Shortly after I made that, my friend Karla convinced me to try making a set of quiet mallets that she could use to play her balafon without making too much noise so as not to disturb her tenants if they happened to be home. After some research, I managed to devise a way to make a set of mallets that was significantly quieter by wrapping some yarn around some sticks (admittedly, in a very specific way). She liked them so much that she commissioned a second set for her friend and fellow balafon enthusiast, so all the learning and whatnot I had to do didn't go to waste.
Then a few months back, Karla mentioned that her instructor had said it would be a good idea if both she and her friend tried practicing with heavier mallets as a way to build up their hand and wrist strength a bit, and allow them to play faster patterns with their regular mallets. Well, this was yet another interesting problem that I couldn't resist mulling over (and it didn't hurt that she promised to pay me for two sets of mallets, either).
So I thought about it for a while, and eventually came up with the idea of using copper pipe - which I thought was kind of a stroke of genius, given that they would then match the copper accents on the balafon stand. (For what it's worth, I rejected a couple of other approaches that involved using heavy weights somehow attached to the end of a stick. Mostly because they all sucked and - at best - were conspicuously inelegant.)
Also to match the balafon stand, I decided to make the new handles out of Baltic birch plywood (at least for one set - I had a couple cherry ones left over from the last batch). I cut down a couple of offcuts from the bent bookcases into strips, and then turned them into octagonal cylinders at the table saw.
This was totally safe, and not at all scary or dangerous.
Then I busted out the sandpaper and went to town. Hey, I needed to make them round and I don't have a lathe. Not even one of these ridiculously good and surprisingly reasonably-priced ones from Lee Valley
After sanding down all the edges and making my octagons round, I made some tenons so they could fit snugly into the copper pipe. I don't have a lathe (as I may have mentioned), so I had to make them by very carefully rotating them over the dado blade on the table saw.
This was totally safe, and not at all scary or dangerous.
At the last moment I had another stroke of genius (I thought), and turned another tenon on the opposite end of each handle so I could fit a copper cap over it.
Then it was on to cutting down, sanding, polishing, clear-coating, re-sanding and re-polishing (because I messed up the clear-coating), clear-coating again, then re-re-sanding and re-re-polishing (because I messed up the clear-coating AGAIN), and finally clear-coating for a third time all of the copper bits. Oh, and I also had to file down the little stopper nubs on the insides of the connections because otherwise they wouldn't slip all the way over the pipe.
Somewhere in there I also put two coats of Danish oil and two coats of wipe on poly on the wooden pieces, too. If you're wondering why there's five of everything, it's because I wanted a test piece to make sure the assembly process wasn't going to be like trying to finish the damn copper.
Then I was faced with the last hurdle in my brilliant plan: what to fill the copper pipes with?
Originally, I was thinking of using BBs because I had a bunch lying around (don't ask), but they were kind of an awkward size, given the diameter of the pipe, and there was no real way to keep them from rattling around. Then I considered using kitty litter because I had a bunch lying around (obviously), but it turns out that kitty litter is super light for its volume. (And no, Dad, I'm not going to fill them with USED kitty litter, even if that would be totally hilarious and super gross.)
So I went to Home Despot and bought 25 kilos of playground sand.
Of which I used exactly 0.64% during a rather stressful afternoon of epoxy, little wooden plugs, copper caps, funnels, swearing, and assembly. But it worked!
Then it was time to repeat the mallet-head making process which, I'm happy to say, I remember enough of from last time to make it relatively painless and easy.
And here are the finished mallets:
If you're curious, the regular mallets weigh about 65 grams each. These ones are somewhere in the neighbourhood of 150g each. So a pretty significant difference and, according to Karla, already paying dividends!
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