workshop · 03 · mallet · turned beech head
a soft, kind hammer. its head is end-grain beech so it strikes without bruising; its haft is hornbeam, fitted dry and let to swell into the mortice. you swing it from the wrist, not the shoulder; that is the whole instruction.
it lives by the chisels on the bench and rarely travels further than the vice. one face is paler than the other from a thousand small taps; the dark face has rested patient in the rack since before the war.
field-note · the sound is dull, not bright. a bright sound means the chisel is loose.