Spyderco Forums

sal wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:29 pm

We made a bunch of them, otherwise it could not have covered the very expensive tooling.

sal

2000?

Some may be put off by the description: “Although HIC is more durable than conventional ceramic materials, it is still not as resilient as steel. It is, therefore, not warranted against breakage.”

RamZar wrote: ↑

Sun Feb 04, 2024 8:12 pm

sal wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:29 pm

We made a bunch of them, otherwise it could not have covered the very expensive tooling.

sal

2000?

Some may be put off by the description: “Although HIC is more durable than conventional ceramic materials, it is still not as resilient as steel. It is, therefore, not warranted against breakage.”

I did not think any mule would be. For example if you snap the tip off or break it battening I figured it was on you.

But when you snap the blade putting on handle scales (see the ZDP-189 Mule) they do stand behind it.

Watch cases have been made out of this for years and it has shown that even after 5-10 years the watch still looks new. (As no scratches)
The big thing was the brittleness (naysayers were everywhere early on) when they first came out but with 10 years of use I have only seen one or two that had bad press with a dropped watch that landed right on the lug.

Looking forward to all the thoughts once they are out.

($150.US +$45.US postage makes them a tad expensive for me in Australia when I could get 3x SPY 27s for the same price )

I'd curious but I kinda wish we could try this material in a different design. I'm thinking a 2" wharnie/ box cutter styled fixie.

CLOK wrote: ↑

Fri Feb 02, 2024 1:10 pm

https://www.spyderco.com/catalog/detail ... heath/2517

There is the dedicated sheath. I am sure it will be available when the knife is posted live for sale.

Hope the Boltaron® sheath specifically crafted for the MT40 Mule Team blade is in stock when the HIC Mule goes on sale on Wednesday.

sal wrote: ↑

Sat Feb 03, 2024 9:29 pm

I'm challenging the very bright folks here to come up with better ways to sharpen it and get it sharp enough to shave?

sal

Well then. Time to break out the spreadsheets and data collection. This will be interesting... Looking forward to it.

Given they made "a bunch", are we expecting no limit per household? Given the nature of the material, we may get some breakage in testing. Although, I have had a Rahven for a long time now, under light-moderate use, with no issues. I will say it didn't come from factory as sharp as I like my white/blue/super blue kitchen knives, but it still cuts similar to when I bought it. The biggest issue with the Rahven is I really don't like the weight/balance compared to traditional materials.

This mule will be the most interesting to date, imo. I can't wait to see how it holds up in the kitchen (food stuffs), gardening work (harvest, regular soil/dirt exposure), light-duty camping (rope, small game) and maybe even skinning (large game) if I have some luck in the fall...so, I definitely need more than 1, maybe 3?

This all reminds me, I need to update progress on more than a few mules. The issue is, with so many, it's hard to give them all a truly representative use test. A few have yet to be used extensively, or at all (glaring at my Rex76 with custom scales I made).

It is going to take a long time to truly put the HIC through the paces without being abusive... But maybe that's what we need to do...Mule Team Go!

Cheers,
-burly

I'm tempted to get one of these because they are so unique, but I've had a few HIC kitchen knives for a while now and it bothers me that there isn't a great way to sharpen them. I've been able to do some coarse reshaping with diamond plates when I chipped a section of edge near the tip off, but the edge chips out with plates so I had to finish sharpening on diamond film strops and it took forever. I've also done a couple normal sharpenings on both blades with the diamond films, and it works ok as long as you don't have chips (I do in a few places), but I've never been able to get them as sharp as I can get pretty much any steel. They do hold that mediocre edge for a long time though, and I use my HIC kitchen knives a good bit.

I can hear the whining now…. “I should have gotten a ceramic mule”. Bonus is, if there are catastrophic failures, it just makes the others more rare and valuable

Fireman wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:40 pm

I can hear the whining now…. “I should have gotten a ceramic mule”. Bonus is, if there are catastrophic failures, it just makes the others more rare and valuable

Just incase nobody has said this but thank you for getting this started!

legOFwhat? wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 8:01 pm

Fireman wrote: ↑

Tue Feb 06, 2024 4:40 pm

I can hear the whining now…. “I should have gotten a ceramic mule”. Bonus is, if there are catastrophic failures, it just makes the others more rare and valuable

Just incase nobody has said this but thank you for getting this started!

I’m just a yahoo with a keyboard. Sal is the hero here.

Gtscotty wrote: ↑

Mon Feb 05, 2024 8:26 pm

I'm tempted to get one of these because they are so unique, but I've had a few HIC kitchen knives for a while now and it bothers me that there isn't a great way to sharpen them.

Have you tried diamond belts?

[/quote]

Have you tried diamond belts?
[/quote]

My thought was to try loading up a linen belt for my 2x72 with diamond compound and seeing how that does to hone the edge on this Mule when I get it. I guess we’ll see how that goes. Do you know if there diamond impregnated belts that you can buy? I don’t recall ever seeing them anywhere.

My plan is to use CBN stones to sharpen it, though I may have to get an additional one to cover a gap I have between 400 and 1000 grit (I'm not sure how the edge would react to such a jump in size)

Now, my understanding is that edge retention is mad and I shouldn't have to sharpen it until some time "under normal use".

And of course this is only if I can grab one later today :)

François.

I am trying. The "add to cart" button is not working and the page was slow to open. I'll keep trying.

EDIT: Done. Bit of a struggle with responsiveness. t seemed to get better the last few minutes.

Has the site crashed or just me?

Lol timeouts galore already

Score. Slow loads but successful.

Checkout... ... ...

More difficult than 15V, but a lot easier than Magnacut. If I knew how easy it would be to sharpen this with a Wicked Edge, I would have purchased 2.

Checkout Completed. It was a bit slow but did not run into any errors on my side, just let it think and do its thing. 6 minutes, not too bad. Got it and the sheath.