Making a Dead Blow Mallet with a Brass Handle

in today's video i'm making a dead blow mallet i don't have one and it should be a useful tool to have in the workshop it's going to be a bit similar in design to my soft face mallet i made a couple years ago but it really is quite a bit different i'll make the handle from brass but the rest of it i'll make from black wattle i'll make the head of the mallet with two halves that will get glued together and it'll have a middle layer made up of thinner pieces the thinner pieces will form a mortise for the handle to fit into when the head is glued together now i'll mark and drill recesses to put some lead into i wanted to make this a dead blow mallet but i think i need to fill the recesses to get as much weight in there that i can as the mallet isn't the biggest if i did make it a dead blow mallet it would need space for the shot to move around and that means there would be less lead and less weight and i'm not sure that would be heavy enough there's still a bit left to this story so keep watching till the end i've decided to melt these old fishing weights and pour them directly into the recesses i tried to put extra in there by filling them to the top they didn't stick but that's okay because there's plenty in there anyway while the glue sets on the head i'll get started on the handle i got myself mixed up with the template and actually used it the wrong way around it made little difference though as it was just about an even curve and it was only a rough outline anyway i could have cut this out on the bandsaw and refined it on the belt grinder but i wanted to show you can do many tasks with basic tools and i actually enjoy working this way anyhow i should have gone about this differently to make things easier as the handle needs to be symmetrical a better way would have been to make a template in software printed it out and stuck it to the workpiece and then i would have had a definite line to work to instead i kept checking it by eye and taking a bit off this side and a bit off the other until it looked about right i definitely made that much tougher than it needed to be but i got there in the end i drew a line around it on a piece of paper flipped it over and went around it again to see how different they were it was pretty close not perfect but close enough that you wouldn't be able to tell next i'll make some wooden scales for the handle and i'll make those from black wattle to match the head next i'll take some weight out of the handle and lighten it as the brass is really quite heavy this will give the mallet a better balance and will be much better to use the two dots that i've marked are where i'll be adding pins later on i'll do that after i've glued the scales on so i'm making sure not to drill too close to them before i glue on the scales i'll shape the ends of them first i'm cleaning everything down with acetone first before i epoxy the scales onto the handle i left the handle overnight for the epoxy to set so now i can start shaping it that's the handle done for now so i'll get back to the head and trim it down to its final length before i turn the head on the lathe i'll first make a couple of rings that will give the ends of the mallet more support and stop them from splitting i'm making these from 40mm galvanized pipe i wanted to use brass tube but i've searched everywhere locally and i can't find any anywhere so after mentioning it on patreon a supporter told me a technique to add a brass finish to steel so that's what i'm going to do to add the brass it's just the case of heating up the ring and then brushing it with a brass wire brush and some of the brass will transfer onto the steel ring if you haven't already seen i just made a video showing it in more detail and i'll put a link to that above i reckon that turned out great now i'll start turning the head now that it's round i'll turn down the tenons for the rings to fit onto i've made a big mistake in fact i've made a couple i've gone through to the lead here and the first thing i did wrong is i made this tenon here bigger than what i was going to do forgetting about the lead and then the next thing i did is i sized this part here to where the ring is and for this transition here and what i've done is i've gone straight across and taken out too much material and then i couldn't shape it properly so if i had done this ring from around here i could have come up and over it and there would have been enough room so anyway i'm going to remake the head but there's one good thing from it i think the head's far too heavy so it doesn't need as much lead as what i thought it did so i am going to make it a dead blow mallet now that was a great fit as well i've got back to this stage off camera i've drilled the holes slightly closer to the center to give me more room here and also i am going to leave it a little bit longer this time i could have drilled in from the ends and plugged them i thought about doing that originally as well the plugs would have to have a collar on but the holes would still be the same diameter they would still be the same depth and i wouldn't really be gaining anything so i've done it this way again now i'm going to fill it up with shot i'll fill this deeper side with shot and then this section here will be a void and we'll have a dead blow mallet just like with the brass tube i couldn't find lead shot anywhere locally i could have ordered some online but i didn't want to wait a week so i cut some lead weights up to use instead  and by the way i have a respirator on while doing this even though i'm not making any fine dust but lead isn't the friendliest thing to work with it's not lead shot but it'll work and now i'll try and take the corners off those pieces i won't show too much of this as i'll get back to where i left off with the first one now the tenons are done i'll shape the head but this time i won't try and size the ends i'll just do it by eye and here's the weight of the original head and the weight of the new one just in case you're interested i put a black ring that i had onto the old head just to see how it would look and i decided i preferred it to the brass ones and i went through all that trouble to find brass tube and then making brass ones anyway here i am blackening the two new rings if you want to see this in more detail i'll link the steel finishes video again that i linked earlier on now it's time to put it together and it's the same procedure as earlier everything needs thoroughly cleaning down with acetone first i don't reckon these rings will come off   they're super tight and with the epoxy they aren't going anywhere on one side there were a few furry bits gathering as the ring really was super tight but i trimmed those off easy enough with a utility knife i'll glue the handle in leave it overnight to set and then i'll pin it later on when i was turning the head i forgot to put the detail lines in they're not needed but i like them so i'm going to try and put them in anyway the head won't turn on the lathe now that the handles attached but i reckon i could carve them with a v gouge now i'll mark out the holes for the pins i could have done this earlier before turning the head which would have been easier i went through slowly with a small drill bit first just to try and minimize tear out and then with the right size drill bit for the pins i drilled in from either side for the pins i use five minute epoxy it's not as strong as the epoxy that i used earlier on but it'll be plenty of strong enough for these it's a bit different i think i like it but anyway it will be good for hitting things hopefully you like it and hopefully you enjoyed the video if you did please like and subscribe thanks for watching and i'll see you on the next one

Channel: Pask Makes

Views: 959,498

Keywords: paskmakes, pask, pask makes

Id: qFv1_14vVhw

Length: 24min 33sec (1473 seconds)

Published: Sun Feb 28 2021