Restoring Fine Tools


Old Mallet - what's inside? by Jack Kamishlian

 

Gentle Galoots,

With all the discussion about carving mallets, I thought that I'd send along pictures of a mallet that I picked up at an auction more than a few years ago. It has a brass top and bottom, and it has round leather strips were cut out an applied to the shaft of the mallet.

The top and bottom appear to be cast and are screwed together. I haven't taken it apart. It appears to be craftsman made, but that's just a guess. Looks like someone went to a lot of effort to make a carving mallet. I couldn't resist it - at the auction, that is.

I used a little force and removed the 4 screws. I spread the top 5 leather discs, and find that the shaft diameter is about the same as at the top.

I'm very cautious about going down lower because I may loosen the grip between the leather discs and the shaft.

However, I'll hold to my earlier guess that the discs were put on wet and shrunk down to the shaft, assuming that the hole was punched undersize to begin with.

Looking at the leather disc, it doesn't appear to be punched by machine. At least the top ones don't. That is, where the screws go.

By the way, the leather measures about 1/8" thick. I leave the pictures for your analysis.

Jack Kamishlian
January, 2006

 
 

   
             
 

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