Maxamet - the ultimate Mule steel

[Ankerson]

Kinda thick.....

[ManixFan]

Kinda thick.....

Hey! I resemble that remark! :eek:

The spine is pretty thick but the blade shape is pretty attractive! :rolleyes:

Thick blades, like thick people, need some loving too.

Attractive yet thick......sounds like some of the women that I used to date in my youth. :o

[sal]

Looking forward to watching the project.

sal

[Cliff Stamp]

The spine is pretty thick but the blade shape is pretty attractive!

The blade shape was designed by Kyley Harris which has a number of design aspects :

-easy to make
-multi-purpose
-efficient use of blade stock

keeping in mind this is for a mule-evaluation project so it has to be easy for anyone to make and should be able to be used for a wide variety of application to enable a lot of feedback.

The mule blades will all have the same profile but the thickness can vary because not all blade stocks are available in a given thickness. Now you could say "well derp - just have them all planed down" . Remember that I am funding all of this and if you think that is easy to do then just try it, it can take longer to plane down these steels than it can to actually make the knife.

They are all going to have the same edge profiles which will essentially be zero ground and the edge will be finished at a low angle so the cutting ability, even for the thicker blades will be far above anything anyone is used to unless you have experienced with some high end customs and by this I don't mean something like a 0.015"/15 dps edge, I mean something like 0.001"/10 dps and less.

But again remember these are MULE blades, they are not custom designed for any particular purpose aside from evaluation and that they are a group project, no one blade is intended to give a whole picture of anything. If this Mule has interesting results then I will discuss it with Carpenter and it might be interesting to see what happens if you have one made which very thick stock 1/16" or similar.

[Cliff Stamp]

This will be interesting to compare to Spyderco's mules :

https://youtu.be/vRILnmjCtyQ

This is the low hardness (64 HRC) one which was optimized for toughness, the other one (s) are optimized for strength/wear resistance.

[Jax]

That looks pretty good!
I would like to see to a test like Ankerson did with the S110v.
I am talking about the 3800ft of card board cut,as I like that kind of stuff.
It would be fun to have one of these mules to test,as I enjoy doing edge retention tests with fibre rope.

[Cliff Stamp]

I am talking about the 3800ft of card board cut,as I like that kind of stuff.

That can easily be cut with a standard utility box cutter, you can cut about 1000' with an inch of blade and it still wet shaves (I have been running trials on them lately), if you want to cut until it can't cut the cardboard then you need km's of cardboard. This is with used cardboard, if you cut new cardboard which is clean then the amount increase significantly. Cardboard really isn't that hard to cut, most people who think it is have never used a knife which was sharpened to cut it properly.

It would be fun to have one of these mules to test,as I enjoy doing edge retention tests with fibre rope.

These are part of the T0.1 M mule project, if you want to use one then all you have to do is ask for it, there are only two rules :

-be honest about your experiences when engaging in peer review
-don't be an idjit

If you are willing to live with those rules then all you have to do is send me an email requesting the mules you want to use.

[Ankerson]

That looks pretty good!
I would like to see to a test like Ankerson did with the S110v.
I am talking about the 3800ft of card board cut,as I like that kind of stuff.
It would be fun to have one of these mules to test,as I enjoy doing edge retention tests with fibre rope.

Remember I stopped cutting and the blade was still sharp...

I don't have any plans on ever cutting until dull cardboard wise.... :D

[Jax]

Yah that would take awhile!
:)

[Mjc1973]

Come on, where's the commitment? Where's the mile of cardboard cuts.

I'm joking of course. I'll bet your forearms were worn out.

Remember I stopped cutting and the blade was still sharp...

I don't have any plans on ever cutting until dull cardboard wise.... :D

[Ankerson]

Come on, where's the commitment? Where's the mile of cardboard cuts.

I'm joking of course. I'll bet your forearms were worn out.

One day I will do a mile of cardboard and and document it, I have done it before more than once with a few different knives, but never actually documented it.

I think I have one coming that will do it soon and should do it easy.

Custom in CPM 10V in the 64 range, should be around .120 spine thickness, .005" behind the edge and around 5" blade.

