🔨 Garland 11002 Rawhide Mallet Size 2: Professional-Grade Rawhide Mallet for Precise and Impactful Strikes Review

My dad loved getting these for Christmas! You just can't find them easily! His favorite hammer that my mom and her lawnmower ran over! I'm glad I found a quality replacement. Bought him two sizes and he can ask for more.

The Garland Rawhide Hammer is a quality product made in the USA. I felt uncomfortable after reading reviews of other products when looking for metal forging hammers and am fairly new to the trade. These hammers exceeded my expectations!

Size 2 Rawhide Hammer is ideal for jewelry making. It's nice to get such a high quality product at an affordable price. It does not mark rings or bracelets. The hammer softens. A hammer can be softened "quicker" by dipping it in warm water and tapping it on a clean, flat surface.

Great hammer, workhorse on my bench. One issue is that the sticker on the side was very sticky and difficult to remove - obviously this doesn't affect the use of the tool, but I'm not a fan of sticky residue. I suspect this is a storage issue that could potentially affect how the hammer head attaches to the handle. But so far I haven't had any major problems

I've seen some people complain about the harshness of this hammer but let me tell you. You're doing it wrong! It will take forever to "beat" it softer, and it needs to be tempered before use. Here's how: Bring water to a boil, remove from heat, insert a hammer head, let steep 20-30 minutes, batter wet, then air dry. This will soften the skin and the glue. 👍

Fantastic quality Made in USA. Wouldn't buy any other brand. Wanted used but had to buy new. That's a problem with the new one: the resin it's cured in is VERY hard and scratches/scratches my silver and gold. I spent 2 hours on the anvil to soften it. Maybe in 2-3 years it will be the perfect rawhide hammer. I'll lovingly pat it out until it's soft enough to stop ruining my jewelry!

I read how to prepare a new hammer for use. I use the method of soaking in boiling water and then grating it. I accidentally used the metal teeth of a giant pipe wrench to tap on it so I could sit and watch TV while I did it (got my family crazy, but oh well). It softened enough not to damage my jewelry metal and removed the hard resin that is too hard and sharp. The second size is a good weight and fits me on a ring mandrel. I expect this to last a very long time - or outlive me.

I give this one 5 stars and highly recommend it. The build quality compared to the cheaper China version is very noticeable. It's really heavy but if you just use it, it will break. I've read that you can speed up the process by soaking it in very hot water, but I decided to just hammer it in with my jeweler's anvil. A few hundred hard hits on the anvil and it catches it's starting to break.still very hard but won't ruin the silver and size #2 is just right for silver ring making.I already…