..Before using you need to hammer on the two ends of the leather roll with a heavy hammer to loosen up the binding so you get the proper response...I used a framing hammer, with the other side of the mallet on a steel plate... strike hard about 10 times on each end. When the tap on a sample wood block sound the same as the tap of the first knuckle of your middle finger, it is ready to use!
..The Poor Man's Wood Tone Identifier Tool:
..The First Knuckle of the middle finger gives the same response as a leather mallet. (compare to the above tool to verify for your self)...
..For Tap Tone; Second Knuckle...
...The first knuckle is all you really need to identify Wood Tone match or not...
However, if you have much wood to sort, the knuckle can get rather tender. Also, if you are picking out larger wood blocks from a large collection of possible pieces, the rawhide mallet is an important adjunct.