Steel Junky's - need opinions

Man, I missed this one by ages. I'm in Sal, probably for the run of whatever steels you do. Have I missed the signup or is it not up yet?

Gotta admit, the proto is a nice looking piece of steel, but I was liking the warny myself.

Syn
 
No actual "sign-up" yet, we were just seeking to know if there was interest.

We'll begin cutting in a week or so. When we get closer to knowing the cost, we'll let you know a price and do a "sign-up".

sal
 
Any news about this? I sent in my email ages ago, never got a response of any type...
 
Sal Glesser said:
Hi vassili,



etc..


Steel foundries have their hands full just making steel. I believe they expect us to fill that role, which is what I'm doing. It serves both our vendors and our customers, we all learn, and it might promote some competition to create the ultimate perfect knife steel, "Vassilium". Besides, making High quality consistent knives is harder to do well than it might appear.

BTW, SRS15 used by Fallkniven and also in many other kitchen knives as a core in laminated blades...
Click to expand...

Good, then it must be available at least in small quantities. Do you know who makes the steel?

sal
Click to expand...

I do not know of any Fallkniven knives with SRS15. Fallkniven uses a laminated SGPS at 62 Rc, which is, to my knowledge, a different steel. Also the steel analysis shows thedifference?
Am I wrong?

Franco
 
Sal,

Is there room for one more on your list?

I enjoyed our conversation at BLADE Show.

If that show lasted about five more days I might get everything accomplished that I'd like to do.

Wayne G
 
Hi Wayne,

Should be no problem. Our original "test" sign-up only yielded a few hundred interested parties, but that was assuming one piece each. We're making 500 pcs. My guess is there will be plenty to go around.

We'll do an "official" order list when we have a price.

sal
 
Sal,
I tried to send an email to MuleTeam@spyderco.com to express interest in the series sign-up, but the message bounced. zenheretic mentioned that you've been having some issues with your mail system.

Do you still want the emails expressing interest, or should I wait for the official sign up to post?
 
Greetings~

This is my first post since registering for this forum. I haven't waited a polite lurking time but this thread cries for response. My interest in this project is not one of having an expertise to share but in being able to hang out with the big doggies.

The question of expense keeps being swept back under the rug. I have no idea what it would cost to produce a bare bones tool of this sort once the initial design and tooling is out of the way. I understand that exotic steels would inflate the costs but I still would like to imagine (dream?) that with the handle, sheath, and finish left up to the user that piece of steel might be available for something on the order of $25-50. Even less would be cause for rejoicing.

Looking at it from another angle, to participate in this project I could squeeze out $25 a month or $300 for a one time commitment, hopefully involving at least six knives, and that would be putting a sharp crimp in the old budget. Less would be more, more or less, if you get my drift. I realize that I am in the company of some high rollers here but not all of us are blessed with deep pockets.

While I am giving some feedback here, Sal, let me comment on the Spyderco logo. About an hour ago I pulled a tick out of my beard. Do you see where this is going? When I pull a tick off of one of my dogs and let them smell it to see what I was doing rooting around, I say, "Ugh, nasty, nasty!!!"

I doubt if you designed that logo. I suspect it was designed by someone sitting at a desk who has never had a tick crawling on them. It is something that I have to overcome with hard mental effort when encountering things Spyderco. It is not a stroke of marketing genius. This project would be a good opportunity for a new emblem, if emblem was called for, which it isn't necessarily.

"Mule Team" is good. It suggests the coordinated and cooperative effort of strong, skillful, and top-of-the-line movers and haulers under the guidance of a Teamster (that would be you, Sal) who understands that best efforts are not produced by using a two by four.

On each blade a simple "Spyderco Mule Team" with the name of the particular steel added. If a picture is called for, an old fashioned freight hauler, not necessarily a twenty-mule rig like the Borax people use but a minimum of four and I'm thinking at least eight side by side would look good, minimally stated. Out of all the people here who can design a handle and sheath for this serial blade, perhaps there is one who can draw a hard working mule team.

If someone upstairs absolutely has to have a picture of a spider on the blade, I'll send you a tick and you can let it crawl on them until it finds a good place to start siphoning blood. I'll admit that even tho I am tolerant of daddy-long-legs, they probably wouldn't feature well as a knife blade logo.

Tarantulas are fairly macho and altho I would let one crawl on me given the opportunity, I doubt if they would sell knives. How about the Wolf Spider? This guy sits upright and will turn his head to look at you. If you stick your finger out toward him he will leap on it if you have nerves of steel and don't flinch but he won't bite you. He's suitable for a bunch of guys and the occasional girl who qualify as knife knuts.

Personally I would forgo the spider altogether but I might be bucking a strong head wind here. I think that the simple text "Spyderco Mule Team" with the particular steel added would be classy and would allow me to feel as if I was participating in an elite effort tho I can't even fake knowing all that much about the various varieties of steel.

And indeed, even if my responses to a particular issue were on the level of "Hey, this thing can't whittle as good a fuzz stick as my jack knife I stick in the dirt!" or "Hey, the harder I try to sharpen this thing, the duller it gets!", I do feel that the combined expertise of this forum is an invaluable commodity for research and development, and the Mule Team series of blades is a potential stroke of genius on the part of Spyderco.

So it would be good if the bean counters (do you have them?) did not see this as another way to fatten the bottom line with an inflated subscription price, but as a cheap way of gaining invaluable feedback if the price is right enough to allow little doggies like me to run along. Breaking even would be a righteous goal.

Did I mention that I tend to run my mouth far beyond the normal terse comments encountered here? Alas, I may be too old to change, I beg your indulgence and hope that your project comes to fruition at a level that allows maximum participation and results in maximum profitable feedback for you.

Your design is great, the most bang for the buck as nestled within the plethora of ideas and desires of this highly knowledgeable group of individualists. I would be pleased if allowed to contribute. Best wishes in this endeavor.
 
I'm in no way qualified to speak for Sal But I do know that to expect to see some of these CPM, bearing, High speed, and tool steels bought, shipped, blanked or laser cut, ground, heat treated, polished and finished and then sold to you for the $25 to $50 range is wishfull thinking at best. I really don't think it can be done even if Spyderco was to charge no markup at all.

Most of these steels aren't used in regular production knives due to price or some other difficulty somewhere in the process making it too expensive, or the steels overly difficult to process and heat treat on a regular basis.

I'm not trying to rain on anybodies parade because I'm looking foreward to these mules as much as anybody else but we need to remain realistic about this, even though it can make me feel like a kid in a candy store at times thinking about steels I've always wanted to try.

Each steel has it's own set of demands and difficulties and needs to be approached individually problem and therefore cost wise. Joe
 
Hi Natch,

Welcome to the forums and thanx for the input.

I take it you don't care for our "cute Spyder". ;) Sorry.

After 25 years, wse're not likely to begin changing our logo at this time. Maybe you'll get used to it?

Think of it as a cute Spyder that's just chubby from eating ticks.

sal
 
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