- Joined
- May 16, 2006
- Messages
- 2,724
Since I've had the Spyderco Mule it has basically stayed in the box. My plan was to wait for the next one and do some side by side comparison testing. A couple days ago, I ran out of knives to sharpen; of the 30 or so knives I have every single one was hair whittling sharp at the time, except for the untouched mule. So I took it out and noticed that it was shaving sharp and more importantly had nice even bevels, but still it wouldn't whittle hair. After about 15 minutes using fine and extra fine DMTs and then an ultra fine Spyderco ceramic it split hairs nicely, a little more work with the UF ceramic and it could slice an incredibly fine section off of a hair. A truly beautiful edge. 
I used it to slice up some hard plastic, cut a bunch of very thick cardboard, some more plastic, and it still shaved hair easily. By this point I was really starting to enjoy not just the steel but the knife itself. What a great blade, the overall design makes it really comfortable (even without a proper handle) and efficient to do what a knife is meant to do, cut. I've since dulled and sharpened it several times and have come to think that the 52100 and the design of the Mule are just an exquisite match, a hard laser sharp edge on a thin blade, supported by an ergonomic design, all in a knife that sharpens quite easily.
The question though that was lingering in my mind was, how tough is it? (I really am not concerned with corrosion resistance) So tonight I subjected it to the "three beer test". Now the reason I call it the "three beer test" is because that's how many beers I need to drink in order to subject a beautifully sharpened knife to this kind of abuse, I just can't for the life of me bring myself to do it without drinking at least three beers. Now this is a wholly unscientific test, which basically involves me slamming the edge of a knife perpendicularly into the edge of a hard stone block which serves to anchor an arching 8 foot high floor lamp. No parameters are standardized, but I make a good faith effort at keeping the amount of force used similar among "tests". So after two whacks on different sections of the edge, I cringed a bit and took a look at the edge. Not bad at all. No chipping, just some minor denting, less than 1/32 of an inch deep. I've seen denting a lot worse from other tough steels that had a good deal more metal behind the edge than the Mule does.
So I'll be sending this one out soon for some scales and a sheath and intend on making it a regular user. What a great knife! I also intend on looking for other knives made from this simple yet highly-functional steel.
I used it to slice up some hard plastic, cut a bunch of very thick cardboard, some more plastic, and it still shaved hair easily. By this point I was really starting to enjoy not just the steel but the knife itself. What a great blade, the overall design makes it really comfortable (even without a proper handle) and efficient to do what a knife is meant to do, cut. I've since dulled and sharpened it several times and have come to think that the 52100 and the design of the Mule are just an exquisite match, a hard laser sharp edge on a thin blade, supported by an ergonomic design, all in a knife that sharpens quite easily. The question though that was lingering in my mind was, how tough is it? (I really am not concerned with corrosion resistance) So tonight I subjected it to the "three beer test". Now the reason I call it the "three beer test" is because that's how many beers I need to drink in order to subject a beautifully sharpened knife to this kind of abuse, I just can't for the life of me bring myself to do it without drinking at least three beers. Now this is a wholly unscientific test, which basically involves me slamming the edge of a knife perpendicularly into the edge of a hard stone block which serves to anchor an arching 8 foot high floor lamp. No parameters are standardized, but I make a good faith effort at keeping the amount of force used similar among "tests". So after two whacks on different sections of the edge, I cringed a bit and took a look at the edge. Not bad at all.
No chipping, just some minor denting, less than 1/32 of an inch deep. I've seen denting a lot worse from other tough steels that had a good deal more metal behind the edge than the Mule does. So I'll be sending this one out soon for some scales and a sheath and intend on making it a regular user. What a great knife! I also intend on looking for other knives made from this simple yet highly-functional steel.
