My Folding Mule Project

[CasperFatone]

I got the pivot hole drilled today, which feels like a big step forward. After some deliberation I decided to just go with a 1/8” hole and forgo a pivot bushing, but I figure I can always enlarge the hole to use one if need be. Hopefully the ceramic is low enough friction that it doesn’t need one, but we will see.

Unfortunately I now have to wait a bit to proceed the way I’d like to. A couple days ago I purchased a used Kizer Drop Bear on Reddit knife swap that comes with extra hardware for the purpose of design study and providing the necessary parts, but it still hasn’t been shipped. I wanted to check out the Drop Bear in particular because Kizer’s version of the cross bar lock has adjustable spring tension which I feel is a nice feature. Hopefully it doesn’t take too long to get here because I’m dying to get to work on this thing!

[Mrchunkle]

I was going to jump on here to laughingly ask you to make a folder out of the ceramic mule. but here I find you already starting. were you thinking of a ceramic ball detent? Any other material would just wear away

[Fireman]

[CasperFatone]

I was going to jump on here to laughingly ask you to make a folder out of the ceramic mule. but here I find you already starting. were you thinking of a ceramic ball detent? Any other material would just wear away

I’m going with an Axis/crossbar style lock, so no detent ball needed on this one

[CasperFatone]

I decided hold off on making my HIC Axis lock Mule, mostly because it seems like a difficult material to learn a new lock with. My thought is to probably make an Axis lock Mule with one of my other Mules first, then fit the HIC blade so it can be swapped in. Also, this whole thing is only about making what I feel like making and right now I want to make something else.

The thing my mind is focused on for some reason is making a lightweight compression lock Mule, so that is what I’m doing. It will be built in a similar fashion to the Para 3 LW, only I am using G10 like the liner less Native 5. The lock bar is going to be .060” titanium and will be held in place by screws from outside the show side and sandwiched between the scale and a backspacer. I’m going to use a shouldered stop pin that can also be screwed in with 2-56 screws, and as with pretty much every folder I do I’ll be doing PB washers and a pivot bushing.

The Mule I’m using as a donor is my other 15v, the first of which became a liner lock flipper. After how nicely the liner lock 15v Mule flips I really started wanting one that flips as well with a comp lock. I figure the worst case scenario is that I adapt the blade into a knife with full Ti liners if my LW idea doesn’t pan out. However I’ve made a liner lock knife with this same style construction and it turned out well.

So far I’ve just laid everything out, cut my G10 scales to shape, and did the lockbar relief in the show scale. I had to do the last little bit of the cut freehand because the template bit has a 3/8” diameter. My pics show the jig that I made to do the relief cut using a top bearing template bit in a trim router. The cut has a slight angle as it gets closer to the blade tang to allow for the bar (plus the detent ball) to move out of the way. This was done by adding a small shim to the template after the initial cut and slightly lowering the bit.

To make the lock bar I am simply using a piece of tape to transfer the shape over to my sheet of titanium. The tape was stuck on the scale and rubbed with a pencil, then stuck to the titanium. I will cut it out close to size on my portaband/table setup and creep up on the fit on my grinder.

Here are some progress pics. Hopefully I can spend some time on it this weekend.

[VeraX_Knives]

Very nice

I'd look at some cheap Chinese CNCs - that's what I have but never use for these purposes. It's about 600$ with upgraded motors and software, but totally worth it if you do this stuff a lot which I don't. I started the same way.

[Bolster]

Very clever jig work.

[CasperFatone]

Very nice

I'd look at some cheap Chinese CNCs - that's what I have but never use for these purposes. It's about 600$ with upgraded motors and software, but totally worth it if you do this stuff a lot which I don't. I started the same way.

Not a bad idea, but I actually enjoy doing this kind of hands on work. If I ever wanted to make these to sell I’d probably get a CNC. However, I have almost zero interest in ever making these to sell. I’m really only doing this for my own enjoyment, to practice making different lock mechanisms, and to make my Mules something that I carry daily.

Very clever jig work.

Thanks, I really enjoy making jigs lol. I’ve been a custom cabinetmaker for 20 years so it comes second nature at this point.

[sal]

Great stuff.

