tool kit lately- mostly because i want to be able to transition smoothly from my father's shop to my own work space when the time is right (i'm really hoping the time will be right around mid-may. but we'll see.) i'm also trying to get back to a heavier and more continuous project-load in all areas (both art and various crafts) as well as build and hone my somewhat rusty and limited skills. thus, i have started assigning myself little workshop projects. the first of these projects was a small chisel mallet.

i started with a little chunk of some very hard, heavy, tight grained wood that i scavenged from a friend's scrap pile. i bet it is teak, as he is a sailor, though it could be one of many exotic hardwoods that i don't have experience with (i try to stick to more local stuff when i buy material) (ed: he says it is probably ipe). for the handle i found a scrap of maple.

i cut a piece from the block for the mallet head and then cut a flared through-mortise by drilling out the excess and then bringing the walls to relative flatness with a bench chisel. the front and back of the mortise flare about an eighth of an inch from bottom to top- this will be important later. i cut the tenon on the handle on the router table and then cleaned up the shoulders with a chisel:

then the handle got a quick spin on the lathe and a couple of notches in the tenon:

then i mounted the head and drove wedges into the notches to lock the pieces together (remember that flare i mentioned earlier- that's so the tenon will have room to spread).

see-

finally, i cut the wedges flush with the tenon, rounded the bottom of the handle with the stationary disk sander and carved a maker's mark into the head:

in the end, it was a good little project. i really do need practice cutting clean mortises (did you see the tear-out in the second to last picture? i sure did) and nice, tight shoulders, and i haven't done much spindle work on the lathe. oh, and i got a nice little hammer out of it- just the right weight for controlled joinery cuts.