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 clump, 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 sur-
face, that conforms to the convexity of the rope intend-
ed 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.