Got a little busy with scales recently, but pulled them all together for a group photo:
(from left to right)
Birch - my first try. a bit wonky but serviceable.
White Oak on Rex 76 - This one sees a LOT of use, it has whittled most of the other scales! Made from leftover floorboards. I could make hundreds!
Wenge on ZDP- 189 - Super-dense hardwood a total pain to work with. This is from the Seconds sale, so may no be usable. You can't see it but a lot of the countersunk drilling is messed up pretty badly on this one.
Birch v.2 on AEB-L - Went for a super-clean look with relatively complicated screw posts. They are countersunk from both sides. Got very lucky with my drilling working out well.
Lacewood on M398 - Finished recently, this wood is sooo trippy to work with! Amazing grain patterns and looks really interesting in the sunlight.
Purple Heartwood on the Spy27 Prod mule - This is also going to be a heavy user in the yard and for packages and general knifing. Also, very interesting color-changing wood to work with.
Purple Heartwood on the Spy27 Prod mule - This is also going to be a heavy user in the yard and for packages and general knifing. Also, very interesting color-changing wood to work with.
I'd be interested to see a photo of the Purple Heart once you've used it for a while. Mine tended to fade, so I started stabilizing them with purple dye.
Purple Heartwood on the Spy27 Prod mule - This is also going to be a heavy user in the yard and for packages and general knifing. Also, very interesting color-changing wood to work with.
I'd be interested to see a photo of the Purple Heart once you've used it for a while. Mine tended to fade, so I started stabilizing them with purple dye.
My experience has been that when PH is exposed to any sunlight, fading occurs, but that might not be true of all PH. I had a PH and maple chessboard that I kept on a table that got sunlight. I moved the pieces after a couple of weeks and there were large dots left on the PH squares. I took the pieces off and put the board away, and the color came back.
I'd be interested to see a photo of the Purple Heart once you've used it for a while. Mine tended to fade, so I started stabilizing them with purple dye.
Fascinating, and a bit of a bummer. I've never worked with it before, and I'm curious to see where it goes. Lovely and brilliant at the moment. Does UV protectant work? Like spray them down with Krylon UV protectant than go over with the finish of your choice?
Got a couple other shots of the latest Mule I made. It was supposed to be for someone but the guy desisted, I hate to have to try and sell something ! It's not in my nature to sell stuff... Hard when you're starting to make knives, folder scales or mule handles
In the collection : Lots of different steels, in lots of different (and same) Spydercos.
Robin. Finally made an IG : ramo_knives MNOSD member 004* aka Mr. N5s
I'd be interested to see a photo of the Purple Heart once you've used it for a while. Mine tended to fade, so I started stabilizing them with purple dye.
Fascinating, and a bit of a bummer. I've never worked with it before, and I'm curious to see where it goes. Lovely and brilliant at the moment. Does UV protectant work? Like spray them down with Krylon UV protectant than go over with the finish of your choice?
I've been hunting for some type of UV protection as well. I have decent amount of Bois D' Arc(Osage Orange) and want to make a handle with some but want to keep it in the state it's in(tree had been down for a bit and seasoned but still has some yellow to it). I found a guy(Ben from Greenberg Woods) that made a wax with UV protection but was OOS when I tried to order some. Please let me know if yall come across any viable solutions.
Got a couple other shots of the latest Mule I made. It was supposed to be for someone but the guy desisted, I hate to have to try and sell something ! It's not in my nature to sell stuff... Hard when you're starting to make knives, folder scales or mule handles
That's beautiful. I'd definitely keep that one for myself.
Where did you get the handle material? Did you stabilize it yourself? It's really well done.
Got a couple other shots of the latest Mule I made. It was supposed to be for someone but the guy desisted, I hate to have to try and sell something ! It's not in my nature to sell stuff... Hard when you're starting to make knives, folder scales or mule handles
That's beautiful. I'd definitely keep that one for myself.
Where did you get the handle material? Did you stabilize it yourself? It's really well done.
I had the exact thought when I finished it ! But since it was supposed to go, I'm trying to hold myself to it Apparently there's way more people willing to buy it in the USA, if it doesn't go fast I'll ship it there.
As for the stabilized wood I've tried many places in europe and ended up staying with an ukrainian guy that does it on a small scale, but works wonders ! I've had so many bad stuff with cracks not filled, spots without good impregnation... I'm happy to support him ! His name is DimecWood on etsy, but he has a website :)
In the collection : Lots of different steels, in lots of different (and same) Spydercos.
Robin. Finally made an IG : ramo_knives MNOSD member 004* aka Mr. N5s
Took my factory 2nd ZDP-189 mule to 600 grit @ 17dps on kme diamond stones and then stropped w/ 3mic & 1mic on a homemade cowhide strop. She bites!!
Also, had it cerakoted so I didn't have to worry about corrosion during Texas summers. *Handles are a work in progress*
*Edit- when using postimages.org what option gives the best picture quality? Looks like I took this picture with a potato camera.
