MuleTeam Giveaway! WINNER ANOUNCED!!!

[catfish333]

I'm in!! Very generous of you! Both knives look very nice to me.
Thank you!

[catfish333]

Wow! I'm in. This is very generous of you! And what kind words for your wife; sounds like you gotta good one! Thanks again for doing this.

[hereiamu1]

I'm in :D

[sal]

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

Hi Rick,

They may come through the door for the opportunity, but they stay because of all of the great people here! Except for me and you. :p

Hi Mrs.Critter, MashBill, Rocketrider, Alexct, Catfish, Heriamu1,

Hi Youeatwaffles,

I thought I remembered welcoming you before, but just in case, welcome. ( you know how age and memories go :confused: )

Welcome to our forum.

Hey ArnAnders.

Looks llke you've been here for while, but I don't remember welcoming you, so welcome.

sal

[WilliamMunny]

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: .

Those knives look great. I will have to send it out to get stabilized, the one crotch cut board I had pictured is 5/4 so I should get a lot of useable choices from it. I was even thinking about using the sap wood in the cherry to make a neat pattern.

[bgcameron]

I'm in

[Jdlm7.62]

I’m in

[sal]

Hi Jdlm7.62,

Welcome to our forum.

good caliber.

sal

[Mrs.Critter]

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

Hi Rick,

They may come through the door for the opportunity, but they stay because of all of the great people here! Except for me and you. :p

Hi Mrs.Critter, MashBill, Rocketrider, Alexct, Catfish, Heriamu1,

Hi Youeatwaffles,

I thought I remembered welcoming you before, but just in case, welcome. ( you know how age and memories go :confused: )

Welcome to our forum.

Hey ArnAnders.

Looks llke you've been here for while, but I don't remember welcoming you, so welcome.

sal

Hey! Hey!
I’m not here for free stuff. I’m here because I’m an addicted lover of Spyderco (my hubby, too). However, I saw this and thought how awesome!!
Hello, to everyone here in the forum! Thanks for the warm welcome. It’s greatly appreciated! Hopefully, we’ll make some cool friends here and get all the deets on drops, exclusives, and things like that. Our collections are always open to more. 🥰

[Jdlm7.62]

Thanks Sal! 7.62x51 all the way.

[Mrs.Critter]

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

Hi Rick,

They may come through the door for the opportunity, but they stay because of all of the great people here! Except for me and you. :p

Hi Mrs.Critter, MashBill, Rocketrider, Alexct, Catfish, Heriamu1,

Hi Youeatwaffles,

I thought I remembered welcoming you before, but just in case, welcome. ( you know how age and memories go :confused: )

Welcome to our forum.

Hey ArnAnders.

Looks llke you've been here for while, but I don't remember welcoming you, so welcome.

sal

Pardon me, I just realized that welcoming us to the forum is the Mr. Spyderco, himself, Mr. Sal Glesser. Wow, I feel extremely overwhelmed with happiness and I’m pretty star struck. :spyder: 🥰

[SpydieFlicker]

I´m in, thanks for doing the giveaway!

[P40]

I'm in (please) :spyder:

Long time lurker and long time Spydey guy myself.
It took me this give away to realize I had never posted anything on the forum, but I've been in here for a long time.
I'm not much of a posting person usually, but Sal is right I can see that would change potentially since I registered finally.
My First Spyderco was a Clipit long ago. And I took my three sons to the headquarters a couple years ago when they lived in Denver (I was visiting)
I've got several Spydercos and the one Mule I bought when I was at headquarters (MT20 CTS B70P).
I'm really hoping to purchase one of the MT28, I hope I see it when it happens.
I think I would like to finally make my own handle scales for it if I do.
Question, I am already subscribed to the newsletter, but is there a way to get notified when MT28 is finally available for purchase?

[P40]

I missed adding to my first post...
Thank you Sal and staff for this great forum and actual participation.
It is actually one of the reasons I stay a loyal Spyderco customer and family member myself.

[P40]

Sorry, 3rd post, I told I wasn't good at this..
Thank you legOFwhat? for this, very generous!

[sal]

Hi P40,

Welcome to our forum..

I see you are already trying to increase your post count.

Hey Courtney,

Thanx, but I'm just another knife afi, edge Junky or any of those other "distinctions" that describes this group. Hope you enjoy your time here. But I must warn you. "Enter not ye of narrow mind lest thy understanding be open to suggestion".

sal

[Buddafucco]

I'm in

That's a tough decision for the winner!

[SharpSmitty]

I'm in.

I appreciate the sharing of your knife and knowledge and experience. I've been lurking on the forum for a long time and finally joined to closely monitor the (hopefully) impending sales of the latest model Mules. In the meantime I've been a Spyderco owner/user since the 90's when I was a boy scout.

[sal]

Hi SharpSmitty,

Welcome to our forum.

Thanx much for the interest and support across the years.

sal

[sal]

We don't think the market is a big as "You" think so I don't think it will be a problem to get one if you want one. If we're wrong, our bad, we'll increase the production. Not any good to test a piece if you can't get one.

sal