Doc,
Some time ago, I saw an episode of WoodWorks with David Marks where he made wooden body planes. The blade was held in by a wedge and you tightened the wedge by tapping with a hammer and you loosened the wedge by tapping the back of the plane body with a hammer. Marks used a brass head hammer but i feel a wooden head might be more appropriate.
Bill L.
Taking a cue from my uncle, a craftsman, I have many wooden mallets. I made many of them of different species. I use a softer wood mallet to tap the harder project wood, so as not to damage the project wood. When a head becomes too damaged (seldom), I replace it. Some heads are not perpendicular to the handle, about 8 to 10 degrees off, to accommodate a slightly different drive when needed. I have a wide variety of sizes and some have a wedge shape on one face. A few I've added cow hide straps simply for decor, like a tomahawk. On the brighter side, those of 4" or larger heads are attitude adjusters, not mallets, and more for display than use. Many I have are tree limb heads on tree limb handles, no two alike, and I've learned to distinguish them for particular uses. Besides, why waste a good tree limb by trashing it? Make a mallet.... or an attitude adjuster.
I also do upholstery work. Leather or rawhide mallets are used to drive tack strips into place and to attach front arm panels, and the like, onto the furniture. The tack strips and panel structures are under the fabric, so the leather mallet, though hard, does not damage the fabric when driving these tack/nail applications. I also have a series of short wooden plugs (3" long dowels of different diameters), wrapped in scrap fabric, that I sometimes use as buffers between mallet and fabric-structure application. As with anything, you can go over-board and tap too hard and damage anything, so some care is required when tacking/nailing through fabric, this way. Vinyl hammer heads (tack hammers) are used for decorative tacks, so as not to damage the decorative tacks. I suppose small wood mallets may have been used before vinyl came along.
Sonny
Wood hammers are great for engine building to knock in pins, pistons, timing gears, etc, or for a "setup man" of factory machinery for example a slitterman in a paper factory that needs to knock the rotating knive spacing in place without damaging them before he locks them down on the shaft. Or any application where you dont want to damage the usually metal part but do want to move it.
HomeOwnersHub website is not affiliated with any of the manufacturers or service providers discussed here. All logos and trade names are the property of their respective owners.