This week we have to turn a wooden mallet — consisting of a mallet head, handle, and pin. I purchased a pack of 2″ x 2″ x 12″ square blanks of lumber as well as a chunk of maple ambrosia that was 3″ x 6″ x 6″ that I cut down to about 3″ x 3″ x 6″ to start for the mallet head.
The first day I worked on this, I was able to get the rough shape of both the handle and the head.
The second day I worked on finishing up the shapes, as well as drilling the 1″ hole for my handle into the head. I turned the handle, and with the advice from Angelo, I was going to have a stepped drill hole so the mallet handle can be more flush to the head.
I got to the end, and was going to trim the insert part of the handle but made a STUPID mistake and trimmed the wrong marking. DOUBLE CHECK YOUR CUT MARKS, KIDDOS.
I’m so dumb, oops. Guess I just have to trim the handle. Which will be fine, the original piece I wasn’t totally happy with the friction fit between the two parts, so I’ll use this opportunity to make a tighter fit.
So I had to return to the lathe and shorten the handle. When I was redoing the handle, instead of the stepped holes, I made a gradual slope to the taper… if that makes sense.
I drilled the perpendicular hole for the pin, but messed up inserting the pin, as I’m not 100% sure if it went into the handle itself, but currently the pins inserted were from each end and are broken off. I think once it dries, I will re-drill and re-insert the pin.
Bianca Gan 