The mallet was turned from some glued up lilac. I scavenged it from a friend who had a lot of ice storm damage to his lilac bushes, back in the late 1980's. It is a wonderful wood to saw into. The heartwood is a most beautiful color of purple, that loses its color in a few weeks. But oh, what a beautiful few weeks it is! It is very hard but does separate at the growth rings after some hammering. All things considered it is not the mallet wood that rosewood or lignum vitea is it but still very functional. I have a lignum vitea mallet and a rose wood mallet, but I use my own shop made lilac mallet 90% of the time just because I've got one!!!

But, enough about the mallet. The gouges and chisles are also homemade. The two on the left are from some W1 tool steel I picked up somewhere. I use them a lot. They are ground flat on one side and convex ground on the other. I have never seen a shape like this anywhere, but I use them frequently to clean up inside edges. I just roll them or slide them inside a flat edge to cut off things cleanly. They are very easy to sharpen. The next three are from W1, that I used once or twice when I was doing alot of wood carving. The next is a garage sale gouge that needed a new handle that I made of lilac. The last four are firmer chisles I made from W1 toolsteel, and are used to clean up the inside of mortices.

Hello all,

I just ordered some saw blades from Wenzloff and Sons and am going to make my own hand saws. Well- make my own handles at least. You can order the blades blank, toothed, or toothed/set/sharpened. Here is a link http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/component/virtuemart/saw-kits-and-parts.html

I went with two 24" blades- one 10 PPI crosscut, and one 7 PPI rip, and also one half-back 20" saw with 14 PPI Crosscut. I already have a good dovetail 14 PPI rip saw. Later I will probably make a back saw and miter saw, but money limits me at the moment.

I am interested to see any other home-brewed tools on the forum. By the way, these guys also offer free downloadable handle patterns that would work great for shop-made jigs as well as hand saws. They even have the famious Disston D8 w/thumbhole. http://www.wenzloffandsons.com/faq/36-saw-kit-tech/71-saw-patterns.html