Everyone who’s into percussion knows: ya gotta get the right mallet if you want a good sound. Many sorts of percussion mallets are available for purchase, but a lot of us like to make our own from easily sourced materials. So it’s helpful to know, what widely available materials are good for making mallet heads for what sorts of instruments? Different applications call for different hardnesses, weights and sizes. For many percussion needs there are commonplace items that can serve nicely. But it happens that for one oft-needed mallet type there doesn’t seem to be any readily available suitable material for make-your-own mallet heads. In search of a resolution to this problem, I did some extra investigations. In this article I’ll go over what I learned, including answers to that specific problem along with various other useful bits of information.
The mallet type in question could be described as moderately hard, medium weight, medium small — a type one often needs because it’s good for many metallophones and a lot of other sounding bodies as well. The desired hardness happens to be about that of a golf ball — for percussionists there’s often a need for a mallet that is golf-ball-hard but smaller and lighter. What to use?
As a start, it’s helpful to understand how to measure hardness. If you had a standardized measure representing the hardness of a golf ball, you could look for other materials with similar hardness. For most of us there’s no ready way to test the hardness of a given material – we don’t have hardness-testing equipment in our homes or shops. I have found that my jaw muscles are fairly sensitive to variations in hardness, and that by biting on different materials I can usually tell which of two materials is the harder – but that’s obviously a very crude measure. Looking for something more precise, we find that there isn’t a single universal rating system for measuring hardness. Instead, there are different systems for different materials and applications. For hard plastics and rubbers the most widely used standard is the Shore Durometer rating, which in turn is divided into several overlapping sections useful for different ranges of hardness. For mallet-making materials, the relevant ranges are in the upper reaches of the sub-scale called Shore A or, equivalently, the midrange of Shore D. This web page has an instructive chart showing the hardness values of various commonplace items. For example, the durometer for typical high-bounce rubber balls is usually around 60 or 70 Shore A. A typical plastic drawer-pull knob, being made of a much harder plastic, would come in beyond the Shore A range, typically somewhere around 70 Shore D. Between the two is our coveted golf ball, which comes in at around 90-95 Shore A or 50 Shore D.
Knowing that, we can now ask the question, what other common objects might have a durometer rating in the same range? You can also find answers to this question with a bit of google searching. Items that such a search will turn up include:
Various sorts of caster wheels, often listed as Shore 95A. These come in various sizes down to 1″ diameter though most are larger. These have the disadvantage that they come mounted in the casters, requiring the extra step of removal.
Skateboard wheels. These are often sold with durometer indicated, typically in the range we’re looking for here.
Hockey pucks (actually slightly softer, in the 85A – 90A range).
But notice, alas, that none of these items are as small as we’d like (though the smallest of the caster wheels might come close). If you really search, you might also find some specialized bushings that are smaller, but they tend to be rather costly.
Let us consider another approach. Instead of looking for commonplace readymades that fit the bill, let’s look into raw materials. You could start by going to something like the McMaster-Carr website – always a good source of information on hardware materials and a seemingly infinite inventory of industrial resources. For many raw materials listed there, durometer ratings are given. You can find plastic spheres in a range of sizes and durometers – potentially excellent candidates for mallet heads — but they too are rather costly. However, you can get polyurethane rods in a range of diameters and durometers, and the price per inch is more manageable. If you purchase a 24″polyurethane rod of ¾″ or 1″ diameter and 90A or 95A durometer, you can make quite a few mallets by slicing the rod into ½” or ¾” segments and mounting on handles. The results are good: as percussion mallets, they work much as you’d wish – golf ball hardness but with smaller size and lighter weight. The resulting shape – cylindrical rather than spherical – may not be ideal for all purposes but is good for many.
My investigation into hardness measures led me to wonder about the high-bounce rubber balls that home-made percussionists often rely on for mallets at the soft end of the hardness spectrum. These are often referred to generically as superballs, but I’m old enough to remember when Superball was a trademarked name for a particular brand. Are all the many current knock-offs the same as the original, and is one just as good as another for percussion purposes? All those knock-offs can seem like a godsend because they are so widely available, in a wide range of sizes, and at low cost.
The original Wham-O Superball first appeared in 1965. For kids back then they were a big deal, heavily advertised and a huge hit, because the way they bounced was like nothing we’d ever seen. It seemed miraculous! Those original Superballs, it turns out, were made of a proprietary material called by the space-age name of Zectron, which was a special formulation consisting primarily of polybutidiene. The cheaper knock-offs sold these days may also be of polybutadiene, but without the same formula of added ingredients. They’re not as miraculously bouncy and, important for our purposes, are a bit softer. For a higher price you can still get the original Wham-O superball, although the range of sizes is more limited than the knock-offs. I purchased a couple of the originals and found that they really are much more wonderfully crazy bouncy than the knock-offs, and that the slightly harder Zectron formulation is preferable for most percussion purposes. Another thing to note about the original: it had terrific traction, which makes it more fun for a kid to play with and also makes it excellent for use in friction mallets. (The knock-offs can also work as friction mallets, but not as well as the original.)
