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I wanted to be sure the mallet's head wouldn't come flying off someday in use and injure the gift recipient, so I worked out a design where the portion of the handle that fits inside the head has scalloped sides, and fits into a matching dado carved into the head. Since the head was to be laminated, it was easy to cut the channel, fit the handle, and glue it up.
Mallets take a lot of abuse, so to ensure that the laminated parts would stay glued together, I ra
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Since this was to be a gift, I chose some nicer woods: apple and walnut for the mallet; and purpleheart and yellowheart for the pegs. And, because I was going to give the mallet away, I went ahead and made two, so I could keep one to use in my shop.
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That was four years ago. Notice anything odd about my four year old mallet? There are no dings or dents. Lesson learned: if you're going to make a mallet, don't use pretty wood, or you won't want to use it.
Fortunately, at the Christmas party, I was the happy recipient of a mallet that one of the other guys made. Even more fortuitous, his mallet was built to be used.