Making (A Bunch Of) Rawhide Mauls?

[SandSquid]

I need to get a hold of several medium weight mauls for the campers to use here. Being of limited funds and wild imagination, got to thinking that a resourceful person with a modicum of turning skills and a wood lathe ( at the house, 150 miles away....) and a hardware store could probably make quite a few for not much money.

I'm guessing the the "hardware" is about a 10" long 1" bolt, and some fender washers and a acorn nut to cap it off.

Handle is easy enough...

The rawhide head has me puzzled.

I'm thinking a bunch of rawhide stacked and glued together with contact cement, or epoxy?

They don't need to be fancy or even nice just useable!

[mlapaglia]

I need to get a hold of several medium weight mauls for the campers to use here. Being of limited funds and wild imagination, got to thinking that a resourceful person with a modicum of turning skills and a wood lathe ( at the house, 150 miles away....) and a hardware store could probably make quite a few for not much money.

I'm guessing the the "hardware" is about a 10" long 1" bolt, and some fender washers and a acorn nut to cap it off.

Handle is easy enough...

The rawhide head has me puzzled.

I'm thinking a bunch of rawhide stacked and glued together with contact cement, or epoxy?

They don't need to be fancy or even nice just useable!

Have you thought of a hardwood Maul? There are cultures that only use a wooden maul with great success. Get some hard 4x4/s round them out and turn a handle on the end. I have seen and used one that was a 4x4 left flat and just a handle chiseled on the end. Worked great. Cost even less than making your own rawhide ones. Heck in a pinch one time I used a 3 inch log of pine from the fireplace stack and that worked great.

[Northmount]

There is a post somewhere here that has a number of photos and details where a person was experimenting with making their own rawhide maul. A 1" diameter bolt is expensive overkill. 3/8" should be plenty. Your handle and rawhide will make it plenty rigid. I think they used rawhide dog chews as the source for the rawhide. Since you have nice quiet evenings next to the campfire, I'll let you do the search! I'm lazy.

Should be a fun project. I have thought about it too. Have to get a couple other projects done first.

CTG

[electrathon]

http://www.harborfreight.com/1-lb-neon-orange-dead-blow-hammer-41796.html

About half the cost of what you are going to pay for the bolts.

[BIGGUNDOCTOR]

Th eproblem I would see with the dead blow hammers is that the surface gives too much, and they do not take well to hitting small diameter items that are hard.

I was going to suggest a mallet as opposed to a maul, as that is all I have ever used.

[electrathon]

Th eproblem I would see with the dead blow hammers is that the surface gives too much, and they do not take well to hitting small diameter items that are hard.

I was going to suggest a mallet as opposed to a maul, as that is all I have ever used.

When I am using a bigger tool, like a basketweave, I always use a dead blow. It stops the double impact from the bouncing. I have one I got a couple years ago and it is still working great. Another 10 years or so and it may fail. If it does I will pay another $6 and get another one.

[mlapaglia]

Glue a piece of rawhide or leather to the face of the deadblow. Thats what I did to mine. I used leather and contact cement. Works great.

[SandSquid]

That mallet would totally work, and the price is right, I'll pick up a few next time I get down to "the big city"...

The closest Harbor Freight is still an hour away in Jackson, TN though.

[mlapaglia]

Careful. A 1 lb mallet in the hands of an inexperenced child can be dangerous. A single point seeder will go half way into the granite.

[Sylvia]

Why not just cut a bunch of 2.5" chunks from a nice sized limb and drill a whole and put a stick into it??

You can make some wedges to help hold the heads on the handles.