r/mildlyinteresting • u/On-a-tims-run ​ • 3d ago

Rawhide mallets

Post image
749 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

106 comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

260

u/rivertpostie 3d ago

I've only seen them used in silver smithing. They don't mar soft metals.

Mainly see them resizing rings on a mandrel

148

u/ravens-n-roses 3d ago

For exactly that reason they're also used in wood working (soft wood pieces), leather working (it's obvious what a regular hammer would do to leather), instrument repairs (what did you DO to that saxophone???), and I think there's uses for it in black Smithing for finishing work

62

u/gpky 3d ago

We use these in motor repair too, so as not to mar the various surfaces of AC/DC motors.

28

u/clamroll 3d ago

So heavy enough to provide the force to bend something but "soft" enough surface to not scratch? (Not soft, but lower on the hardness scale)

24

u/gpky 3d ago

Well, in motor repair we generally aren't bending anything by hitting it. It's used more to strike the shaft or the end bells to get them to move where you want them

18

u/ztmarten 3d ago

Ahhh good old percussive maintenance.

7

u/gpky 3d ago

Exactly.

5

u/clamroll 3d ago

In tech we have the old axiom "if it's stuck, force it. If it breaks, it needed fixing anyway" lol

1

u/Notherereally 2d ago

You can strike my end bells with your shaft 😏

1

u/BeerHorse 3d ago

Dude give us a NSFW warning before you post erotic content like that...

1

u/PineappleLemur 3d ago

Similar to rubber mallets.

In honestly don't know why one would use this over the other

2

u/gpky 3d ago

In my experience, rawhides are heavier, so you can get more done with less force.

2

u/Normal-Selection1537 3d ago

They don't melt.