MuleTeam Giveaway! WINNER ANOUNCED!!!

[Thorne27]

This very generous. I would like to be considered and I will be jealous of whoever wins.

[sal]

Hi Thorne,

Welcome to our forum.

sal

[Mrs.Critter]

I’m in!

[Rocketrider40]

Im in, I've been wanting a muley for a while and never owned one! I actually clicked the thread to ask how one goes about getting them when they become available?

[legOFwhat?]

I’m in. But what I would really appreciate is a how to / learned lesson on making scales. If I can get a new mule I want to try and make wood scales for it. I have a beautiful piece of rough cut cherry I want to use.

Hello William! I must admit I don't have a lot of experience with woods, I've mostly worked with, well, everything else, however there are some incredible knife/handle makers here on the forum that I'm sure would answer any question you may have about putting that nice cherry wood on a mule.

Chad (aka Xplorer) is always helpful to me and Standy really knows his hardwoods. TomAiello, TusonTom :D These are just a couple of the great folks around here that are always encouraging to, well, everyone :)

Seeing this thread inspired me to start making handles: viewtopic.php?f=15&t=31531

[Salty Dog]

Wow, what a lovely gesture, thanks Larry, im in if that's ok, good lord those are beautiful mate.
Is this what people do with mules? I havnt understood them much yet, looks like the perfect thing to learn some basics of how to fit handles.
Do you have any videos on what you do Larry?
cheers

[Larry_Mott]

I'm in.
I have been curious for years, but never pulled the trigger on one :)

[TkoK83Spy]

Something free and all the sudden we have a bunch of first time posters :rolleyes:

[Cscottsss]

Thanks for doing this! I'm in!

[Mrs.Critter]

Something free and all the sudden we have a bunch of first time posters :rolleyes:

I may be new, but I’m happy to be here and pretty proud of my noob collection. :D :spyder: So, thank you for the “shout out”.

[standy99]

I’m in. But what I would really appreciate is a how to / learned lesson on making scales. If I can get a new mule I want to try and make wood scales for it. I have a beautiful piece of rough cut cherry I want to use.

I would stabilise cherry before making scales with it. Anything under a 7 on a 1-10 scale

There are a lot of other treatments that can be used to seal but you will need to search for what is best for Cherry wood. Most woods are stabilised in scales unless it’s a true hardwood

Hardness. On a scale of 1 to 10 -- with 10 the hardest -- oak ranks about a 9, just below maple and birch. Cherry is much softer, with a rank of about 6. This means that cherry is also lighter than oak and is easier to mill and cut with a table saw.

[youeatwaffles]

I'm in!!!

[TomAiello]

Great idea, Larry! :)

William, do you know how to stabilize wood? I've just gotten into it, and I'm still in the experimental phases, but it's very interesting. You can also send out wood for stabilizing. I had a chunk of our old cherry tree stabilized by K&G and made some scales out of it, and I was pleased with their work. I would stabilize your cherry, either yourself or by sending it out. I would definitely not recommend using unstabilized cherry for scales--from personal experience.

[legOFwhat?]

Wow, what a lovely gesture, thanks Larry, im in if that's ok, good lord those are beautiful mate.
Is this what people do with mules? I havnt understood them much yet, looks like the perfect thing to learn some basics of how to fit handles.
Do you have any videos on what you do Larry?
cheers

Yep, testing the steel, making handles or just putting them to work. With these "blanks" I've learned a great deal from sharpening to testing materials out for scales. Sorry I don't have any videos, I wouldn't know where to start. :o

[alexct]

Long time lurker and Spyderco fan. This got me to register. Here is my "I'm in" !

Thanks for holding this contest, it is very generous of you! And thanks to Mr. Glesser for providing all these mules! (Hoping to do my first one this winter...)

[Salty Dog]

Wow, what a lovely gesture, thanks Larry, im in if that's ok, good lord those are beautiful mate.
Is this what people do with mules? I havnt understood them much yet, looks like the perfect thing to learn some basics of how to fit handles.
Do you have any videos on what you do Larry?
cheers

Yep, testing the steel, making handles or just putting them to work. With these "blanks" I've learned a great deal from sharpening to testing materials out for scales. Sorry I don't have any videos, I wouldn't know where to start. :o

Thanks, I suppose the list is as big as ones imagination as to what you could use as scales.
Would be nice and satisfying to add your own personal touch to a knife and test steels.

[Peter1960]

I'm in ...

Thank you for the contest, Larry! I even know which one I would choose ... :D

[Rp5]

I'm in.

Been jealous of your scales for months... might as well take a shot at stealing a pair.

[Xplorer]

I’m in. But what I would really appreciate is a how to / learned lesson on making scales. If I can get a new mule I want to try and make wood scales for it. I have a beautiful piece of rough cut cherry I want to use.

That is indeed a beautiful piece of Cherry :) .

Of course, you could theoretically use that Cherry or any other wood in it's raw form and make a very nice handle. You could treat it with multiple coats of linseed oil like a walnut gun stock and you could periodically treat it with a good quality wood wax. Assuming the wood was dry enough when you began the project and it doesn't dry out and crack some time after mounting the handle, with proper care it should last for many years.

Here's a Lignum Vitae Mule I made for another forum member. It is not stabilized and it is treated with 4 applications of linseed oil applied over 4 days, then some Citrus Shield wood wax to finish.


However, like Standy99 said I would suggest stabilizing it if you want to use it as a knife handle. There are very few natural wood species that I would use without stabilization..Ironwood, Ebony, Lignum Vitae and maybe a few others have the extreme density and/or naturally oily makeup to be durable tool handles without additional help.
Cherry, Maple, Buckeye, Claro Walnut, even Koa should be stabilized.

Stabilizing pulls all of the air out of the grain and replaces it with resin, creating a wood grain structure that is now supported with a tough resin material. The result is dramatically increased impact resistance and most importantly water and oil resistance similar to a fully synthetic product. This way it will never crack, hand oils won't be absorbed and water won't make it swell (within limits).

You can do your own stabilizing if you want to invest in the equipment. It's about $600 to get started with a home set-up and about $100 for some Cactus Juice stabilizing resin.

Here's a good example of what stabilizing can do...I used black dyed resin to stabilize some cork oak. It was initially just an experiment to see if stabilizing resin could shore-up something as "airy" and "punky" as cork. To my surprise it came out extremely solid, and better looking than I expected as well. This one was a giveaway that went to another forum member here as well. Darby donated the Mule and I donated the handle and the sheath.


With stabilizing you can simply make the wood more resilient with clear resin and you also have the option to add color as well. Here's a set I did in Buckeye with green dye in the resin in an attempt to make a John Deer themed set for another forum member here.


Easiest bet is to cut your scales out of your piece of wood and send them to K&G (like Tom mentioned). Cut them extra thick just in case, and consider sending more than 1 set. They do a great job and will get more resin density into your wood than anyone else I could suggest.

If you have questions along the way, you should be able to get answers to whatever you need on this forum. There's lot's of helpful and knowledgeable Mule heads here :p :D :spyder: .

[ArnAnders89]

I’m in!

Thanks for the contest LegOfwhat?!