I will need a smaller mallet for my smaller froe. I use dogwood a lot for spoons. Because it has a interlocking grain and is tough. Do you think a dogwood root ball would be toughenuff to use on steel, of should i use something harder like sourwood or persimmon.
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New mallet
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Yes sir i have honey locust and some naturalized black and yellow and the hornbeam. I will more than likely use the dogwood. Cant split the handle out but i can whittle it down with a hatchet and hand aze. and it acts very polite once i get it on the drawing horse.
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Hornbeam or Dogwood are your best choices there. Heavy and hard. The dogwood out here is red osier and rarely gets larger than arrow shaft material. No hornbeam, either. Cut some in MN a few years ago. For density and toughness, its very comparable to pignut hickory.
Sean
Sean
paulvallandigham
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IN the east of the USA, the dogwood is a tree, that only gets about 20 feet tall, but spread out. It has white blossums in the Spring that contrast nicely if you have a crab apple tree nearby, where the blossums emerge at the same time, but are red or pink. Dogwood takes a lot of time to grow, even with much rain, so its a dense wood. Crab apple can be as hard as any apple, or as soft. I have cut some crab apple trees that were as hard as nails, when dried. I have not seen one big enough to get a gunstock out of, but you could make knife handles from the wood.
longshot47
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Can't beat hornbeam [ironwood].
Not easy to work, but outlasts all the others. :thumbsup:
Not easy to work, but outlasts all the others. :thumbsup:
Mr. Haney: I asked this question on another forum, and was told dogwood was excellent choice for a maul. We have flowering dogwood here in Oregon, and I need to find a likely victim myself.
paulvallandigham
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What am I, an Encyclopedia? Oh, well, I looked it up for you. IronWood and Hop Hornbean are the same tree. Very hard wood, and used to make some tool handles. Dogwood is a different species, but also has a hardwood. Its the State tree for Virginia, and N. Carolina, and also for British Columbia, so it can be found throughout N. America.
paulvallandigham
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What am I, an Encyclopedia? Oh, well, I looked it up for you. IronWood and Hop Hornbean are the same tree. Very hard wood, and used to make some tool handles. Dogwood is a different species, but also has a hardwood. Its the State tree for Virginia, and N. Carolina, and also for British Columbia, so it can be found throughout N. America. The Encyclopeida says that ironwood can grow to 40 feet in height.. I climbed an ironwood tree in my grandparents front yard as a kid in Chicago, so I will attest that at least in climates with adequate water, it is a tree, and not a bush or shrub.
I dont know about every were else (most of my map is blank or says there be dragons there) but here.Flowering dogwood and hornbeam are seperate under story or second canopy trees my largest dogwood is about 10" and hornbeam about 14" most are in the 4 to 6" range.
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There's actually three species of hornbeam. American Hornbeam grows in the understory in bottomland hardwoods in the east. Hop Hornbeam other grows in the uplands on well drained sites in the eastern US and Knowltons Hop Hornbeam grows in the SW:
Type in 'Hornbeam' in the common name search in this page.
http://plants.usda.gov/
Click on each on the results of the search and you should be able to get range maps. In many cases, you can get range maps for individual states.
Ironwood is also a common name for a desert shrub that is one of the densest hardwoods in North America. Its slightly heavier than osage orange. See link.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=OLTE
Sean
Type in 'Hornbeam' in the common name search in this page.
http://plants.usda.gov/
Click on each on the results of the search and you should be able to get range maps. In many cases, you can get range maps for individual states.
Ironwood is also a common name for a desert shrub that is one of the densest hardwoods in North America. Its slightly heavier than osage orange. See link.
http://plants.usda.gov/java/profile?symbol=OLTE
Sean
windwalker_au
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i made this mallet from jarrah a western australian hard wood,its hard.
the handle is a wood called mallet which grows in the south west of the state,it makes good self bows aswell.
bernie :thumbsup:
the handle is a wood called mallet which grows in the south west of the state,it makes good self bows aswell.
bernie :thumbsup:
I wouldn't bother making a mallet for a froe. It takes too much of a beating and wont last in the long run.
I've been using a short club or bat to motovate my froe. I just worked down one end of a chunk of some hard wood to make a handle.
Save your mallet making talents for something that won't get beat to death.
T.
I've been using a short club or bat to motovate my froe. I just worked down one end of a chunk of some hard wood to make a handle.
Save your mallet making talents for something that won't get beat to death.
T.
got to go with trogers on this one. Why put together something pretty just to bugger it all up beating it against a piece of steel. Heck an old baseball bat will work just fine with a froe, unless ya want to go PC, then a carved out club type mallet should be fine to use.
Haven't used my froe in quite some time now. When I had it made (there's actually a functioning blacksmith shop in scenic downtown Trenton NJ), I took a page out of one of Roy Underhill's books and dug up a white oak sapling to make my froe club. I trimmed the roots back to the solid part of the root ball, and cut the trunk off so that I had about 30" of club. The grain in the roots is gnarled & interlocked, makes for a real tough club. I dug up my sapling from the side of a hill, so the root ball was slightly offset of center, almost like a war club effect. Was a simple project, dig it up, trim the roots, cut the trunk & peel the bark and it's ready. Took a lot of abuse. It's probably still sitting around out in the shed somewhere.
Gonna miss you at Lancaster, Brother Bird. Neighborhood won't be the same. I will lift a wee dram to you from one of our "holdings"
Gonna miss you at Lancaster, Brother Bird. Neighborhood won't be the same. I will lift a wee dram to you from one of our "holdings"
The type of mallet that you describe is the type i will be making next weekend and not the gavel type pictured above. I have one that is about 18" with about a 6" clyinder head that came in a tool box i picked up a auction. I am looking at making one that is about 10" with a 3" head. Sometimes the larger one is like using a framing hammer to start tacks.
Im not making it just for the froe i carve a lot of wood. yes you can use anything to start a froe couse once you get it started you are through driving it ya use the handle and twist it through the split it gives a lot better control that way. This mallet is not for looks but rather just a comfortable tool.
