Lignum Mallet

[Doug B]

After reading Phil’s bowling ball thread I thought I post a few photos of the making of my own lignum bowling ball mallet.
I was given half a bowling ball a few years back.

I’d always admired the Blue Spruce mallets so thought I’d base my design on theirs, after cutting the blank out on the bandsaw it was over to the lathe.

The lignum turned beautifully & whilst dense with only half a ball to work with I decided to increase the weight by joining the mallet head to the handle with a steel shaft inserted into both.
So after initial shaping I drilled a hole in the head to match the diameter of the bolt I used as the shaft, the head was masked & the shaft glued in place with Araldite.

The glued shaft

I could then hold the shaft in the chuck & finish turning the head.

A Hornbeam handle was then turned with a hole drilled in it to match the shaft.

After cutting the shaft to give a nice head handle balance it was simply a matter of gluing & clamping the parts together again with epoxy resin.

The hornbeam was oiled but the lignum vitae was so oily I simply burnished it.

It really is a nice mallet to use, the extra heft due to the metal shaft is great in what is a compact mallet.

 

[mikej460]

Lovely job and great talent

 

[MikeO]

What size is the mallet head. I find a lot of stress cracks in surface of bowling balls so you have to cut a lot away.

 

[MikeO]

Beautiful mallet btw

 

[pe2dave]

Does a mallet need 'flex', to account for the stress of blows?
Does Lignum have any give?
Interesting to find out.

 

[Jameshow]

Lovely!

I'm off to the green asap, I'm sure I can run faster than they can.....!

 

[okeydokey]

Very nice work
On a slightly different tack bowling balls are now made from some type of manmade material- must be hard - rubber or summat?
Can they be turned or do they have some sort of nasty inside not compatible with now wood turning lathe tools - anyone tried?

 

[Suffolkboy]

Very nice work
On a slightly different tack bowling balls are now made from some type of manmade material- must be hard - rubber or summat?
Can they be turned or do they have some sort of nasty inside not compatible with now wood turning lathe tools - anyone tried?

I tried one of my grandfathers to see what it was made of.

Don't bother trying. Dust is horrible and it smells and looks like dung.

 

[MikeO]

Dont use manmade stuff use lignum about a tenner each on ebay.

 

[Doug B]

What size is the mallet head. I find a lot of stress cracks in surface of bowling balls so you have to cut a lot away.

The head is just over 2” in diameter, there were a few minor stress cracks but nothing major & they haven’t open up at all in the 7 years since I made it.
It has however change colour to a green brown which I rather like, this is it today.

 

[Doug B]

Does a mallet need 'flex', to account for the stress of blows?
Does Lignum have any give?
Interesting to find out.

I think it depends on the intended use of the mallet, I‘d say a carpenters mallet definitely needs a little flex, the lignum doesn’t appear to flex at all but this little mallet was never intended for thrashing something like a mortise chisel but more delicate work.

 

[MikeO]

The head is just over 2” in diameter, there were a few minor stress cracks but nothing major & they haven’t open up at all in the 7 years since I made it.
It has however change colour to a green brown which I rather like, this is it today.View attachment 136768

Looks great. I like bolt for weight.