RogerS":3d3d5tkz said:
If you want to hit the chisel harder you use the thinner end...the energy is more dense. And vice versa. Then on the other hand I could be talking complete rollox :shock:
Coming from the point of view of physics rather than practical experience...:
If there's any effect at all, I think it's more likely to be the other way around - the further the point of contact is from the pivot of the swing (your shoulder/elbow/wrist depending on how you swing) the faster it's going to be moving, so the more energy there is to transfer into the chisel. But then, the mallet's going to stop entirely when it hits, so probably all that energy gets transferred regardless of where on the mallet hits, unless you hit the chisel so low down on the mallet that the rest of the mallet pivots around it and moves past it!
Density comes into play because the heavier the thing that hits (denser if the same size, or larger, if a similar density material), the more momentum it has when moving at the same speed, so the more energy can be transferred - imagine the difference being hit by a 2m/s steel lump hammer and a 2m/s chunk of packaging polystyrene! But I wouldn't expect that this part has much of an effect with a mallet, since the entire mallet is going to stop once it hits anything anyway, so it should transfer the same momentum regardless of where on the mallet you hit with.
The other similar factor is the pressure of the impact itself - how small or large an area the force is spread over (e.g. the difference between being tapped by a hammer or being tapped by the nail that's being tapped by that hammer), but again, since the contact point with the chisel will be roughly the same, that comes into effect at the other end, and explains why sharper chisels cut better - because there's a smaller surface at the leading edge of the chisel moving into the material. ;-)
Hitting squarer makes more sense to me - since if you hit off-square you're likely to tilt the chisel by accident and not cut where you wanted to - but does that mean that with a conical mallet I should be swinging as if to hit half-way down the length of the chisel instead of at the tip? I can't say I've ever noticed a particular problem with my square-ended mallet!
