Does anyone know of a source for mallet components of shafts and cores?

shafts can be made out of anything, really ,(but preferably wood), its really the length that you need to worry about.
there is also a variety of cores you can use. you can roll up masking tape, i heard that works well. rubber is the sensible thing you should use though. just use trial and error. it might take a while to find your "utopia mallet", but it will test your patience. hope this helps.

Hi,

I've just started to make mallets for my son after many years of absence on the marimba. The mallets sound pretty decent. If there is a Rag Shoppe near you (it's a national chain of craft shops... just look in the yello pages), you can pick up 1" or 1 1/4" wooden balls. They also sell 1/4" and 5/16" wooden birch dowels, various kinds of felt, and tons of different yarns. Also, get a needle and some thread.

I usually cut the dowels to 16-1/2" length. You can drill a hole in the wooden balls, and glue the ball to the dowel. Then it's a matter of experimenting with different kinds of felt wrappings and yarns.

You can also get rubber super balls from vending machines for a quarter apiece. I find that most of the super balls now are made of soft rubber. I wish I could find a source for different hardnesses of rubber, and different shapes of rubber cores.

If anyone knows a source for cores, let us know. If anyone knows where to buy tonkin bamboo for timp mallets, can you let us know about those too?

There was a recent article in PAS Notes from Janis Pooter (I think) on how to wrap mallets.

-marc