Читать книгу The Handyman's Book of Tools, Materials, and Processes Employed in Woodworking - Paul N. Hasluck - Страница 117

Mallets are used by the woodworker for driving wood chisels, for knocking light framing together, and for other purposes where the use of a steel-faced hammer would leave unsightly marks and probably damage both tools and material. Suitable mallets are illustrated by Figs. 331 and 332. The first of these shows the ordinary mortised beech “square” mallet; a convenient size for this head is from 4 in. to 6 in. long, and about half as thick. The square handle is slightly rounded to suit the hand. Perhaps a more convenient tool is the American pattern shown by Fig. 332, in which all the sharp edges are chamfered off, and the handle is round and easier to grasp. In some kinds of American mallets the handle screws into the head. English mallets are of beech, and American ones of hickory or lignum vitæ. The round mallet that is bound or cored with iron is not recommended for joiners’ use. If the sides of a wooden mallet are slightly convex, there will be less risk of damaging the work when knocking it together. The mallet itself is, in both form and material, a very old tool. Those figured on the tombs of Egypt might have been drawn from present day stonemasons’ mallets, they are so like them. The Egyptian mallets—or hammers, as they would be called now—are indented in a deep circular ring, as though used all round against the very jagged head of a metal chisel.

Fig. 330.—Hammer Head with Wired Wedge.

Fig. 331.—English Mallet.