A wooden mallet held in a person’s hand, with a grassy background.

Over the last few evenings, I built my first mallet. As I was making it, I made a big mistake, but I went on making it. I made other smaller mistakes but in the end I have a mallet, that, while not perfect, is a nice addition to my tools. I will only build better mallets in the future.

I’ve been attempting to do more of hand tool woodworking, which involves joinery that takes some effort with chisels to get right. I’ve been using them with a cheap rubber mallet. That has worked fine but I wanted to make my own with hardwood.

I have some scraps lying around, and I found a nice piece of 1" thick walnut (Western, I think) in there. The wood had mostly the characteristic dark brown of walnut, but it all had some lighter sap wood. I decided to make the handle from the sap wood, so that I would have some contrast between handle and head.

A wooden board is lying on a surface. A measuring tape is stretched across the wood, showing its length.

I cut the pieces to dimensions that made sense but here is where I made the big mistake. I cut the pieces of the head in a way that the edge grain ended up on the top and bottom of the head, rather than on the striking faces.

Several rectangular pieces of wood arranged on a light-colored surface.

But the cuts were made and I was committed. I knew I would make mistakes going into this so this didn’t stop me from proceeding.

I lined up the pieces to shape the space for the handle in the head and glued up the pieces to form the head. This is where I made the second mistake. I had seen videos where the person would use a nail gun to hold the pieces in places, but I didn’t have one, so I got some small finishing nails, and hammered them by hand. This led to misalignment of the pieces. As a result, once the head was all glued up, it had to be trimmed to form proper faces.

Pieces of wood glued and clamped together on a workbench, with clamps securing them in place. Woodworking tools and supplies are also visible.

I also chamfered and/or sanded every sharp edge using the band saw and the belt sander. In the end I had a nicely shaped head. The handle was a tight fit but I glued it up and hammered it into place.

A mallet head and a handle lie on a table. Nearby, there is a red sanding block and a black rubber mallet.

The next day I sanded, and cleaned up all surfaces and applied two coats of Watco Danish Oil (Natural). After letting it cure for a day or so, it is now ready. I’m looking forward to chisel work with it in the near future.