In this photo tutorial, James shows us how he turns a carving mallet. The main interesting component of this tutorial is that James covers the head of his carving mallet with black ABS. James shows how to put the plastic onto the mallet head and then shows us how he fills the head with lead.
James considers this the perfect mallet because it does not damage his tools and the plastic stays intact too!
In this tutorial, James shows us how he uses leather to make a mallet head. It's not complicated and will make a mallet that you can use with your metal tools, like your carving gouges.
The tutorial doesn't really cover turning the handle but show some good photo's of it. An experienced turner will know how to do this and any beginners should reference our "How to make Tool Handles" in the Articles section of Woodturning Online.
In this photo tutorial, Keith shows us how he turns a wood mallet on this lathe. What's special about this tutorial is that Keith makes an oval handle for his mallet. Holding a mallet with an oval handle is more comfortable and better suited for our hands.
And since the technique of an oval handle can be applied to many tools, it's one well worth learning. So, go ahead and make one yourself to get that great technique done!
One of the by products of many chuck-based turning processes is a cut-off tenon, sometimes called a spigot. When I first started using my lathe I threw these remnants in the trash, but lately began keeping the better ones as it occurred to me I could glue them up to make something useful.
In this project, Tom shows how he uses those scrap cut-offs to make a glue-up mallet, both the head and the handle.
The one-piece carvers mallet is a great project for new woodturners because in its simple forms it is easy to turn but provides good practice with basic turning tools and skills. Start out with simple shapes to build confidence and skills before adding more difficult design elements to increase the challenge at your own pace.
As your skills increase, the basic mallet can morph into nutcrackers, tenderizing hammers or even pestles for mortar and pestle sets. Once the basic procedures are mastered, your creativity is the only limitation when creating gifts, or just having fun on a rainy afternoon.
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