Maul

As I said yesterday, I am tidying up a little. There are many things that I pick up to throw away having kept them for some future purpose. In tidying phases I try to drag some of these futures into the present by holding on to the object in question until it has become what it was intended to be. I kept this section of wood where a branch joined to a trunk intending to make it into a large mallet or maul. It was one of the pieces of wood that I got back on 18 feb 2006, so when I found it among the debris yesterday I stuck to it and now it feels like it should prove useful. The wood is a type of oak called Kashi in Japanese. It is used for mallets, tool handles and plane bodies as it is very durable. Because the branch is joined to the trunk with a twisty area of grain the thing is very solid and the grain of each part is pointing in the right direction for its purpose. I need a mallet like this for coaxing metal into shape, especially when it is hot and has a texture that would be damaged by a steel hammer. There is another smaller piece of chestnut in the middle of the picture, which looks like it could have some related function . I am also trying to fit handles to and shape up some of the other hammer heads I have acquired and generally pottering about. As I move about sifting through things, I suppose I am also looking for potential materials, allowing my subconscious to work on the roof project. It has already come up with a couple of better ideas while I have been working on these other chores, but thankfully, in the gentlemanly manner of Sherlock holmes it always allows me to take the credit or feeds me little hints so that I think I have discovered the solution for myself.