Thanx much for sharing.

sal

[VeraX_Knives]

Very nice

I'd look at some cheap Chinese CNCs - that's what I have but never use for these purposes. It's about 600$ with upgraded motors and software, but totally worth it if you do this stuff a lot which I don't. I started the same way.

Not a bad idea, but I actually enjoy doing this kind of hands on work. If I ever wanted to make these to sell I’d probably get a CNC. However, I have almost zero interest in ever making these to sell. I’m really only doing this for my own enjoyment, to practice making different lock mechanisms, and to make my Mules something that I carry daily.

Very clever jig work.

Thanks, I really enjoy making jigs lol. I’ve been a custom cabinetmaker for 20 years so it comes second nature at this point.

I totally understand that one man same deal here lol I just ended up getting it for texturing handles in ways that.. pyramid type Spyderco textures are pre-built into software and just are much easier with gcode than my brain and hands which are NOT a expert craftsman whatsoever.

I cannot sit here and say that I enjoy pressing a button and getting a result but it's something I rarely use, mostly for laser work. I'm betting that the prices have gone up quite a bit also from when I got these in 2020. FYI, technically yes these cheap Chinese 1.7a motors can actually do hardened steel but you need constant coolant and many bits. That was a surprise to me personally on a 300w spindle upgrade from.. it says 60-96w. This POS.

https://gyazo.com/1ee41a3a52cda0b5237e10820d12b6d4

https://gyazo.com/eb6ecb3cb07bb462b7a7268a1c196954

Was like 600 or so with everything. You can tell that I use it often

Edit: however if I were doing this folder thing, yeah I'd honestly CNC cut it all. It is.. rather accurate but I have a PC background that.. the software I believe is pretty easy to use and learn I use 'Carveco', the PC part may put some people off of it but the few folders I have made were completely done on that then hand fitted. All you literally have to do is scan a piece of steel on a printer and it will cut that shape if you did it correctly. Then there's 3D laser scanning which is even easier to use.

Honestly I just didn't think that I had the experience to make everything fit by hand hahaha I'll readily admit that one. So go to the computers! It is GREAT for blade replacements. I can confirm that it does work there. Grind it yourself but for the lock cuts, even these cheap POS CNCs work wonders which as I said did surprise me a bit if I'm being honest as I always am.

[CasperFatone]

Here’s a quick progress update. Things are moving along nicely with this one. Cutting the lockbar was pretty painless, and in this first pic you can see it in place. Also you can see where I drilled into the the tang to mark the center of my stop pin locations at open and closed positions. This was done with a #51 carbide drill bit using the scale as a guide with the blade held in each position.



The next pic is the true moment of no return, aka cutting the blade in half! You can see that I enlarged the stop location holes to 5/32” because that is the diameter of the shouldered pin I’m using. There is also a rough outline of how the tang is going to be cut.



The last two pics have the stop locations set and I have ground the tang to clear the stop pin as it rotates. Usually I would mark the tang for the lock cut using the liner as a marking template but that isn’t possible with this build. Instead I plan to do the lock cut first, then mark and grind the lock bar to fit the tang. Losing some material off of the bottom edge of the lock bar is actually going to help me get more purchase on the tang, plus it will be easy to grind since it’s removable (not to mention replaceable). Hopefully this weekend I will have time to get the lock functioning.

[/img]

[VeraX_Knives]

Well I can't say that I was there for every step but I think you can change the signature to intermediate maker of folding knives hahaha. Very nice job man , I want to start doing more of these types and with this post I may just try a flipper!. I haven't had the balls to yet.

[CasperFatone]

I ended up making my backspacer out of Cocobolo just because I had some that was close to the correct thickness. The backspacer on this knife is pretty unique in that it isn’t just a spacer, but it also helps to anchor the lock bar. The two pieces are press fit together with two 1/8” 2-56 threaded connectors, which stiffens the whole assembly, and more importantly allowed me to take off the “show” scale and keep the lock bar in place. That made it possible to drill into the tang using the detent ball hole in the bar as a guide, which is how I always drill my tangs for a good detent. Here is a picture of the knife with the show scale removed to drill the aforementioned detent pocket in the tang (pivot screws is going through a temporary spacer to keep the blade/washer stack tight).



