Mauls & Mallets

[salvi]

I just received my first maul yesterday. It is 16 lbs. and well balanced. I think this is the average weight for confortable tooling and small works but some questions come to my mind. Now I am ready to start tooling but I can also imagine because of its weight and size that this is not the proper tool for a heavier duty. I mean hitting a Strap-end, an Oblong punch, or even a standard punch for lacing holes or perhaps to set rivets or eyelets.

My questions are:

When is it supossed to use a mallet instead of a maul?

How many mauls or mallets do we need in our tool boxes? I mean wich one are needed for stamping but for belt making, wallets, etc. where it is also needed the use of rivets, grommets, eyelets or punches.

Please, specify type, size and weights because it would be a good reference for beginners.

Thank you.

:brainbleach:

Edited March 9, 2011 by salvi

[Vikti]

I have a 9 oz. poly mallet and a BK 16 oz. tapered mallet in my kit. I do just about everything with my BK mallet. Now I haven't used it on a strap end punch but I have used it for setting snaps. rivets and oblong punched. Just give the tool a couple of good whacks and keep moving on. I would recommend to not use it on your smaller seeders because you could easily drive it straight through the leather into you slab and ruin your seeder, that's why you have a smaller mallet.

Don't underestimate your maul. Even a 14 oz. one can pack a good punch.

Now, when to use one over the other, I think that for the most part that's personal preference. I use my heavy mallet for almost all my tooling (except for my small seeders), I use my small mallet when I'm using said seeders or when I'm tooling and I don't want to make too much noise, my table that I tool on amplifies almost any kind of noise from hammering to dropping tools on the table.

Just experiment.

Damon

[gtwister09]

Salvi,

Here's a thread that has some compiled maul size information. That should give you some idea and should provide a good reference.

Compiled Maul Sizes

Regards,

Ben

[LilRay]

I recently received a Barry King Maul 16oz. Its made all the difference in the world to my progress. The Tandy mallet I have I seemed to have been pushing the tools with, and with the BK maul, one to two strikes of the tool and I get great impressions versus the several strikes needed with the mallet.

God Bless, Ray

[terrymac]

I use a 16oz. Bearman maul for all my tooling. If I did a lot of basket weave stamping I would probaby want a 24oz. For punches, I use an old rawhide mallet. Probably wouldm't hurt the maul at all, but I have the old mallet, so I just use it.

Terry

[Tina]

I have 2 bearMan Mauls I simply love to use, one 9 oz and the bigger 18 oz if I remember right...The Maul I'm using to make heave impressions such as a makers mark but also other "hard to impress" tools, holes etc. is the wooden one in the picture. My guess that one weighs around 2 kilo (+4 pounds) I found it on Swedish Ebay some time ago.