There are two ways to wreck a chisel handle. The first is never owning a mallet and reaching for a hammer every time. The second is owning a mallet and leaving it at the other bench because you don't want to walk.
Same result. Just different timelines.
What the hammer does wrong
A hammer is metal. Metal is rigid. When it hits a wood handle, the force arrives as a spike — sharp, sudden, compressive. The ferrule slows the damage. It doesn't stop it. By month three, you've got a handle that's checking along the grain and a vague sense that chisels are fragile.
They're not fragile. You're using the wrong tool.
A wooden mallet is wood hitting wood. Wood has elasticity. The head compresses slightly on contact, distributes force over a fractionally longer moment, then rebounds cleanly. From the chisel's perspective, it's less spike and more push. The energy delivered is the same — a 16 oz mallet swung at the same velocity as a 16 oz hammer hits just as hard. But the shape of that force over time is different, and that difference is the whole point.
The chisel gets driven. The handle survives. The rebound comes back slowly and predictably, not as a sharp jolt. After an hour of mortise chopping, your forearm knows the difference.
Four types, four jobs
Joiner's mallet. This is the one. Rectangular head, slightly tapered — the face angles a few degrees so it meets the chisel square even at the natural wrist angle of a swing. Head weight usually runs 14–18 oz. Beech is traditional. Hard maple is equally good. Dense fruitwoods — apple, pear — work well if you have them.
Use this for mortise chopping, driving tenons home, and assembly persuasion. If you own one mallet, this is it.
Carver's mallet. Round head. Looks strange next to a joiner's mallet. The round profile means it strikes at the same effective angle regardless of where in the swing the impact falls — which matters when you're working gouges in arcs or driving chisels at compound angles. For straight bench work, the joiner's mallet is better. For carving at odd angles, the round head stops fighting you.
Deadblow mallet. Steel shell filled with lead or steel shot. The shot shifts on impact, absorbing the rebound — the head barely bounces. The force stays in the work. Use this when a second unintended tap would undo the first: driving a tenon that final 1/32", adjusting a hinge gain you've dialed in exactly. For everything else, a wooden mallet is less fatiguing and more natural.
Rubber mallet. Assembly. Drawer boxes. Getting something square in a jig. Not for chisels — the face gives too much and the force transfer is imprecise. Put it on the assembly bench and leave it there.
Weight
People overthink this.
For mortise chopping, you want 16–20 oz in the head. The mallet weight does the work. Your arm provides direction, not force. If you're swinging hard to get through a 3/4" mortise in cherry, the chisel is dull or the mallet is too light.
For fitting and final assembly, 12–14 oz gives more sensitivity. You can feel the joint moving. You can stop at the right moment without committing to a second strike you didn't want.
Most woodworkers need one 16 oz joiner's mallet. If you do a lot of fine fitting or carving, add a lighter one at 12 oz. It won't sit idle.
If you want to make one
A mallet is a reasonable first project. A 3" × 4" × 5" head in hard maple, handle from ash or hickory, mortise-and-wedge attachment. The traditional tapered geometry — faces angled ~5° toward each other top to bottom — handles the face-angle problem and produces good balance naturally. Two hours. No complex joinery.
Weigh the head before assembly. Hard maple at those dimensions comes out around 18–20 oz depending on the blank. If you want lighter, reduce the height. If you want heavier, use a denser species or increase the dimensions. Know what you're building before you build it.
Hold any mallet at the end of the handle before you buy or before you use it. Let it hang. A good mallet is slightly head-heavy and drops smoothly. Dramatically head-heavy means fatigue on long sessions. Handle-heavy means the head doesn't carry enough weight to drive cleanly.
The hammer stays in the drawer. The mallet is always in arm's reach.
Once you understand why wood hits wood better than metal hits wood, you stop making exceptions. The tool that matches the material isn't a nicety. It's just correct physics.