Turned Cocobolo mallet

I had purchased a nice piece of cocobolo a while back that had very nice straight grain which would work out nicely in a mallet glue-up. This mallet is one of a few I glued up using a lamination technique I use for pepper mills once in a while. I wrote an article for woodturningonline.com a while back on this technique for pepper mills.

The square core is ash and as you can see in the WIP picture I make two at once, turn them round, part them off and finish them individually on the lathe. These just have a few coats of wax applied on the lathe, this weighs about 12 oz. which is a little light, but works well for small carving chisels. I still have not turned one good enough to replace my Blue Spruce mallets which are the best you can buy.

Edited: I have added the last two shots showing the ring I added to cover the square part on the handle end. I split a piece of cherry, glued it together on the ends and drilled holes centered on the cut the same size as I turned the handle transition. This piece was then cut and split and glued onto the handle, then turned smooth.

-- Richard D. Wile, http://richard-wile.blogspot.ca/