That cerakote treatment looks great! Surprised I haven't seen a lot of that on mules. Did you have that done locally or through an online service? I'm in the Pacific NW, lots of moisture, and wouldn't mind treating a couple of my blades that way. Also - how are your impressions of the 2nd ZDP-189? Yours looks to have a nice edge on it. Does it feel true-to-character when sharpening and cutting?
This one I did have done locally by Black Boar Rifles. I had a Rex 76 one done by a guy suggested off of blade forums. I like it so far, haven't been put past any general cutting tasks but if sharpening is any indication of its capabilities I see the edge holding for a while. I just posted this in the community sharpening post but I felt like it belonged in the mule forum as well. Hopefully that's kosher.
"Recently got around to sharpening my factory 2nd ZDP-189 mule after getting it back from cerakote(if a steel is susceptible to rusting I'm going to have it coated, have a rex 76 mule coated as well). I had taken it to 300 grit(on a kme sharpening with their diamond stone set) before dropping it off and left the angle guide locked in the same position(sharpened a cpl other knives in the same position to make this process easier) until I got it back/had time to sharpen it. The trick was placing it in the same position in the jaws. I had taken a picture & measurements(although I left my calipers @ a friend's place) so I had something to work off of. Decided to go with the 600 grit stone seeing that was next step in the progression. The original DPS was ~17° and after re setting it was ~16.8 or so. In hindsight I should have started with the 300 grit stone to get everything uniform again before moving on, would have saved me some time. The 600 grit stone ate up the cerakote pretty easily... I'd say 10 strokes(if up & down is two strokes) or so before I started seeing steel. ZDP was definitely hard and formed a nice burr. After deburring @ 600 grit I took it through a quick strop progression w/3mic then 1 mic gunny juice on a homemade cow hide bat strop. First pic is of the the original setting in the jaws, second is before resharpening, and third is doneskiies. I will probably repost this is the mule forum. Hope all is well yall.
*One thing I noticed in the initial sharpening was that the ZDP seemed to really sing(more so than other steels ive sharpened) a high note when working towards the tip. This was muted some after being cerakoted."
First mule team handle finished(over the weekend but haven't had time to post the pics). I had made a handle for a kit knife from wood craft so technically I can't claim that this is my first ever. I really liked the feel of the thin Halpern scales so I worked off of that profile, they finished around .18" thick. This was originally a .5" thick box elder burl scale that I ripped in half(more like one third and two thirds haha). This was definitely a learning process and have some ideas on how to address whoopsies on the next one(received some advice from standy and would have been completely lost without the handle making guide put together by xplorer). Two biggest things I ran into was get the profile uniform(originally wanted to have the scales slightly smaller to expose the spine all the way around and that turned into having ~ 1/8" + of the heel sticking out so I gave up on that) to the spine without grinding the steel and the other doing the chamfer by hand. Talking to standy he suggested to leave the scales on, take it all the way to the steel, and then just sand out the marks on the blade by hand(correct me if I'm wrong there). As far as the chamfer I wanted something subtle but functional. I sanded it in first before finish sanding the flats by wrapping sic sandpaper around a .25" x 1.5" piece of wood and around a fine tipped sharpie for curved pieces.(wish I would have taken more pictures). What ended up happening is I lost most of the chamfer through the finish sanding of the flats so I will be doing that last next time around. In the end I took the flats to 400 grit with sic sandpaper then finished with two coats of Axe Wax.
Last edited by tcarltonw on Thu May 18, 2023 11:08 am, edited 2 times in total.
O, and here's a picture of the spine.. have limited time to work on hobbies during the spring time so it turned into a "close enough for government work" finishing process.
*The voids on the right side towards the butt were filled with CA a cpl times throughout the build
Nice work making them disassembly ready !
That's my next project. I have too many mules with too many handles at home
Here's my current work, one for a customer and one for me. Since it's both AEB-L I decided to let him pick his favorite once they're done.
Both elder burl too, one dyed similar to yours and a green/orange/idkwhichcolor.
Decided to vary a tiny bit on the top of the handle, giving it more thickness for the green handle. I'm almost finished with shaping, the blue one is pretty close to the actual dimensions and the green one will thin down a bit. Then there's some work still to round some stuff :)
In the collection : Lots of different steels, in lots of different (and same) Spydercos.
Robin. Finally made an IG : ramo_knives MNOSD member 004* aka Mr. N5s
When i order from Dmitri it is always top quality. His stuff is triple stabilized so there is little to no voids. However, the dark blue handle did show a couple of voids after the shaping.
I have CA glue to fill them but I always find it to be a pain !
In the collection : Lots of different steels, in lots of different (and same) Spydercos.
Robin. Finally made an IG : ramo_knives MNOSD member 004* aka Mr. N5s
Apparently there's way more people willing to buy it in the USA, if it doesn't go fast I'll ship it there.
Surprised I haven't seen a lot of that on mules. Did you have that done locally or through an online service? I'm in the Pacific NW, lots of moisture, and wouldn't mind treating a couple of my blades that way. Also - how are your impressions of the 2nd ZDP-189? Yours looks to have a nice edge on it. Does it feel true-to-character when sharpening and cutting?