This is my first time using a shouldered stop pin and it basically dictates everything when it comes to spacing between the scales (washer/blade stack, pivot bushing, backspacer). It’s kind of a pain in the ***, but hopefully it is worth it. I remember at some point reading a comment by Sal about the increased rigidity gained by using a shouldered pin construction that is held by screws. Maybe I’m not remembering this correctly, and Sal please correct me if I’m wrong here.

Either way, this knife feels incredibly solid especially for something this light. How light, you ask? Currently it weighs 79 grams, which funny enough is exactly what it weighed as a fixed blade blank with no handle. Honestly, I don’t think I’d want it much lighter than this or it might feel front heavy. I still need to add a pocket clip and contour the scales so the weight might change slightly but it shouldn’t be significant.

The one large change I am considering is doing a Smock style button actuated comp lock instead of the normal scale recess. The reason for this is that when you use the flipper the lock bar moves over and gives your finger a little pinch, which isn’t ideal. I’ve done a few PM2 button lock mods before, so making this change seems easily doable. On the bright side, the thing already flips and flicks very nicely. I’ll definitely do some fine tuning so it properly drops shut, but I’m very happy to have it perform like this straight away. Also, the lockup is rock solid with zero play

[VeraX_Knives]

I was wondering what exactly you were doing with the lock there the first few pictures made me think of some.. thing else what exactly I'm not sure something with two locking points, I usually take mine to the handle because I'm too lazy to inlay it.

It's really not difficult to make folders in mass production with CNCs these days being cheap enough for personal use, and I'm sorry but I'll never understand their locking systems and why they have to be so complex (someone please give me a real honest explanation here? I ain't using it AS A FIXED BLADE[edit; I've used a broken one in a combat situation FYI lol, don't tell me that you need a handle]) I get it's.. the typical guy over engineering and betterment but heck I'm. 33 and I'm losing that testosterone level. I'm not someone who you pick for.. normal work I just don't have the patience. To me it's like once I know something (tacitly explicitly and implicitly), "why do I gotta do it again" exactly when there's.. 4 billion things that I have never done and can do and want to do better than.. whatever I was just doing. As much as I do hate the Interlie and PC work I have to admit that the.. nature of the job keeps me at least functioning. I'd eat a bullet doing normal people corporate America bullshit personally and yes that is fully including all psychology and sociology. I just have principles that I will die for and have proven that hah.

My outlook on life is probably a little different than most people here also.

[VeraX_Knives]

This is my first time using a shouldered stop pin and it basically dictates everything when it comes to spacing between the scales (washer/blade stack, pivot bushing, backspacer). It’s kind of a pain in the ***, but hopefully it is worth it. I remember at some point reading a comment by Sal about the increased rigidity gained by using a shouldered pin construction that is held by screws. Maybe I’m not remembering this correctly, and Sal please correct me if I’m wrong here.

Uh yeah that's.. following all basic physics principles - please do correct me and him lol -but my question is why do we actually need that level of.. strength lock on something most people carry as an emergency tool? Even if it fell apart I could use it bare handed without bleeding. If it's a serious situation - ya ain't going to think about it. Like ya I get it's a nice opportunity but I have never used anything besides a liner lock and never had any issues with emergency situations. None. Not one comes to mind where I was like I really wish I had a.. better locking knife.

So in effect I'm arguing no, it's not necessary but that's all relevant.

I'm assuming modifying the stop pins on a rotary machine is .. difficult to get 'right' (laser flush, if I see light, tsk tsk). Very.

[VeraX_Knives]

And ya no sorry people who are afraid of guns there is.. a legitimate fear I'm well aware of that one although I will never understand it myself, but it's still just an excuse at the end of the day. Fear is temporary unfortunately in war which isn't good. Same applies to life IMO.

I suppose that I can also.. I don't personally know anyone but people who have been charged with felonies or something like that that are absolutely bullshit. The one's I knew were legitimate (from my pov) and the word 'knew/know' was used for a reason

Edit: looks like I'm not the only insane one for doing cardboard on concrete! You start to learn that you're going to keep dropping them

https://gyazo.com/27e81bed37858d18e0932cbf718c2d7a

FTW.

[Paul Ardbeg]

Awsome knife!! Sweet action

[Josh Crutchley]

Awesome work!