Although i have 4 other ones here that I know will do it, I would rather do it with a new blade that I will be testing anyway. :)

[Cliff Stamp]

On an amusing note, the maker just put this up as the above comment on wanting to see cardboard cutting was made :

[video=youtube;_KaFuA1Q6UA]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_KaFuA1Q6UA[/video]

But again, note you can cut massive piles of cardboard with the simplest/cheapest of steels if it is properly sharpened and without a reference blade it is impossible to know much of anything about the performance due to the variability of cardboard.

[Ankerson]

That's not that much cardboard, linear ft wise, but not bad for about maybe 10 mins of cutting from the looks of it and maybe 200 linear ft.... Maybe....

But then he wasn't trying to cut a lot and didn't count how much he cut either as he said in the video... So I wouldn't get all excited yet....... Wait and see what it will really do cutting a serious amount of cardboard if someone wants to put some serious amount of time into it. It's not an easy thing to sit there and cut cardboard for 3-5 hours and that's what it really takes to cut a large amount of it linear ft wise....



This is 3800 linear ft of cardboard, notice the thin strips and it took me around 3 hours to do it....









And 3000 linear ft here, different knife..... Again thin strips cut...








That tarp is 5 FT long for size reference...

[bornagainprimative]

As a warehouse worker I'm thinking I would love this steel (or maybe m4) more than anything I've used before.

[Jax]

Jim
Can I ask what kind of edge finish you went with for that marathon cutting?

[Ankerson]

Jim
Can I ask what kind of edge finish you went with for that marathon cutting?

400 grit Silicon Carbide. :)

[Jax]

Ok thanks Jim :)

[Joshua J.]

I don't mean something like a 0.015"/15 dps edge, I mean something like 0.001"/10 dps and less.

Are you sure that's a good idea Cliff?

I once took my ZDP Caly 3 to .004 and it bent all over the place just trimming my fingernails (and I usually keep my nails fairly short and fresh).
I can imagine that you'll be re-grinding these things a lot if you try to maintain a .001" edge thickness.

[Cliff Stamp]

I can imagine that you'll be re-grinding these things a lot if you try to maintain a .001" edge thickness.

The majority of my knives don't have secondary bevels, depending on the primary grind there may be a transition bevel but it will be so slightly you will not see it. I find an edge at 6-8 dps with a true micro-bevel which is less than 0.001" thick to be easily durability enough for foods, cardboard, rope and most utility cutting. I have ran edges down to 1.5-2 dps with the same micro-bevel but at that angle (which is again just the primary grind) the edge is fairly fragile and it can collapse unless you do perfect cuts or are cutting very soft materials.

An edge at 0.005" is fairly robust assuming you are not chopping with it. Now I could damage that but I would need to be cutting very difficult materials like plywood and using a lot of force. Of course for prying and twisting then a thicker edge would be needed. But again in the above I am talking about cutting knives. You bent a 0.004" edge cutting your nails? Your last name wouldn't be Creed would it?

[Joshua J.]

The majority of my knives don't have secondary bevels, depending on the primary grind there may be a transition bevel but it will be so slightly you will not see it. I find an edge at 6-8 dps with a true micro-bevel which is less than 0.001" thick to be easily durability enough for foods, cardboard, rope and most utility cutting. I have ran edges down to 1.5-2 dps with the same micro-bevel but at that angle (which is again just the primary grind) the edge is fairly fragile and it can collapse unless you do perfect cuts or are cutting very soft materials.

An edge at 0.005" is fairly robust assuming you are not chopping with it. Now I could damage that but I would need to be cutting very difficult materials like plywood and using a lot of force. Of course for prying and twisting then a thicker edge would be needed. But again in the above I am talking about cutting knives. You bent a 0.004" edge cutting your nails? Your last name wouldn't be Creed would it?

Ok I grabbed my caliper and the edge on that knife is still .003-.004", and it doesn't flex like I remember when it was fresh.
I'm just refreshing my memory here. My description of the edge bending on my fingernails was with more of a zero edge, so I guess even at .001 if it's 10dps that sounds like it could reasonable (I forget if I've ever actually taken anything that thin or not).