Mallet Melody

The children are now competent users of a variety of tools including bow saws and fixed blade knives. Today we introduced a new tool to their repetoire, a billhook.

A billhook is a traditional tool used to cleave wood and in particular for hedge laying.

We used the billhook today to enable us to fashion the handle of our mallets. We began making our mallets by cutting groove around the perimeter of a pine log (left over from Christmas) to the depth of the bow saw blade. On the first attempt the boys discovered that they had not been cutting in a straight line, so for the second attempt, they decided to mark where to cut with a pen. We then sawed through the log roughly 6 inches above from where we had cut the groove. Next, we used the billhook to cleave the handle of the billhook working towards where we had cut the groove. In the next session we will use a fixed blade knife to remove the bark from the head of the mallet and to smooth and round the handle.
The children had a novel use for the mallets. The decided to use them a drumsticks to play a tune whilst Rehan danced along to the rhythm. Judging by how well they worked together and kept in time with each other, Thursdays drumming lessons with Mr Payne are definitely paying off.