Nice. I've been using 2 1/2" ABS pipe too. It's cheap and durable. It seems to be available at the regular ol' hardware store. Personally, I like the open end, but this looks interesting.

send me one lucky, and ill tell you what i think

In our area our first generation mallets all had the caps on them for that very reason. We wanted square ends for solid hits and played with them for months.

We've mostly drifted away from them because it lead to mallets being ripped out of our hands. We have players that will hook mallets when you're playing the ball. The caps caused the mallets to hang on each other and usually someone would end up with a mallet being ripped out of their hands.

Capless heads just slid past each other.

I've played with caps and no caps and I've never noticed any improvement in shooting, plus, you can't ball joint with caps.

This area plays with a 1 1/2inch ABS as a standard end form 5-7 inches wide. We square the ends by cutting the ABS with a power miter saw.... brrrap.. cut and square.

Do you find that the ball bounces off in weird directions? Or is that not noticeable? When I've thought about capped ends I've pictured a smaller bit of piping put _inside_ the head.

How is the weight compared to a headless?

- max

Here's what I've been working with. This mallet head was machined out of a solid piece of Delrin, a plastic denser than ABS or MDPE (the yellow stuff from NYC). A process that would be too expensive to sell to other polo-ers even in production.

Max: I've been playing with it for nearly a year now, so I couldn't say if the ABS mallet with caps is lighter than a hollow ABS pipe, but it sure as heck is lighter than this monster.

There is still a 3" wide shuffling surface at the center of the head. I'll report back to you if I notice the ball getting knocked around weird from hitting the edges of the caps.

I feel like my shot improved a lot in power and accuracy when I started using the closed-end mallet. I may have just happened to pick it up right when my skills were improving anyway, though. Joe the lefty from Chicago has the hardest, straightest slapshot in the sport, and he hates this thing. He uses hollow pipe just fine.

Ben: Do you want just a head or a complete mallet?

KG: I hadn't thought about the caps hooking each other because I hadn't played with anyone else with one. That's a good point though. I'll try rounding over the ends (I work in a woodshop and have access to lots of tools) before I assemble the next two heads. We'll see if they'll disconnect from each other more smoothly.

Where do you play?

I think we need to set up a slapshot side event at the NACCCs. Get a radar gun or measure out how far you can smack the ball or something. Points added for distance out, subtracted for distance off the center line.

I haven't seen this Alexis play, but I know that Joe has mushroomed the end of his mallet from all the hard hitting.

I used a file to bevel the edges of the caps on the already assembled mallets, they don't catch each other now. I'll use a router bit at the shop tomorrow on the rest and send one off to Madison, where some one will certainly have a gram scale. You can weigh the capped head against open pipe of equal diameter.

I also thought of dishing the heads inward, concave, but there isn't enough material. I thought if I could come a little closer to the curve of the ball, I could put that much more material behind a hard shot. Like how Alexis could theoretically get a whole ring of contact on the inside of a 2 1/2" pipe. With a flat or domed end, you can only make tangential contact. (This assumes that the ball doesn't deform at all upon contact with the mallet, which can't be true.)

Because I've been playing with the prototype, I have never even attempted the ball joint. So I'll just keep on missing that one.

KG: You're probably aware of this already, but there are 2-4 games of polo a week going on 2 hours west of you, if you'd like to set up some friendlies. http://www.myspace.com/sfbayareabikepolo

waz that

hey eli, you ever see this kid come out to corvallis named levi hes making wine at the U there?

ben an jonny- when you wanna play the 2 on 2 match for 3rd place?
we should play on equal ground like pewaukee or lake mills or something

or you could just come to mke...

Well, I'll plan to keep at it, keep reading the blogs, and keep spreading the word.

with the prototype. It was great. The biggest improvement over the white mallet head (pictured above) has to be the reduced weight. The little wrist shots at full arm extension are way easier with a lighter head.

Another advantage is probably the 2 extra inches of shaft. Of course this has nothing to do with my mallet head making expertise, but adding just a little to the shaft made my shots line up better.

I bet there's an ideal mallet length, just like you're supposed to measure for ski poles or hockey sticks. Someone should get on that. 40" is good for me. I'm 6'1" and ride a 55cm frame for polo.