Wooden Meat Mallet

A hefty mallet made from hard maple, with a smooth face for flattening and a textured face for tenderizing those economical cuts of meat. Fairly easy to make, I did most of it in one afternoon.
Here's a video I made while doing the project:

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I started with a piece of maple 5-1/2" long, 3" wide and 2" thick cut to size and milled the face with a v-groove bit in the router table:

I chose a fairly coarse surface, but it can be cut finer by spacing the v-grooves closer together.

A line is drawn around the head at the centre and a 1" hole is drilled through:

I drilled halfway from one side, then flipped it over to complete the hole from the other side.

For the handle, I cut a 1" square about 16" long and rounded it on the router table:

This is all much easier to see in the video above (the video is cued up to the start of the cut). It is an idea I've been mentally playing with for a while, with the actual intention of cutting wooden screws. Here I did a very rough pass, just to test the idea (more on this in a future project...) and cut the grooves for the rope to fit in. The ends of the rope fit in 3/8" holes drilled into the handle:

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The handle is fixed to the head with slow set epoxy and a wedge driven in. The wedge will be cut off and sanded flush after the epoxy sets.

To solidify the rope wrap on the handle, I dripped it in polyurethane:

I let this soak for about 10 minutes then left it to dry over night.

Here's how it looks when finished:

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I put two brushed on coats of urethane on the mallet. This makes it water resistant and easy to clean.

Thanks for reading,
John Heisz

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