Mule

I promised myself that I would complete the mule I picked up at the Blade Show a couple years ago.

Mules are sharpened, but unfinished knives from Spyderco.  Specifically:

“…Sample knife used for in-house performance testing. Traditionally, they are made to the exact same pattern and specifications, but feature a different blade steel or heat treatment protocol. This keeps all the performance characteristics of the knife identical except for a single variable, allowing an excellent basis for objective, scientific performance-based testing."

It gives prospective knife makers a chance to try their hand at customization.  Spyderco makes several copies of each set of variables.  I suspect that gives them experience in working with that combination of geometries, hardness and steel. 

When I bought my Swick 3, I was told that some of the previous mules came with sheaths, but mine didn’t.  Also I had no choice in steels and frankly, neither do you.  When a specific lot of steel is sold out, they are gone for good!

Stolen from Armslist  but this is a Swick 3

Equally unfortunately, Spyderco currently only offers only one fixed blade pattern.

Here’s a link to this interesting project.

https://www.spyderco.com/edge-u-cation/mule-team-project/

 I wanted synthetic handle material.  Having never tried to make a handle, I opted for pieces of a blue composite material.  While I was thrilled to score two potential nice grips, I was crushed to discover later they might be too small, depending on how clever I was.

I couldn’t get them to work, so the following year I purchased two slabs of exotic hard wood.  I carefully drew pencil lines on the dark brown wood and took it to my bandsaw.  From there it was relatively easy to turn them into scrap wood.

Fortunately I had several pieces of a nice mahogany.  I pressed them into service and after a little bandsaw work (much improved over the first run at this,) I had two blocky potential grips.  I decided not to use pins, but to the epoxy each future grip to the metal frame and a pine wood spacer.  The Swick’s handle is a steel frame and I didn’t want to fill that space with epoxy.

Since this is an on-the-cheap project, I used whatever epoxy I had on hand and that turned out to be J-B Weld 12 hour cure epoxy. I taped the blade to protect myself (Safety First!) and cut the pine spacer out on a jig saw and mixed my epoxy.  I actually prefer the 12 hour cure, as it gives me time to correct mistakes and the longer cure time creates stronger bonds and I’m all about handle strength.

The next day I started sanding with finer and finer grits.  I was inspired by a knife I saw at Shadow Tech Knives.  John used a 2000 grit paper and worked the wood into something wonderful.  It was so smooth and silky, I’m still not sure why I didn’t buy it when I saw it.

http://stknives.com/cub-limited-edition-exotic-wood-handle-with-g10-liner-satin-finished-cts-xhp-stainless-steel-blade/

I like the polished look of the wood, but I wanted some protective coating.  My wife had a special food grade supplement that can also be used to treat wood finishes on wood salad bowls.  It contains flax seed oil which sounds better than linseed oil and a vitamin E component.  Vitamin E contains a group of compounds called tocotrienols, that like flax seed oil, have double bounds between carbon atoms. 

The upshot of this impromptu chemistry lesson is that double bonds can break and reform to form a solid finish.  I wiped the handle down, left it in the shade a little to let the oils soak in and put it in the sun.  Well, those energetic solar photons did their job, opened up the double bonds and the oil formed a nice dry finish.

I’m pretty happy with the results and I think I’ll try this again next year by buying another mule at Spyderco

Tiger, tiger....

Karambits are popular right now for a variety of reasons.  Like so many weapons from South East Asia, they trace their origin to some animal attribute or farm implement.

And why not?  Nature shaped a bears claws for specific purposes, just like the teeth of a shark.  If you need to accomplish a similar purpose, starting with successful examples is not a bad idea. 

It should be self-evident that all invaders strip the conquered of their weapons.  What does the resourceful farmer do?  He learns to defend myself with farm tools and everyday objects. 

I can almost hear the conversation: “Oh no Master, Officer, Governor, Police, that’s not a weapon, but two sticks chained together that I use to thresh grain so I can pay my taxes.  I’d never think of breaking bones and heads with it….”

The karambit or kerambit as it’s known in Indonesia, comes from humble beginnings as well.  It was an agricultural implement used to rake roots, thresh grain and plant rice.  Folklore claims it was inspired by the claws of a tiger.

Slip your little finger in the hole and slash.  Most of the blocks I know work really well with a karambit in one hand! 

Wikipedia has a romantic tale of Indonesian women who would tie a karambit in their hair for self-protection.  I like this tale as a karambit has been described as an instinctual weapon.  More than 15 years ago a self-defense instructor told me “…put your thumb on the back of the blade and simply wipe your thumb on your target.”  He was talking about a classic straight blade; the same applies to the karambit. 

I recently got my hands on a karambit from the We Knife Co.  We is a Chinese company that has been making knives for the last 10 years under the name Wayeahknife.  In 2014 they had the opportunity to expand and changed their name to We Knife Company. 

Their mission statement?  "Building the highest quality knives and tools and giving you plenty of choices in our products."  Sounds pretty good.  They’re using equipment like CNC machines, CNC grinding machines, precision stamping machines, as well as EDM machines to produce high quality knives which they sell in the US and Europe.  These knives aren’t aimed at the Chinese market, as locking blades are illegal.

My karambit is model 708A and the specs are pretty impressive.

