MALLET, a large kind of hammer made of wood; much used by artificers who work with a chisel, as sculptors, masons, and stone-cutters, whose mallet is ordinarily round; and by carpenters, joiners, &c. who use it square. There are several sorts of mallets used for different purposes on ship-board. The calking mallet is chiefly employed to drive the oakum into the seams of a ship, where the edges of the planks are joined to each other in the sides, deck, or bottom. The head of this mallet is long and cylindrical, being hooped with iron to prevent it from splitting in the exercise of calking. There is also the serving mallet, used in serving the rigging, by binding the spun yarn more firmly about it than it could possibly be done by hand, which is performed in the following manner; the spun-yarn being previously rolled up in a large ball or clue, two or three turns of it are passed about the rope, and about the body of the mallet, which for this purpose is furnished with a round channel in its surface, that conforms to the convexity of the rope intended to be served. The turns of the spun-yarn being strained round the mallet, so as to confine it firmly to the rope, which is extended above the deck, one man passes the ball continually about the rope, whilst the other, at the same time, winds on the spun-yarn by means of the mallet, whose handle acting as a lever strains every turn about the rope as firm as possible.