Merthyr the Mallet

[Wayland]

Meet Merthyr the Mallet.

I have a variety of wooden mallets in my camping gear but sometimes things require hitting with a bit of metal. A lump hammer does the job but is, as the name suggests, a bit of a lump to carry round.

While wandering around Merthyr Mawr at the Bushmoot this year, I stumbled ( quite literally ) upon an old 2" nut, half buried in the ground, which sparked an idea.

After a bit of cleaning up and firmly wedged onto a bit of beech I found lying around in my workshop we now have just the thing.

Reduce, Reuse, Recycle and all that.

 

[JonathanD]

Looks medieval.

 

[Wayland]

As does much of my kit, although I think nuts like this would mostly be post industrial.

 

[TeeDee]

Looks like a Hate stick.

 

[Mesquite]

Nice one, it'll go well with your WW1 trench mace ::

 

[oldtimer]

Should be an effective nutcracker!

 

[Wayland]

Nice one, it'll go well with your WW1 trench mace ::

Actually, the bronze headed mace you saw is early medieval. Trench maces were much nastier.

 

[FerlasDave]

Do you mean Merthyr?

 

[Wayland]

Do you mean Merthyr?

Oops yes, my mistake.

 

[FerlasDave]

Wasn’t being rude, but I know south is very different to our northern dialect.

 

[Wayland]

Entirely my error. I'm so used to Old Norse which regularly uses "r" for name endings without a "y".

 

[Wayland]

For clarity, this is the company it will keep.

You can clearly see the damage done to the wooden mallets by using them on metal pegs and tools.

The leather wrapped one is for leatherwork.

 

[CLEM]

Looks medieval.

That was my exact thought too.

 

[Wayland]

Seems to have been a common perception judging by responses here and on FB.

I guess a lump on a stick brings such things to mind which is something to consider when using it.

Interesting that a hammer or an axe do not seem to produce quite the same kind of reaction even though they were also used in exactly the same kind of context.

 

[FerlasDave]

Did you turn the handle or just carve it free hand?

 

[Wayland]

It was part of a rolling pin that I had used part of for another job.