Refurbishing Wooden Hammer | Modify Mallet

This instructable shows how can we refurbish or modify the existing old fashioned wooden hammers that are being used from centuries.

Wooden Hammers or Mallets are used in various industries, such as upholstery work, and a variety of other general purposes. It is a tool of preference for wood workers using chisels with plastic or wooden handles, as they give a softened strike with a positive drive.

Wooden mallets are usually used in carpentry to knock wooden pieces together, or to drive dowels or chisels. A wooden mallet will not deform the striking end of a metal tool, as most metal hammers would. It is also used to reduce the force driving the cutting edge of a chisel, giving better control.

So, here I modified my wooden mallet with a decent grip, a soft strike at one end and a bit hard strike at the other end and also some designs at the end.

Let's see the making now.

Tools and Materials

Here are the Tools and Materials that I personally used to Refurbish my wooden Hammer or mallet are listed below,

TOOLS

A Wooden Hammer
Scissor
File or Sandpaper
C-Clamp
Compass with Pen
Ruler

MATERIALS

PVC Sheet
Rubber or Tyre Tube
Rexine Fabric Cloth
Paper Tape or Masking Tape
Golden Thread

OTHERS

Varnish Coating Agent
Black Spray Paint
Wood Glue
Super Glue

Making Soft Hitter

As I discussed earlier a hammer is used in various applications to drive something with different pressure levels. In some cases, we need a soft strike and in other case we need a hard strike, but in both the cases our striking end should not affect the drive end.

That's why, I have added both soft and hard end to my hammer.

In this step I have used some rubber from bike Tyre Tubes. you can also use hard rubbers if you have. But, it works just fine.

Just cut a small round piece and glue it with wood glue or special rubber glue.

Making Tough Hitter

In this step I made the hard striking end using some PVC sheets. As it's not that metal hard but its harder than rubber. This hard end is suitable to drive some small nails or something like this.

I cut a round piece of the PVC and glued it to the other end with regular wood glue and clamped both the ends to dry overnight.

Trimming and Polishing

Next morning, I opened the clamp and trimmed the extra rubber edges and filed both the ends to make it smooth and very round.

Adding Handle Grip

Then, I added a simple grip to may Handle. For this I used some Rexine fabric cloth (which something looks like leather too).

I used wood glue all over the handle length and wrapped the Rexine fabric and fixed with some super glue. (As we need to bind it in order to dry the glue or it will come out).

Adding Double Layer Grip

Here I have added a double layer to my handle so that it provides a better grip and less striking force gets transferred into hand.

Seal Handle Bottom

Lastly, I covered up the bottom end of my handle with a small round piece of the fabric cloth. Now, our handle is all covered up.

Adding Design Patterns

Next, I used some Golden threads to mark some patterns at the handle junction. I glued and wrapped all over the places to have a fine finish design.

Now, it enhances the beauty and brings an expensive look to the hammer.

Coloring Border Lines

Also, I added some Black bars at both the striking ends of my hammer. I covered up the opened ares with some masking tape (or paper tape) and spray paint the linings.

After Dried

Spray paints are quick dry paints. So, after few minutes it is good to remove the masking tapes and reveal the black bars. It looks way cool and separates both the striking ends from each other.

Apply Coating

At last, I have applied some Varnish as a coating agent to the open areas of my hammer. This way it gives a tint shade and also protects the wood in long run.