So after missing out on the SPY27 Mule in the unexpected scramble, I received an unexpected email from one of the forum regulars asking for my address.
When the mysterious package arrived in Australia from Colorado, not only did it contain a SPY27 Mule, but it came ready to use with G10 scales, the boltaron sheath and an awesome Spydie bandana!
Pokey, your kind and generous gift is very much appreciated! My most treasured knives are the ones I’ve been lucky enough to receive as gifts from people. They have a value to me which far exceeds my other ones, and this Mule will certainly be in that category.
I’m often amazed by the actions of the fine people on this forum, and I’m very touched to be the recipient of such a gracious gesture, myself. :) :cool:
Pokey’s only condition was that I share my experiences in sharpening and using this Mule here on the forum, which I’m very glad to do.
On taking the Mule out of the box, I was immediately struck by what a useful, handy size the blade is. I don’t mind a larger fixed blade for certain tasks, but I think the common bushcrafters’ recommendation of using a blade as long as your hand is wide, is a wise one. It keeps the knife nimble and balanced, and enables you to choke up on the blade, and use pinch grips while having good control of the point and edge.
After fitting the scales, I also appreciated that the design of the handle and blade is very comfortable. I like the arc of the blade belly as well, and how it presents very naturally to the material being cut while the knife is held in a sabre grip with my thumb on the ramp, or on the back of the spine.
I put my calipers on the edge and the behind the edge thickness averaged about 0.023” from three readings.
Unfortunately I couldn’t take an accurate reading of the edge angle, as I was in a hurry to get to work, just after I received the package, and I touched it up with the Sharpmaker to refine the edge. It was between 15 and 20 degrees though, as the 15 dps setting was hitting the shoulder of the edge grind, and the 20 dps setting made a microbevel. I can say most Golden knives I’ve measured come in around the 17 dps mark.
The handle scales are quite comfortable, although they’re undersized on this Mule by a mm or two. This is not uncomfortable in any way though. I considered crowning over the spine as is done on some custom knives, but I think I’ll leave it for the moment in case I happen to fit other scales down the track. I really like the contouring and checkering, which reminds me a bit of a gunstock grip area.
The day after I received the Mule, I put it on my trusty 140 grit Atoma diamond plate to thin it out behind the edge a bit. I usually knock off the shoulders and set a new bevel at about 9 dps and stop just shy of apexing with the coarse diamond plate. Then I go through the 400, 600 and 1200 Atomas to clean up the grind lines. And then onto the 800/1200 Venev OCB resin bonded diamond stone. Then I apply a microbevel with the Sharpmaker brown rods at 15 dps for quick and easy resharpening.
This initial sharpening takes a while, but after that, subsequent resharpenings are very quick - usually less than a minute - and the cutting performance and feel is very much improved.
The fine edge SPY27 takes is very crisp and keen. It feels fairly hard and clean on the stones, if that makes sense.
This is the second SPY27 knife I’ve sharpened, the first being a Para 3 I thinned out quite a bit for a friend. This steel seems like it will perform well with both highly refined and coarser edges.
This is the knife with some work left to do, blending the grindlines and refining the edge.
I’ve used it in the kitchen a bit, and it’s surprisingly effective, given it’s thicker stock than most dedicated kitchen knives. It slices different firm vegetables well, like carrots and it was no problem taking paper thin, translucent slivers off an onion. It makes fine garnishes out of spring onions/green onions and coriander/cilantro and red Thai birds eye chilli peppers, with no problem. It bites smoothly into soft ripe tomatoes.
I tried it on some dried kombu seaweed while I was making a miso soup. The dried stalks can be surprisingly hard on an edge, so I usually soak them first, but there was no edge damage.
After the food prep for a couple of meals on a hard acacia chopping board, most of the edge was still sharp, but the belly wasn’t quite ‘sticky sharp’. As I like to maintain my knives in this condition, I gave it a couple of passes on the Venev 800, and a few very light passes on the UF rods at 20 dps.
This time I stropped the edge a couple of times on 6 μm and 3μm diamond pasted balsa, and 1 μm and 0.25 μm diamond pasted smoothside leather. I finished wih a couple of passes on a clean roo leather strop. The edge is back to scary sharp - I’m not sure how to quantify it beyond that, but it’s very satisfactory for my purposes.
This weekend I went for a hike along the coast, and I brought the Mule along.
I was wearing it IWB, with Vivi’s paracord loop carry method, but after a while, I found the scales chafed a bit, so I changed to the Southfork and carried the Mule in my backpack front pocket.
The weather was stormy and I ended up getting soaked through, although I still loved every minute of the hike. This meant that I didn’t stop to use the Mule to make a fire in my Bushbuddy stove though, as I had intended to do.
I did take some pics though:
I’m looking forward to thinning out this edge a bit more and putting the SPY27 Mule to some more varied uses.
I’m really enjoying both the Mule design and SPY27 so far. :) :cool: :spyder:
Edit: Sorry for the duplicate pics. I deleted and shuffled a couple of the photos around, and it seems to have corrupted the order the photos appear in in the post. :confused: