Idea for a Mule Team blade

Cold Kill said:
The hardest part would be splitting the handle (after you get the blade and handle separated). You could then send the handle halves out to be rehardened, unless you have the equipment. To split the handles you would need super specialized tools, none of which I know. It would really be easier to find a mule with a ruined blade, and take the handle portion of that for the other half of yours, or get some 420 handle pieces fabricated, then add your own scales.
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As somebody who makes things for a living, I agree with JNewell. To prove us wrong all you have to do is go ahead and make it happen, then post some photos of the finished product. Go ahead, it's easy!
 
Bill1170 said:
As somebody who makes things for a living, I agree with JNewell. To prove us wrong all you have to do is go ahead and make it happen, then post some photos of the finished product. Go ahead, it's easy!
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I have to take the place of the thinker, not the doer. No tools to do it with, and no money to buy tools. I do hope that somebody with the tools does try this, if it works it would end up awesome. I would say that if you wanted to try it, find a cheap, not-so-good mule to try it on, because the possible errors are vast.
 
Cold Kill said:
I have to take the place of the thinker, not the doer. No tools to do it with, and no money to buy tools. I do hope that somebody with the tools does try this, if it works it would end up awesome. I would say that if you wanted to try it, find a cheap, not-so-good mule to try it on, because the possible errors are vast.
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Some things are just not possible, and many things that are theoretically possible are, to some degree, impractical. Almost everything you've suggested in this thread is highly impractical or impossible. IE: "spitting the hande in half" would, at best, be damn difficult and the end result would be two liners with no pivot support, since they'd end behind the blade. Using the entire handle portion of Mule as a pattern for liners prior to cutting a folder blade out of it would make a lot more sense and be a lot less work.
 
Thinking is good, honestly, but not everything that can be thought of can be done, or done on any practical level. ;)

Cold Kill said:
I have to take the place of the thinker, not the doer. No tools to do it with, and no money to buy tools. I do hope that somebody with the tools does try this, if it works it would end up awesome. I would say that if you wanted to try it, find a cheap, not-so-good mule to try it on, because the possible errors are vast.
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Has anyone considered just asking Mr. Glesser to manufacture an occassional folder in the MT series? :p

The basic Military model already meets the requirements for a test bed, so no additional design development would be necessary. :thumbup:
 
After looking around on the Spyderco website, I realized that you could just get an Endura/Delica parts kit (whichever the Mule blade fits), find some scales, and stick the blade in there. 90% of the work avoided.
 
I would be cheaper in the long run and a lot easier to just get a custom knife made.

Just the HT alone would run around $75 each time, once to soften the steel and the 2nd to reharden it.

So that's $150 + the orginal cost of the blade before you even get started making a folder out of it.

People can get a really nice custom folder made cheaper than it would cost.
 
That question has been answered at least once by Sal Glesser, either here or at their forum. IIRC, I *think I remember* that the answer was that it was contrary to the goal of making a broad range of steels available at lowest cost (because making folders would significantly increase the cost of the knives).

Ben Dover said:
Has anyone considered just asking Mr. Glesser to manufacture an occassional folder in the MT series? :p

The basic Military model already meets the requirements for a test bed, so no additional design development would be necessary. :thumbup:
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Ankerson said:
I would be cheaper in the long run and a lot easier to just get a custom knife made.

Just the HT alone would run around $75 each time, once to soften the steel and the 2nd to reharden it.

So that's $150 + the orginal cost of the blade before you even get started making a folder out of it.

People can get a really nice custom folder made cheaper than it would cost.
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I have often considered a custom folder. I feel confident that the overall quality of many makers would meet or exceed my expectations. The sticking point, at least in my mind, has been heat treatment. Large makers like Spyderco have state of the art HT facilites. But do small custom makers have the ability to provide the overall quality aNd consistency of HT that we have come to expect from Spyderco, Bark River or someone like Paul Bos? :confused:
 
Ben Dover said:
But do small custom makers have the ability to provide the overall quality aNd consistency of HT that we have come to expect from Spyderco, Bark River or someone like Paul Bos? :confused:
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Many ship the blades off to a professional heat treater.
 
Ben Dover said:
I have often considered a custom folder. I feel confident that the overall quality of many makers would meet or exceed my expectations. The sticking point, at least in my mind, has been heat treatment. Large makers like Spyderco have state of the art HT facilites. But do small custom makers have the ability to provide the overall quality aNd consistency of HT that we have come to expect from Spyderco, Bark River or someone like Paul Bos? :confused:
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Some of them that do their own heat treating are even better. ;)

Others send blades off to Professional Heat treaters, the same ones that some production companies use. ;)
 
Has anyone considered just asking Mr. Glesser to manufacture an occassional folder in the MT series
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These are the "sprints" that Spyder tries to do 3 or 4 of every year.

Joe
 
The Mastiff said:
These are the "sprints" that Spyder tries to do 3 or 4 of every year.

Joe
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Exactly.

As others have pointed out previously in this thread, the additional cost of making a folder (or even shipping the current fixed blade Mule Team with scales) would be contrary to the whole purpose of the Mule Team series, which is to get new steels into the hands of users at the lowest possible cost. And like Joe alluded to, if you look back at the history of the steels used in the Mule Team series, most of them make it into folders, whether through sprint runs of the bread and butter models (Military, Para 2, Manix 2) or with folders that become part of the regular production lineup (e.g., CPM-M4 in the Gayle Bradley, CPM-S35VN in the Native 5).
 
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