Cruwear Mule Finished!

ricechrispy · #1

Just finished making the handle for my Cruwear mule. For this one, I chose to use maroon linen micarta and black micarta pins. Pretty pleased with how it turned out. I was a little careless and there's a bite from my belt sander on the spine, but I'm not too worried about that since I plan on using this as a camping knife. Apparently Cruwear is decently stain resistant for being non-stainless. I tried to force a patina without any success. The picture was taken after I let it soak in a cup of apple cider vinegar for about 4 hours.

DRKBC · #2

Really outstanding, beautiful job!

Kohbanang · #3

Very nice looks like a lot of sandpaper work.Awesome finish!
Thanks for show :)

ricechrispy · #4

Thanks for the compliments. I did do a decent amount of sanding. Progressed up to 500 grit and then used black and then red rubbing compound with polishing wheels on my drill.

Cheddarnut · #5

Nice job! So smooth! What did u use for the pins if you dont mind me asking...

jabba359 · #6

Cheddarnut wrote:Nice job! So smooth! What did u use for the pins if you dont mind me asking...

This.

ricechrispy wrote:For this one, I chose to use maroon linen micarta and black micarta pins.

phillipsted · #7

Looks fantastic, ricechrispy! Nicely done! (I love burgundy micarta...)

TedP

DM11 · #8

Lookin good!

BAL · #9

very very nice ricechrispy. Thanks for sharing. Great work.

Pockets · #10

Pretty! The micarta pins are a nice touch.

ricechrispy · #11

Thanks, all!

Pockets wrote:Pretty! The micarta pins are a nice touch.

Thanks, Pockets. This is the second mule I've used micarta pins on and I really like them. I think they look great, and I like the fact that everything I'm sanding is equally hard. My first mule was Ipe (wood) with brass pins and I found I had very subtle high spots at each of the pins since they were harder than the surrounding wood.

OldSarSwmr · #12

Great job! That burgundy micarta is drool inducing.

Pockets · #13

ricechrispy wrote:Thanks, all!

Thanks, Pockets. This is the second mule I've used micarta pins on and I really like them. I think they look great, and I like the fact that everything I'm sanding is equally hard. My first mule was Ipe (wood) with brass pins and I found I had very subtle high spots at each of the pins since they were harder than the surrounding wood.

I know what you mean; I've had that happen too. I don't recall having raised spots with small diameter pins, however.

araneae · #14

Looks great, nice work!

jackknifeh · #15

Great job. I like the micarta pins as well. I may check on this when I put handles on another fixed blade. Are they actually pins or are they plugs with a steel pin in the middle? I sure do think micarta is hard enough to make pins out of. Either way, I like the looks of them.

I've made a few handles for paring and slicing kitchen knives. I only used pins on a couple of them. Do the pins make the handle stronger somehow? Or are they there mainly for appearance? Till now I've just used epoxy on all of them with no trouble. The knives don't get used hard though like a camping knife would.

Jack

jmh58 · #16

Looks good!! :) John

ominodipietra · #17

Looks great! I really like the final color too.

On Edge · #18

Really nicely done. Beautiful knife.

ricechrispy · #19

jackknifeh wrote:Great job. I like the micarta pins as well. I may check on this when I put handles on another fixed blade. Are they actually pins or are they plugs with a steel pin in the middle? I sure do think micarta is hard enough to make pins out of. Either way, I like the looks of them.

I've made a few handles for paring and slicing kitchen knives. I only used pins on a couple of them. Do the pins make the handle stronger somehow? Or are they there mainly for appearance? Till now I've just used epoxy on all of them with no trouble. The knives don't get used hard though like a camping knife would.

Jack

Hey Jack,

The pins are 3/16" micarta rod. Here's an image:

I'm by no means an expert, but I think the pins do add strength. It seems like they would help mitigate any shearing force that is put on the scales. I'm sure that metal pins would be somewhat stronger, but my understanding is that it doesn't really matter since they're not the weakest link (epoxy is).

ricechrispy · #20

Alright, I got tired of looking at that terribly-lit photo I posted earlier, so I borrowed my wife's camera and took a much better photo of the Cruwear mule along with my two previous mule projects and a newly acquired Bark River Bravo 1.5.