Hello from NC (and a nod to Colt)

[Steveage]

Hey, all. My name is Steve, and in my first post here, I wanted to introduce myself and also say thank you! After scouring the Internet looking for inspiration and ideas on crafting mauls/mallets for leatherworking, I stumbled across this thread, and discovered leatherworker.net:

https://leatherworker.net/forum/topic/71204-making-leather-working-mauls/?tab=comments#comment-465294

That thread is one of the best online resources about crafting a maul or mallet designed specifically for leatherworking. There just isn’t a lot of information available on how to make them. There really isn’t a gigantic assortment for sale, either, with only a couple players in the game. At the high end are the Barry King mallets and mauls: Beautiful and polished. Perfectly balanced and weighted. High-quality tools with exceptional curb appeal, they function as good as they look. At the bottom end of the scale are the endless assortment popping up all over Amazon: Utilitarian and rough. Not really balanced, and lacking enough weight, they don’t feel good in the hand, and they don’t draw your eyes when they’re on the shelf. After being disappointed with my first Amazon mallet, I tried twice again before I realized that they are all, more or less, just copies of one another. There are also a couple of intermediaries worth noting. I’ve put my money into a couple of them, so I feel qualified to offer my experience here. The first is the Maulmaster II, from Tandy. At 22 ounces, it’s heavy for a small maul, and it’s solid and well-built. But the striking surface is just too small. For me, anyway. Your mileage may vary, but I strike glancing blows every time I use it. It’s pretty good for repetitive tapping, but that’s about all. And while it’s not exactly ugly, it’s no shelf queen, either. Especially at 65 bucks, or whatever it was I paid for it. The other contender is a mallet from Frogjelly Leather. I had high hopes for this one, I really did. I wanted to like it. I tried to like it, and I gave it an honest chance... before finally tearing it apart to see if I could somehow add some weight to it. That didn’t make me like it any better, and I realized that I’d wasted $49.99 plus tax and shipping on yet another mallet I didn’t like. So, here at last are a few of my solutions. The one on the far left in the first picture is the Maulmaster II, from Tandy. Obviously, I didn’t make that one, but I wanted to include it for size reference. 

Construction:
I cut 10/12oz veg tan leather into 2” squares, and then used an arbor press to punch holes in the center of each square. I made a little jig so that I didn’t have to keep eyeballing the center:

 

After cutting and punching enough leather for the handle, I threaded each square onto an eight-inch carriage bolt held upright by another little helper I made. Each layer was glued on top of the next with polyvinyl acetate adhesive (white glue, Elmers, Gorilla, etc). The glue drying around the threaded bolt is easily overcome by a liberal slathering of leather conditioning balm to the bolt. That’s a lug nut I re-threaded from fine to coarse to fit the carriage bolt because I wanted to try out a new tap and die set. I tightened it down until the glue dried, approximately overnight.

Once dry, I twisted the stacked leather off the jig, and onto another carriage bolt so it can be chucked up on the lathe. I kept forgetting to take pictures of everything I did along the way, but you can get an idea in this picture as I was applying leather dye. I formed each handle using standard HSS lathe tools. A bowl gouge and negative rake scraper worked perfectly, for those of you familiar with lathe tools.

The striker of each maul or mallet is made from Nylon 6 (66? 6,6?). I tried a variety of plastics before settling on Nylon, including HDPE, UHMW HDPE (ultra-high molecular weight, high density polyethylene. Say that ten times in a row backwards, standing on one foot), and acetal co-polymer (Delrin). The Nylon just felt the best. It didn’t deform as much as the other plastics, had little to no rebound, and overall, was more satisfying when it made contact with a leather stamp. The nylon came as one long tube, in whatever diameter x whatever length you specified. I cut it into the lengths I needed with a hand saw, chucked it up on the lathe, and machined it using HSS lathe tools. My go-to tools are usually bowl gouges and negative rake scrapers.

The brass caps serve two purposes: to hold everything together and to add weight. They were cut from flat bar stock with a tiny Wen drill press and a carbide tipped hole saw. Brass isn’t a joy to machine on a wood lathe, and it will chatter incessantly about the whole process, but with carbide tipped tools it can be done with enough precision for my purposes. HSS actually cut the better initially, but I had to keep stopping to sharpen my tools so often that it was faster to just stick to carbide.

Tapping and threading the center holes to tighten down on the carriage bolts:

The heads of the carriage bolts had raised nomenclature that needed to be removed (belt sander, not shown), and then they needed to be polished. Back to the lathe to make them as shiny as the top of my balding head seen in the picture lol!

A few more pictures... I wanted to use higher resolution to capture more detail, but I was limited to 1.46MB total max size, and I didn't feel like messing around with image hosting:

 

I guess that's about it! Once I kinda figured out what I was doing, these mauls were a pleasure to make. I enjoyed each step in the process, but to be able to hold a high-quality, decent-looking tool that I created myself was its own reward entirely. I've already thought of some improvements I could make for the next batch, that would both streamline the process and give a more polished look to the finished product. Please feel free to comment and critique- I don't mind a bit if you think they suck, just please let me know why you think they suck, and how I could improve upon them.

