Stacked Leather Handle Maul

I have a passion for building my own tools. I really wanted to have a stacked leather handle maul to use while doing leatherwork. I hope you enjoy the build!

Supplies

Stainless 1/2-13 Threaded Rod

Brass 2" wide 1/4" thick rectangle bar

Leather 8 Ounce Veg Tan

2.25" UHMW

Big washers or 3/4" ply 2"x2"

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Cut Your Leather Into 2" Squares

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You will need approximately 40 layers of leather.

Punch 1/2" Holes Into the Center of Every Piece.

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Rough Up the Top Grain of the Leather So It Will Have a Good Glue Bond.

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I used a 60 grit belt on my belt grinder but you can do this step completely by hand if necessary.

Glue Prep and Glueing

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I used big aluminum washers as a clamp, but some 3/4" plywood 2" squares would be a easy solution for this clamping rig.

Coat the washers and the threaded rod with an extremely thick layer of Johnsons Paste wax. Apply way more wood glue than you would think is necessary to each piece of leather. The leather really soaks up a lot of glue so be prepared to get messy! Use the washers and some regular nuts to squeeze all the pieces of leather together. I allowed it to dry for 12 hours before unclamping.

Start Shaping Your Handle

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I kept the handle on the threaded rod as a safety precaution while knocking all of the corners off. I mounted it in the lathe on the threaded rod as well. I turned it with standard wood turning tools and it worked surprisingly well. Once I had the shape pretty close I used some sand paper to blend the lathe tooling marks. After sanding I wet the leather(you can also use tokonole) and then used the rod of UHMW as a burnishing tool. Applied a final coat of beeswax and buffed with a rag. Be extremely cautious using a rag on a lathe. My handle measurements are as follows 1 7/8" at the top, 1 25/64" at the skinniest part and 1 1/4" at the bottom.

Drill a 1/2" Hole Through the UHMW

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The UHMW is 2" long and 2.25 in diameter.

Drill and Turn Brass to Size.

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I used the lathe but another option is a drill press to drill it out to 1/2". You can also use a bandsaw or a hacksaw to cut the brass to a 2" circle. The brass is 1/4" thick.

Buff All of Your Brass to a Shine!

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Final Assembly

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Put one acorn nut on the bottom of the threaded rod.

Follow this order

1/2" Brass washer

Leather handle

2" brass piece

UHMW

2" brass piece

Acorn Nut

Tighten using two wrenches.

You may have to adjust the length of your threaded rod according to how long your handle ended up. The leather has quite a bit of give as you tighten the nuts. Ideally the threaded rod would be 8 1/2" long.

Final step is to start hitting stuff with it! 😁