woodworking
I'm planning to install a lock into a wooden door and I'll need to cut various holes for the lock body using a chisel. I'll need to use something like a hammer or a mallet to drive the chisel and I'm concerned that using a hammer with a steal head would damage the chisel handle. I've seen a lot of photos where a hammer is used and a chisel handle doesn't look very good there.
So which do I use – a hammer (steal head) or a mallet (rubber head) – for driving a chisel when doing woodwork?
Wood fillers for filling grain are very different from those used for structural repairs. Grain fillers are diluted and rubbed into the wood grain. See the attached listing from Constantines, one of the leading woodworking suppliers in the U.S.:
http://www.constantines.com/pastewoodfiller.aspx
They are also a source of components and books on building guitars.
I do not know of a non-U.S. source, but they may ship internationally and their info may help evaluate local resources you find.
Dowels are probably your best bet for this fix because the tool cost is much lower for the case that you need to purchase tools to do this repair. The cost of a doweling jig is much lower than a biscuit cutter. Drilling the dowel holes is easily accomplished with an electric drill.
If you end up with just a one inch wide repair strip added in then I would just drill the dowel holes right through the strip and into the original material on each side. Do check your table top pieces for overall flatness after you separate the two sides from the split. Warped lumber often develops a curvature that spans a greater distance than just one inch. You'll need to take this into account when you decide to start trimming away the split edges.
With properly jointed surfaces on the two trimmed edges and the hardwood accent piece the dowels and glue should be plenty strong to hold things together.
You may want to cut the accent piece just a small bit longer than the amount needed and then trim and sand it to the existing round table edges after the gluing is done. This will give you the greatest opportunity blend the edge of the table to the nicest fit and look.
I see some challenge in clamping the round table to get good tight glue joints. You may need to fabricate some jigs to help provide a place to engage your clamps across the width of the table. The sketch below shows one idea of how to do this. Some flat boards about 4 -> 5 inches wide can have some blocks glued and screwed on the ends that will provide a place to engage the clamps.
I have shown the blocks somewhat offset from where they would actually be attached to the boards so that you can see the nature of how they would fit to the contour of the table edge. Long bar clamps or pipe clamps would be spanned across the table top at the overhang of these boards as shown in the next picture.
Best Answer
A purest would say to use a mallet made of wood or rolled hardened rawhide, but not rubber. I have a couple of sets and even my expensive ones have held up well using a regular 16 oz hammer.
But remember my motto: Every tool in my box is a hammer, except for the screwdrivers which are also chisels"