Nasal Mallet | Solid Stainless Steel, 3/4 lb

What a nasal mallet is for

This is the only instrument in this part of our catalog that does not cut, hold or crush anything by itself. It supplies force to something else. An osteotome put against nasal bone goes nowhere until it is struck, and the mallet is what decides how far it travels on each blow.

The weight is therefore the whole specification, and ours is 3/4 lb, around 340 grams. Google’s own range for surgical mallets of this kind is 125 to 400 grams, so ours sits in the upper half of it: heavy enough that a controlled tap moves bone, light enough to be tapping rather than hitting. The reason heavier is better up to a point is that mass does the work instead of arm speed, and arm speed is the part of a swing that is hard to repeat.

It also taps a block cartilage crusher, which is the other job mallets do on a rhinoplasty trolley, and the crusher pages put it this way: a block crusher is not squeezed, it is tapped with a mallet, which is how the force stays even across the whole graft, and those pages in this family say the same thing from the other side.

It is solid, which means one piece of steel from face to handle. There is no replaceable cap, no screwed head and no filled cavity, so there is nothing to work loose in an autoclave and nothing to lose in sterile processing. The trade is that it rings and it rebounds, and the nylon faced mallet in this family is the answer to that.

Listed as a nasal mallet, a rhinoplasty mallet and a surgical mallet. What we do not publish is a length or a head diameter: the weight comes from our own product name and there is no attribute set on this product at all.

Key design features

3/4 lb, and why the number is the point

340 grams or so. Heavy enough that a tap moves bone without a swing behind it, which is what makes an osteotome cut go where it was aimed. A surgeon using a mallet that is too light compensates with speed, and speed is what turns a controlled osteotomy into a fracture with its own ideas.

Solid, one piece

No screwed head, no replaceable cap, no lead filling. Steel from the face to the end of the handle. Nothing works loose in an autoclave and nothing can be reassembled wrongly, which on an instrument that gets hit for a living is worth more than any refinement.

It rings, and we are not going to pretend otherwise

Solid steel struck against steel makes noise and bounces back. That is the honest cost of one piece construction, and if the ring or the rebound bothers you, the Hayden with nylon faces in this same family is the instrument to buy instead. We would rather say that than sell this one as silent.

A plain handle

Round, with no grooves, no coating and no inlay. A mallet handle gets wet and a textured one holds blood in the texture. Plain steel is easier to clean and a gloved hand on wet round steel is a known quantity.

Which mallet to order

Three mallets and the choice is about the face rather than the weight.

Where it is used

Anywhere force has to be delivered to something else.

What it holds back, and what it must not do

A mallet is the one instrument here whose misuse is about force rather than about technique.

How it compares with the rest of the family

Four instruments on a rhinoplasty trolley take or deliver a blow, and only one of them is the hammer.

Materials and finish

Every nasal mallet we make is cut from high quality medical grade stainless steel. The steel itself is made to a German specification. We do not publish a grade number. The number on a certificate tells a surgeon nothing about whether a struck face is still flat after a few thousand blows, because a mallet face that has domed slides off an osteotome head instead of driving it square, and the answer to that is in the making rather than in the alloy.

The head is forged rather than cast and then the faces are ground flat. A cast mallet head is cheaper and it is also the one that spalls: a fragment comes off the edge of the face in an operating room and that is a problem of an entirely different kind. Forged steel deforms before it breaks.

The edges of each face are radiused so the rim does not bite into an osteotome head. There is no sharp external edge anywhere on the instrument, and the handle is finished smooth rather than polished to a shine, because a mirror finish on a wet handle is slippery.

Caring for it

Wash it like any solid instrument: warm water, soft brush, nothing clever. There are no joints, no holes and no moving parts, so the only places anything hides are the two faces and they are flat.

Autoclave with the tray. Look at both faces against the light every so often: they should be flat. A face that has domed in the middle no longer sits square on an osteotome head, and the blow goes slightly sideways every time, which the surgeon feels as an osteotome that keeps wandering.

Ordering and wholesale

Every nasal mallet is made by Adas Instruments in our own workshop and sold direct, which is why the price sits where it does against the catalog houses. Order one for a single tray, or in quantity for a hospital list or a distributor line. We do OEM work under your own brand and your own item numbers. Send us a sample and we will hold a run to your pattern rather than ours. Stock items ship from our own workshop. Backorder items take 10 to 12 working days to make. Every instrument carries a three year replacement warranty against manufacturing defects. Production is controlled under an ISO 13485 quality management system.

Frequently asked questions

What is a nasal mallet used for?

Driving an osteotome, a chisel or a rasp through nasal bone during rhinoplasty, and tapping a block cartilage crusher on the trolley. It does nothing by itself: it delivers force to the instrument that does the cutting.

How heavy is it, and does the weight matter?

3/4 lb, which is about 340 grams, and yes. The weight is what moves the bone per tap. A mallet that is too light has to be swung rather than tapped, and a swing is much harder to repeat accurately than a tap.

Why solid rather than a nylon face?

Because there is nothing to work loose and nothing to replace. The cost is that it rings and rebounds, and if that matters the Hayden mallet with nylon faces is the instrument to buy instead. Many trays carry one of each.

What length is it?

We do not publish a length or a head diameter. There is no attribute set on this product, and the 3/4 lb weight on this page comes from our own product name. Google quotes 17 to 20 cm as the usual range for surgical mallets; that is the market, not our measurement. It is on our list.

Can it be used on a cartilage crusher?

Yes, and that is a real second job for it. A block crusher is not squeezed, it is tapped, and this mallet is the right weight for it. Tap it, do not hammer it: cartilage crushed too far does not recover.

Related products and categories

For a nylon face that takes the ring and the rebound out, the Hayden mallet. For the Cottle pattern by name, the Cottle nasal mallet. The only pair of scissors in this family is the Gorney turbinate scissors.

The rest of this family sits under nasal cutting, crusher and septum forceps, and the osteotomes and chisels this mallet is made to drive are under osteotomes, chisels and gouges.