The blade has a linear measurement of 2.8 inches, but the curved edge gives you more cutting surface.  The steel used is CPM S35VN with a Rockwell hardness of 59-61.  The blade rolls open on ceramic ball bearings.

We claims the blade is flat grind, but I believe it is better described as a saber grind.  The knife is a frame lock and the locking bar has what appears to be a small steel insert that wedges against the steel blade when open.  Many of the better aluminum and titanium knives utilize a steel insert to protect the softer metal of the locking bar from excessive wear from the back of the blade.  It’s a nice touch.

The handle, metal clip, metal screws and cap are all TI6Al4V.  This alloy is the most commonly used titanium alloy used outside of the aerospace industries.  Wikipedia claims “…. It has a chemical composition of:

• 6% aluminum,
• 4% vanadium,
• 0.25% (maximum) iron,
• 0.2% (maximum) oxygen,
• remainder titanium.  

It is significantly stronger than commercially pure titanium while having the same stiffness and thermal properties.  Among its many advantages, it is heat treatable.  This grade is an excellent combination of strength, corrosion resistance, weld and fabricability.”

I like the flipper on the blade.  It really pops the knife open and serves as guard to prevent you sliding onto the blade.  I would have preferred the flipper to be used as an assist to open the knife as you draw it from your pocket.  I’m also disappointed the clip isn’t reversible.  The knife is set up for right hand, tip up carry.  It’s my favorite carry mode, but in everyday life the karambit might best be, as Doug Marcaida described it, as a “back-up weapon”.  The ability to adjust clip for your carry mode would have made this knife a much better product.

I know very little about fighting with a knife.  Watching someone who knows how to use a knife sends shivers down my spine.  But if you are like so many people who look at a knife and ask “Could I defend myself with that knife?” you should take a look at We’s karambit.  The answer is yes!

Another One Bites The Dust

What is the world coming to?

England was the world’s first superpower.  It ruled the seas, had bases and colonies on every habitable continent in the world.  It’s men would march out and the world would hold its breath.  It was rightly said the sun never sets on the British Empire.  At the beginning of the 20^th century this island stood again the Central powers and later stood against the Nazis.  But now, well it’s not looking too good.

I just read UK Essex police have a program called “Only Cowards Carry a Knife.”  And they have erected a drop off bin as part of some wacky amnesty program.  On the front of it they have the Cookie Monster and images of a screwdriver, broken bottle, kitchen knives and a folding knife.  It’s only a matter of time before they add scissors.

I also find interesting the Essex police use three swords as part of their logo or seal.

Again. is it really the object that are "evil" or the actions done with them?

Part of the program urges people to keep track of kitchen knives and properly dispose of them.  I remember reading about Winston Churchill during the early days of WWII musing, slightly drunk, that the English people might have to face invading German armies with kitchen knives.  Well, if it ever comes about again, they’ll be using pictures of knives drawn on paper.

On the same path, one of my favorite British mystery programs is Broadchurch.  It’s the name of a fictional town on the coast of England.  One scene in the third season shows a grieved (Warning: massive plot spoiler) father confronting his son’s killer and he has a folding box cutter in his pocket.

Box cutter, and it looks like the one on Broadchurch.  Not my choice of tool to confront a child killer. 

A box cutter!?!  WT Actual F?  Frankly, if I was confronting my child’s killer, a folding box cutter would be the most innocent thing I would have in my pockets!  Ahh, but it’s England, don’t you know.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again, that buzz you hear isn’t tinnitus, it’s Baden-Powell spinning in his grave. 

It's Moonshine!

Taylor Brands was founded by Stewart Taylor in 1975 in east Tennessee.  Originally Taylor had knives made for them under their name, but they gained the reputation as a knife jobber who facilitated the manufacture of knives with different trademarks. 

This isn’t necessarily a bad thing.  Knives of reasonable quality can be made by many manufacturers with excess capacity.  Taylor made S&W logo knives which were everyday working knives at a reasonable price.  I don’t think anyone expects to turn their working S&W knife over to a grandchild and I don’t know anyone who collects them.  But if you needed a cutting edge, S&W would work.

Many companies, for reasons better left to the studies of economics, found they could not compete in today’s market.  Taylor bought them.  Maybe the best you can say about this is brand names like Schrade, Old Timer, Uncle Henry, and Imperial knives were saved from oblivion.  It’s kind of like the Irish Elk.

Here’s where it gets complicated.  Taylor, as previously mentioned, licenses the Smith & Wesson name.  Smith & Wesson recently purchased Taylor Brands.  So they own, among other things, Old Timer, Schrade, as well as knives made in their name.

Recently I came across a Taylor made knife called the Moonshiner.  It’s a brass handled locking blade with a finger hole for grip.  The tang stamp indicates it’s a Taylor knife made in Japan of surgical steel.

I liked the finger hole but the brass handle as got to go!

I don’t know much about the knife, other than no bootlegger ever carried a knife that said Moonshiner.  The blade is stainless and I suspect it’s a 440 type.  Of the three types of 440, I suspect type C, as it’s the most common.

It came in the original box and the blade doesn’t seem to be used.  The brass looks like it’s been handled a lot.  I suspect it’s a show and tell knife, something you show off to your friends and acquaintances, like I’m doing now.