It’s been over a year since the OP of the thread I mentioned at the beginning, Mr. Colt W. Knight, has been seen around here, but I want to give a big thanks to him for the wealth of inspiration and knowledge he put into that thread. And a big thanks to everyone else who contributed, as well.

Cheers!
Steve

 

 

 

 

 

Edited August 19, 2022 by Steveage
Typos, etc...

[Bert03241]

Well you did a bang up job of making bangers they look great and I bet they do the job perfectly. A lotta work for you but you enjoyed it and thats what counts . Great job and a great write up

[PastorBob]

10 hours ago, Steveage said:

I enjoyed each step in the process, but to be able to hold a high-quality, decent-looking tool that I created myself was its own reward entirely.

Those look great!  Love the stacked leather handle.  Wish I had a lathe.  Would a belt sander work to shape the handle?  Nice work.

[chuck123wapati]

On 8/19/2022 at 6:05 AM, PastorBob said:

Those look great!  Love the stacked leather handle.  Wish I had a lathe.  Would a belt sander work to shape the handle?  Nice work.

yes it would spin the work in a hand drill while using it against the sander. I ve made numerous round things that way including lifters, scribe and modeling tools out of stainless all thread. i was finally able to afford a small bench lathe just a year ago.

On 8/18/2022 at 7:47 PM, Steveage said:

Hey, all. My name is Steve, and in my first post here, I wanted to introduce myself and also say thank you! After scouring the Internet looking for inspiration and ideas on crafting mauls/mallets for leatherworking, I stumbled across this thread, and discovered leatherworker.net:

 

It’s been over a year since the OP of the thread I mentioned at the beginning, Mr. Colt W. Knight, has been seen around here, but I want to give a big thanks to him for the wealth of inspiration and knowledge he put into that thread. And a big thanks to everyone else who contributed, as well.

Cheers!
Steve

 

fine work there friend!!!

Edited August 26, 2022 by Northmount
Reduce repetition

[Steveage]

Thanks for the kind words!

A friend stopped by couple days ago and glanced at the assortment of mauls and mallets I had sitting out on the coffee table and asked, "why do you have so many of those? Don't they all do the same thing?"

Well, yes they do, but let me explain...

[chuck123wapati]

7 hours ago, Steveage said:

Thanks for the kind words!

A friend stopped by couple days ago and glanced at the assortment of mauls and mallets I had sitting out on the coffee table and asked, "why do you have so many of those? Don't they all do the same thing?"

Well, yes they do, but let me explain...

when i do brass on my wood lathe i use files, they work well.

[AlamoJoe2002]

Steve,

That is a great presentation and description of your process. Nicely done!

I could go out and buy a tool but I like the tinkering process and always feel good when I'm using the tools I made. -Joe

[Steveage]

On 8/20/2022 at 9:52 AM, chuck123wapati said:

when i do brass on my wood lathe i use files, they work well.

Doh! I hadn't even thought of using files! Thank you for that- it'll save me from having to listen to much chattering brass in the future.

[crazytailorlady]

That is a huge amount of work but wow the results look fantastic. You've made yourself some real quality tools.

[Northmount]

On 8/18/2022 at 7:47 PM, Steveage said:

I didn't feel like messing around with image hosting

Thanks for not using 3rd party hosting.  When the host changes policies, or files are moved or deleted, etc. the thread becomes useless.

[doubleh]

Great job and I understand the urge to make your own as I do the same. There is a lot of satisfaction in using a tool that was made by yourself. I also enjoy the making.

[battlemunky]

I'm pretty sure the road to hell is paved with mallets, mauls, and hammers for me. Those look great @Steveage, thanks for taking us along with you.

[chuck123wapati]

14 hours ago, Steveage said:

Doh! I hadn't even thought of using files! Thank you for that- it'll save me from having to listen to much chattering brass in the future.

use the square tip as you would a scraper too. 

[Steveage]

On 8/26/2022 at 7:40 AM, Northmount said:

Thanks for not using 3rd party hosting.  When the host changes policies, or files are moved or deleted, etc. the thread becomes useless.

I know, right? I can't count the number of times I've discovered old threads on various forums, with no pictures and dead links.

On 8/26/2022 at 3:22 PM, chuck123wapati said:

use the square tip as you would a scraper too. 

Can't wait to try that as soon as I restock on materials!

[Brokenolmarine]

I enjoyed the thread immensely.  I like to make things I need as well. But my constructs lean more to woodwork as I don't weld or have a lathe.  The wife saw one on sale and commented it wasn't that expensive.  I pulled up several pictures of turners corners and pointed to the tool boards beside the lathes.    The lathe is just the tip of that iceberg.... 

With my other hobbies, I'm not falling down that well. 

 

Great job, a good maul makes all the difference.

[ArkieNewbie]

On 8/20/2022 at 1:48 AM, Steveage said:

Well, yes they do, but let me explain...

Awesome work on the mauls! I'm constantly impressed by what folks can do with a lathe. 

I find myself starting conversations about leather off like the quote A LOT! "So you just cut stuff out and sew it together?" "Well stitch actually, it'll be easier if I just explain the whole process..." And by the time I get done they no longer care 

[doubleh]

Excellent work and I understand the urge to make your own tools as I do it regularly. I have made a couple of non-marring hammers but never a maul. Same principal, little different shape. I prefer a mallet over a maul though.