/// MALLETS ///

Not to be confused with hammers, the mallets used by silversmiths can be made from nylon, rubber, wood and, traditionally, rawhide. Anything soft yet firm.

Mallets are used to move the metal without marking the metal, hence being made from a softer material that hammers which are generally made from steel. Hammers can move, mark and stretch the metal, while mallets are used when we want to form the metal into a different shape without marking or stretching the metal.

For example, when making rings, I will mallet the flat metal around a mandrel (long thin conical piece of steel) to get the curved shape necessary to make a ring. Using a mallet is soft enough to not mark the silver, or remove any of the texture, but strong enough to push the silver round into a curve.

The set of three jugs I made, these were created from a flat sheet cut to the correct shape then malletted around a stake (a piece of steel made to the correct curve you are looking to get into your metal) until the correct form was achieved. This isn’t as straightforward as you would think; silver hardens quickly so you have to learn to work with its abilities, knowing how far to push it before annealing. Annealing is heating it up with the torch (massive flame) which relaxes the molecules inside and makes it malleable again. Until you’ve moved it too much and the molecules tighten and need annealing/relaxing again.

I have a number of mallets of different materials, shapes and sizes and using each one gives me joy. As do all my hammers. If you don’t get excited by hammers then you shouldn’t be a silversmith!