Mule Question

[D1omedes]

Have any of you Mule owners convexed a Mule blade?

I am interested in free-hand sharpening, mainly learning how to create a convex edge. Do Mule blades offer an easy, cheap means to do this? I'd like to get some proper practice in before I try and convex my more expensive knives.

 

[yablanowitz]

Define "cheap". The last one (9Cr18Mo) was pretty reasonable and easy to work, but at $65 a pop with fair vanadium content, the next one is going to be rather less so.

I sharpen freehand for the most part, so all my edges end up convex to some degree, including my Mules.

 

[D1omedes]

Define "cheap". The last one (9Cr18Mo) was pretty reasonable and easy to work, but at $65 a pop with fair vanadium content, the next one is going to be rather less so.

I sharpen freehand for the most part, so all my edges end up convex to some degree, including my Mules.

Well, "cheap" for me means $20 to $30 range. Yeah, the next Mules are definitely out of my price range for convexing practice.

Did you find the 9Cr18Mo Mules easy to sharpen? Also, I've heard that convex edges are easier to get on thicker blades. Is this true?

 

[yablanowitz]

The 9Cr18Mo was no challenge for me to sharpen, but remember that involves diamond hones and 40+ years of practice. The steel seems to average around Rc59 from the test results I saw posted. That's nowhere near ZDP-189 hardness, but it is way harder than most low-end makers run their blades.

Thicker blades just give you more room to work when convexing, but it can be done on thin blades easily enough.

 

[THG]

If you'd like a knife to practice sharpening on, I'd suggest something really, really cheap, like a china town knife. When you get a little better, you might like to get an 8Cr13MoV or VG-10 knife. These steels are generally easier to sharpen because they're softer.

Of course by "easier" I mean "takes less time." When they say "harder to sharpen" steels like ZDP-189, they mean that it takes longer and therefore it's harder to see the results of what you're doing.

And like Yablanowitz said, freehand sharpening generally produces somewhat of a convex edge. All of mine have some convexing. If you want to do the "hardcore" convexing method, they do stuff like use mousepads with sandpaper so that when you push down, it makes a curved shape to convex the bevels.