Show your mods!

[Therealtwitch]

Dyed my southard cause everything is cooler in camo.

[Officer Gigglez]

Dyed my southard cause everything is cooler in camo.

What southard? I only see a blade floating and your hand...

[Therealtwitch]

Oh you laugh but it took me 5 mins to find the over travel stop I set down on that counter!

[bullmib]

Phillipsted that handle looks really nice, well done.

[kirilpetkov]

[Donut]

That's a pretty cool mod.

Ted, you do awesome work! Still waiting to see you redo a FRN/Split Spring one. :)

[MadRookie]

+1

:)

[phillipsted]

That's a pretty cool mod.

Ted, you do awesome work! Still waiting to see you redo a FRN/Split Spring one. :)

Thanks, Brian! I've got two new ones on the bench right now to work over - a split spring FRN UKPK and a Pingo.

I just did a Squeak (which was very easy -no liners, no custom scalework needed) and the Pingo is contructed exactly the same way. The only thing you need to add is a pair of phosphor bronze washers to replace the little shelf around the pivot on the inside of the FRN scales.

The UKPK is a little different. It has some mouldings on the inside of the FRN scale (in addition to the pivot shelf, which I'll replace with phosphor bronze) that will need to be fabricated work otherwise engineered around. The primary one is around the inside of the clip screw. This area serves to stabilize the back end of the scales, but it also functions as an overtravel stop for the blade when it is closed. I'm looking at replacing it with either 1.) a decorative piece of wood or micarta, or 2.) a very small steel spacer. The wood/micarta spacer would probably look better and be more stable, and I'm tinkering around with some options now.

I'll post some new ones later this month!

TedP

[Evil D]

Ted those are probably the nicest wood scales I've seen you post pics of...I especially like that there aren't any liners, just wood/blade/backspring.

[Commendatore]

Your scales work keeps me stunned Ted. Always a pleasure to see and a motivation to finally try some Mule scales myself to learn how much skill has to be involved when doing linerless folding knife handles. Everytime I see them I am puzzled how you manage to get the wood grain aligned so the UKPK´s strong backspring doesn´t split it.
FRN ones are interesting indeed, I wonder how to re-build the FRN molded spring rest. I can only think of a bolt and a spacer :confused:

[Jazz]

Can't wait for your Pingo and split spring UKPK, Ted. But take your time.

[phillipsted]

Your scales work keeps me stunned Ted. Always a pleasure to see and a motivation to finally try some Mule scales myself to learn how much skill has to be involved when doing linerless folding knife handles. Everytime I see them I am puzzled how you manage to get the wood grain aligned so the UKPK´s strong backspring doesn´t split it.
FRN ones are interesting indeed, I wonder how to re-build the FRN molded spring rest. I can only think of a bolt and a spacer :confused:

Thanks for the nice compliments, Commendatore! You are absolutely right, the strain on the linerless wood from those backsprings is significant. I had two failures last weekend which did exactly what you described - the scales split right at the bolt holes. The first one was a nice slab of old-growth redwood - which is quite a bit more dense than the second-growth wood you see on the market. I wasn't surprised when it failed, to be honest. The second one that failed was a piece of stabilized rock maple. I would normally think this would be strong enough to use in this application, but the stabilizing left the wood with an odd, almost crumbly texture. When I tore the scales apart, I found some minor spalting that I didn't see before. My guess is that the spalting made the maple grain significantly weaker in those areas...

I've had good luck using hard, dense woods for these scales (as you've seen in my photos) - ironwood, rosewood, blackwood, acacia, tulipwood, canarywood, bloodwood, kingwood, lignum vitae. I've been wanting to try several others, which are on my to-do list - osage orange, ash, bois de rose, pau ferro/morado, gidgee, gum trees, hornbeam, ziricote, and mesquite burl...

While it is hard to make broad generalizations, woods I would avoid for this application (even if stabilized) include: hickory (strong, but too splintery), sycamore, most oaks, cherry, mango, most evergreens, palm, most fruit trees, poplar, teak, birch, walnut (I just don't like walnut...), balsa/basswood (!), and anything spalted...

Cheers!
TedP

[Commendatore]

I have some cornel (dogwood?) I want to use for a Mule handle. it is so strong it does discolor when being cut, no matter which kind of saw I use. I does crack while drying though so I have to find a piece without defects. An alternative I have close at hand is checkers (chequer?) tree, wood my grandfather recommended for applications the grain direction should not get too problematic. Those woods do not look spectacular but for first try function goes first.
I hope to have at least one done by next week :o

[Ned]

Thanks Jazz...It has given me the impetus to try something else!

[Spydersense]

[Jazz]

Nice color, Matt!

[Spydersense]

Thanks Jazz!

I just dyed my SB Stretch also. I dyed it green yesterday, but I didn't really like how it turned out. So today I dyed it navy blue like the Dragonfly. I left it in for a bit longer than I wanted, and ended up with pretty much a black handle. Oh well, at least black goes with everything. :rolleyes:

[AsianKyle]

How did you do that? Just hot glue like others who have done similar things?

[jackknifeh]

Made this kirinite handle for my new Dragonfly 2 with super blue blade.







Jack

[Donut]

That's pretty slick looking, Jack.

How does the back spacer look?