At the start of this article I spoke about commonplace items and materials that are useful as percussion mallet heads of different hardnesses, sizes and weights. Following here is a list of several that I’ve found useful. Readers no doubt will have others to add to the list.
For very soft mallets:
Superballs. Available in a range of sizes and weights. See the notes above for more information.
Other rubber balls. Most old-fashioned rubber balls are softer than those that are sold as superballs and useful only in unusual applications calling for extremely soft mallets. They may prove useful in situations calling for sizes and weights larger than what’s available in superballs. Heavy silicon rubber balls can be excellent for some applications, although they’re not widely available and tend to be costly.
Rubber band wrapping: By wrapping the end of a stick of chosen weight in latex rubber bands, you can to some extent calibrate the hardness by how many layers you wrap on, ranging from soft with just a few layers to very soft with more. Be aware that the latex will degrade over time with exposure to light, especially if stretched to high tension. See additional notes below about over-wrapping.
For medium-soft mallets:
For mallets a harder than a superball but still moderately soft, there’s a cheater solution in the form of cheapy store-bought mallets. Amazon has several options for low-cost rubber-headed mallets in this medium-soft range, and sometimes the easiest solution is just to purchase some of those. Admittedly, there’s a problem in that there’s no good way to know just how hard the mallets you’re purchasing are until you receive them, but in my experience those inexpensive rubber-head mallets are most often in the medium-soft range.
For larger sizes you can use baseballs or softballs.
For medium-hard mallets
Golf balls are go-to solution in applications calling for a medium-hard mallet that is fairly large and heavy.
Ping pong balls can be surprisingly effective in applications calling for extremely light, medium-hard mallets.
Skateboard wheels. These are often sold with durometer indicated, typically in the range we’re looking for here.
Hockey Pucks and furniture caster wheels may serve well when a larger and heavier mallet head is needed.
Polyurethane plastic filament for 3D printers, in the form of a 2mm cord, is available in the coveted 95A durometer. Would it be possible to make a wrapped mallet head with this stuff? (I haven’t tried it.)
But what about …? Aside from the printer filament, all of the above are large and heavy. There aren’t a lot of ready-made options I’m aware of for smaller mallets in the medium-hard range. See the discussion above for information on purchasing raw materials for making such mallets.
For hard mallets
There are lots of inexpensive, readily available choices for hard mallets in a wide range of sizes and weights. Think of wooden and plastic knobs, drawer pulls and the like. For larger and heavier, think of pool balls. When these materials are a bit too hard, you can add a softer surface coating as described below.
In a few cases calling for something very hard, you can use bare metal (typically against an equally hard or harder metal). A heavy metal mallet head will amost always be too much, but there are times which a light metal rod with no separate head is just the thing.
Adding a surface layer to a hard mallet head to make it a bit softer:
If you’re unable to put your hands on a mallet head material of just the right hardness for the instrument at hand, it’s sometimes possible to get to a more suitable hardness by adding a softer coating or covering to a slightly harder mallet head. There are various ways to do this. Here are three easy approaches:
Dip the mallet head in Plasti Dip or a similar liquid plastic dip. This stuff is used for coating tool handles and for other purposes and it’s widely available. One dip only makes things a tiny bit softer, so many dips may be required, potentially making the process time-consuming or expensive.
Wrap the mallet head in something like moleskin, which is a pliable, conforming, adhesive-backed soft, felt-like fabric used for foot care.
Drape a square of suitably soft fabric over the mallet head, gathering it with a rubber band or other tie around the handle at the base of the head.
Wrap the mallet head in rubber bands. Disadvantage: the latex deteriorates over time, especially if stretched and/or exposed to light.
Some especially heavy sounding bodies call for an especially heavy mallet. This might be the case with very large, carillon-type bells, for instance. Hanging outside my place I have a giant antique steel circular sawblade repurposed as a flat gong. It’s 30″ in diameter and made of very heavy steel; sounds great. In cases like that you can experiment with a very heavy, hard core wrapped in something softer. For the sawblade gong I use a very thick, short steel bolt wrapped in a layer of firm sponge rubber with a cloth apron draped over the head and tied at the collar. Bear in mind that in these cases you’ll need to experiment; what I’ve just described would be too soft for many applications.