• Mallet type: Viennese wood-fabric mallet
  
• Material mallet head: cork with special felt cover 
  
• Hardness: medium hard 
  
• Material handle: Hornbeam / thin lacquered 
  
• Length handle (without head): 32 cm 
  
• Diameter handle (tip): 13 mm 
  
• Diameter mallet head: 34 mm 
  
• Height mallet head: 21 mm 
  
• Weight/ piece: 36 - 38 g
  
• color coding: none 
  
• Handmade in Austria
  

In the Viennese timpani tradition, this is a cork mallet wrapped in leather or cloth. We know from oral and written records that this was the type of leather-covered mallet mainly used by Hans Schnellar (principal timpanist in the Vienna Philharmonic from 1894 until 1932) under conductors Richard Strauss and Gustav Mahler, when these composers specified "with wooden mallets" or "with wood" in their works.

A thin leather wrapping gives the oval cork core a bright, transparent timbre, in addition to its high sound volume. These combined qualities, in positive comparison with a "naked" wooden mallet, make the "Viennese wood" a very special instrument for use on the Viennese timpani with goatskin head.

The variant with special felt wrapping gives a substantially darker, less transparent timbre than the leather-wrapped version. This felt is produced exclusively for Steiner Superiormallets.

The Viennese wooden mallet is highly valued for its distinctive timbre and its versatility, also on plastic and calfskin heads.