Re: What kind of chisels
William Duffield, on the Cohansey
>I had a discussion on just that subject, over beers, with Frank Klaus and Thomas Lie-Nielsen last fall, after Frank had been chopping dovetails with them all day. Frank's opinion (with which I agree, not that my opinion matters a hill of beans) is that any dense hardwood mallet should work well, but one with an end-grain striking surface would be preferred.
TLN has been using steel hammers designed for driving nails, without damage to the chisels or the hammer.
Back to the hill of beans: I haven't bashed these handles yet, but I've bashed a lot of other chisel handles with lots of different mallets and hammers, so I'll offer some more opinions:
I like the shape of a carver's mallet, and have made these in rock maple, osage orange and cocobolo. They all work fine for striking other wooden handled chisels, including osage orange, purpleheart, oak, beech, etc.
I also made a carpenter's mallet with end-grain beech. It works well, too. It is my weapon of choice for mortise chisels, because I don't care if I mess up the striking face.
I have a Taiwanese shot filled rubber dead blow hammer. I don't like it nearly as much, because the head is too soft, and it doesn't seem to transfer as much force into the chisel. It's great for assembling joints, except it can leave black rubber marks on the wood.
If you have a mallet that you use for bashing mortise chisels with striking rings, don't use it on these, because the dings that the rings put into the face of the mallet will be transfered to the wooden chisel handles.
I would be a wee bit wary of using Jack's recommended Purpleheart, only because it is brittle. If your aim is more consistent than mine, you shouldn't have problems with it, and in fact I made a handle for a "pig sticker" out of it. If you strike it near its edge on a striking ring, it may splinter.
