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Blockhead
My oak piece for the head is straight grained, but it will work for a mallet and also to
show how to make it. I first planed up the rough-sawn facets and didnt spend too much
time worrying about perfect squareness because when done and shaped, there really
wont be much of any visual angular surface to reference. That said, its handy to start
with two reference faces to use for laying out.
I lay out the mortise hole lines on the narrow faces roughly. The outside hole is 1 3/4
and the inside 1 1/2 so from the centre line I split the difference. 7/8 each side on the
outside and 3/4 on the inside.
I used a mortise
gauge set to 3/4 to get the parallel lines for the sides of the mortise.
I bore about half way through from each side using a brace and 3/4 bit, aligning my bit
rim with the two extreme knife lines on the rim of the hole. The important thing when
boring is to align the brace with the centre run of the mallet head. This again relies on
visual accuracy.
I rip the
taper for the handle using the handsaw. It goes quickly and is easier than setting up taper
jigs for table saws and even free-handing on the bandsaw. Two or three whisks with the
Stanley smoothing plane gives me exactness and the shaft then gets fitted to the tapered
mortise hole so that there is no gap on either side of the mallet head.
I leave a large excess on the shaft because the wood compresses in the hole and there may
also be additional shrinkage to take place yet. I will usually leave this for a couple of
weeks to make certain there is no major shrinkage that leaves the mallet shaft beneath the
rim of the mortise in the head.
Now that the shaft is fitted I can start shaping the head and the handle to what suits me.