MALLETS...PUT THE HAMMER DOWN....

 I thought I'd post a word or two on some mallets I've made and the good, the bad, and the ugly that goes with it. Shown above are my best tools to date.  The mallet is more recently made and already is becoming one of my favorites.  Unlike the two shown at left and below, it is made from an ash head of one solid block and considerably larger and heavier than the previous two.  Not shown is one I made from oak by lamination method (to ease the mortise hole for the handle).  It lasted several years and then on one swift blow the handle smashed clean off from the head and the head fractured.  I think I was using it to loosen the nut on a mower blade when it happened.   Anyhow, my point is that laminating (gluing up) a block is at best about a 50/50 bet that it will fail with any use and consistent impact.  The picture to the left shows a head failing which is of rock maple and actually has had minimal use.  I liked the hickory handle it has from the beginning but also disliked the lightness of the small head and found it lacked the punch for chiseling and was only OK for carving. The one at right has had more use and yet has stayed in tact.  I used a particularly heavy, dense piece of red oak out of a packing pallet.  The handle is oak as well.  I always have used the dimension of 14 inches for a handle, I guess because the traditional nail hammer had handles of the same size.  The mallet at top has such a big head (nearly 6in long and nearly 4in high and 3in thick) , the handle seems considerably smaller but isn't, being about 13.5 inches roughly.  You hold them up high under the head anyway when properly used as a chisel hammer and carving mallet. I doubt I would grab it as the persuader for cabinet boxes and assembly, though I do nudge dovetails in as a group with a mallet sometimes.  I like the nylon hammer alot for its combination of semi-hard faces and non marring blows to all but soft pine.  I may start putting leather on one face of my mallets as another non marring option in woodworking.  The solid block posed some challenge in regards to chiselling in a nice tapered handle mortise, but it really turned out surprisingly tight and clean since I used unusual restraint and patience when chopping it ( and I did drill a hole first which I don't normally do when mortising).  When you plan out the handle, be sure to orient the grain in the strongest direction aligned with striking.

The ash dulled my chisel and halfway through I stopped for a light sharpening and heavy stropping. I have enough ash, oak and maple left for about 4-5 mallets and maybe I'll shoot for one more in an all maple head with an ash or maple handle.   I won't be gluing the handle in from now on, as I saw how tightly it wedges on the latest model.  During just the fitting process, it took considerable force to knock it back out each time.  Once in, I doubt it would ever come loose , rather,  tightening further as it is swung.

MAYBE THE BEST MARKING KNIFE FOR FINE WOODWORKING LAYOUT...

IF YOU READ this blog for long, or talk to me about woodworking, you will hear me name-drop maybe two or three names only, from the vast world of woodworking, furniture and cabinetmaking.  One name in particular is someone I have no hesitation in referencing much as a compass draws its line to magnetic north.  For me, Paul Sellers is someone I look to for knowledge, demonstration of actual craft skills, creative inspiration and also a model of honesty in both the tools of the trade and what really works as you work with wood.  A little over a year ago, I started "training" under Paul via his youtube videos, website, and writings.  I literally feel like I've rediscovered this craft after pursuing it for over 25 years and making a living in it for most of those years.  It's not just learning a few new tricks here and there, but rather seeing a whole way of working that I was already being drawn to intuitively. That way is the way back to hand tool freedom and being in contact with the material itself.  For so many years, I and so many others have been overly consumed with the power tools and how they handle, how they cut, how they feel, what they can force out of the wood for me, and what projects I can and can't take on based on the equipment I have.  I realize I was thinking so much about THE SHOP (as I  say here often) and too much about the equipment, the jigs, the things I need, and especially the time I can or need to save.  Now I think about the wood itself, its grain, its readiness to yield to sharp tools, and what might be if I take up the hand skill and the very tools that were used for maybe a thousand years and longer.  I think about the wooden things (and buildings) made this way that we in this modern age simply cannot match.  We think we're so sophisticated today, and maybe in some technologies we are, I can't say for sure, but never the less all around us is stupidity.  For example, we use words like sustainable and conservation, and green,  and yet instead we plunge onward into more consumption and generally are expert trash creators.  We need to get back to the idea of making something that can last literally 200 years with minimal care.  Furniture built with care and purpose, modest articles of high quality and the subtleties from a previous era.  Things built with the perfect marriage of form and function and that get handed down to our grandchildren.  This is, in my observation, what is true art in the craft.  Too, this is what's sustainable.  This is what is actually "green". Not the making of trash, made only in the pursuit of cheap goods and ever faster methods with less labor and less of humanity embedded in them, unless you count the near slave labor that was expended in their fabrication. How can we bring blessing on ourselves through the exploitation of others?  I say we get back to our "old paths" and let those nations and cultures get back to theirs.   And, by the way, "green" is  not the robotic manufacture and feverish selling of machines with the relentless pursuit of margin and the increasing of the  demand for parts, paraphernalia,  and accessories.  Some things in modern times are better, but I just can't think of one off hand.  (modern medicine I suppose, however I have dramatically less access to it in America than I had 15 years ago...so what good is it to me?)  We often think of former times with the presupposition of the impossibility of "going back to simpler days".  I fear that if we don't go backward in some things now, by choice, then soon we'll be forced to go back suddenly and painfully against our will.  Am I talking some type of doomsday stuff....you better believe I am and I ain't ashamed to say so.

Well, enough pontificating from me and back to my mention of Mr. Sellers.  From his teachings, I have been prompted to try the little stanley knife in the top photo. Used not as a utility knife, but rather as a layout and marking knife this model is a delight to use and works well for striking knife lines for cuts (what Paul calls "knife walls").  It also slips between tight pin recesses in dovetails for precise layout.  So much so is this the knife to use in fine woodworking I wonder how I did without it.  Apparently so many others suddenly think so as well, given the sales activity of this model on Amazon.  Search Paul Sellers and this knife pops up and vice versa.  It is as shown in the above lower picture essential kit in a handful of essential layout tools in my shop.  Replacement blades are readily available on Amazon, and happen to be stocked in some hardware chains such as Ace in my town. So far, I've just touched up the blade slightly on a diamond stone, then stropped lightly. I would not imagine changing the blade for a long time.  I will buy a couple and assure a lifetime of use however.  Surely I could stumble onto another knife I like more, but I can't imagine what it would be without making it myself.

\\