Maul Vs Mallet My Experience

[Boriqua]

Thought I would post on my recent experience since I know many people have similar questions. For years I used the cheap Tandy yellow poly mallet but eventually found it was a little light and bought a Garland rawhide mallet. The one I bought was about 19oz but the head was not flat it was concave. This gave me no end of fits since the sweet spot was about a 3/4 diameter spot in the center. I eventually sanded and ground one end flat.

For a couple of years now I have been reading everything there was about the Maul vs mallet because I never did fall in love with the Garland. I just recently bought a 27 oz tapered head poly maul. Here is what I found.

The handle on the mallet is fairly narrow and if I inadvertently hit to the left or right of dead center the mallet would twist in my hand. I had gotten so concerned about this that I started to take a death grip on the stamp so it wouldnt deflect if the head twisted. I also started to choke up on the handle. This worked ok but my stamp hand would start cramping after about 30 minutes. Now I am not new to tools or hammers having been building things my whole life but while the larger head, over a traditional wood working hammer, makes you think you have more effective space the truth is the sweet spot doesnt change so all that extra width gives you is an opportunity to have the hammer twist in your hand with more leverage. The sweet spot is still going to be over the handle. Hitting the tool with any force to the left or right just makes it spin.

Sure you can practice anything and get good at it but I would prefer my tools work with me and not me work with them. My concerns about a maul are the same that I read most people having. THE DAMN THING IS ROUND! How in the world will I consistently hit a 1/4" round tool top with it. Well I am here to tell you that it is as natural as can be and after a straight 1.5 hours of tooling yesterday I didnt have one glancing blow.

I bought a somewhat inexpensive import because I was afraid I would hate it and I am not getting rich making leather goods but the one I bought has a leather handle that looks like it was bathed in edgecoat. Not beautifully done but nice. It is tapered, white poly and it is 27 oz. The handle is much wider and shorter than the stick handle on the Garland and contoured. Because of the shorter handle I felt like I could have gone a bit heavier but they only offered the tapered in 27 oz and on paper that seemed plenty heavy but I could have gone up a little and been a little happier. With the shorter handle my advice is to go a little heavier than what you might have been thinking. I think 1 lb for this tool would have been insanely light. My wife, an itty bitty 60 yr old, has no problem with the 27 oz. I cant see what a 1 pounder would be used for.

The taper was perfect and I scored there since I vacillated. I do a good deal of stamping standing and my piece is on an 18 in tall wood cookie on top of a counter in my shed which brings the piece somewhere between my navel and solar plexus. At that height my arm would have to be way up to strike the tool squarely with a non tapered maul.

The other type of tooling I do requires me to sit and is little tight fidgety detail pieces with elbow on the table. Being able to don my magnifying glasses and focus on the tool face makes the tapered perfect here too but what might be prefect for me may not be for you so YMMV. The poly head bounces some. Took some getting used to since the rawhide I had been using is fairly dead. After a little time I realized you can make the bounce work for you and while I don't necessarily focus on speed my second holster took half the time to basket weave than I had ever done before. Hit bounce move tool repeat.

Anyway .. I spent about $55 shipped to me and that is a fair amount of scratch for a retiree. I read countless posts and in the end after waiting nearly 2 years I wish I had done it sooner. No cramps, faster more accurate and better looking work. What more could I want.

I hope that helps someone out who was on the fence. So many of the posts I read just kind of went with its better just because but I wanted to put some why to it.

Garland untreated concave face

Garland ground face

[SouthernCross]

Boriqua, are you still satsfied with your maul?  What is the seller's name?

[Boriqua]

2 minutes ago, SouthernCross said:

Boriqua, are you still satsfied with your maul?  What is the seller's name?

Funny you should ask .. I was going to go over my old threads and let anyone that was interested know what I thought of some of the tools I had now been using a while.

As far as the maul .. yup .. I still love it. I had to add a leather spacer after about 4 months but its dry as hell in AZ. Other than that it has performed wonderfully and has held up well. I use it probably 4 days a week for stamping and some setting. Here is where i got mine

http://www.wrising.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=7&zenid=f330ad7fe550f9131980e586d6d6acc1

[SouthernCross]

Thank you, sir.