An eight inch stainless steel Mora knife from Ragweed Forge

Cliff Stamp · Oct 10, 2003

New in this review :

1) a clear contrast of the initial sharpness and the performance after honing on both shallow cutting and medium depth .

2) tip penetration test on phonebook under a constant load in addition to the regular stab, this removes influences such as weight and grip security and ergonomics

3) chopping comparisons were extended beyond thick wood to lighter and more lively sticks to contrast the influences of brute power vs efficiency due to speed

4) used a comparison on SM insulation to illustrate deep cutting performance

Ref :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/butcher_puukko.html

-Cliff

tarsier · Oct 12, 2003

Howdy Cliff, thanks for the review, very informative.

I have been curious how the stainless steel Moras compare to the carbon steel versions of the same knife. It looks like you've now compared three different knives, two stainless and one carbon steel, but not done head-to-head tests with stainless and carbon versions of the same knife. There are some clues though. I found this comment interesting in your review of the narrow puukko #1260:

"The carbon steel puukko was also compared on cardboard cutting to a stainless puukko, the Mora 2000 with no significant advantage in edge retention or sharpening for either"

Given the advantages in corrosion resistance of the two stainless knives, and the fact that you found all of these knives unsuitable for heavy chopping or prying, do you see any reasons to choose the carbon over the stainless versions of the same knife? Blade shape and size seemed to be much more important in your results than steel differences.

By the way, you might check the edge retention tables in the #1260 review. Some data seems to be missing from them.

Cliff Stamp · Oct 14, 2003

tarsier :

... do you see any reasons to choose the carbon over the stainless versions of the same knife?

No. There was no significant difference seen in terms of ultimate sharpness nor ease of sharpening. The stainless had a slight advantage in edge retention on used carpet, no significant difference was seen on cardboard as noted. Thus overall the stainless comes out ahead not even considering the corrosion resistance.

Now the carbon might have an advantage in terms of ductility and might bend futher before breaking in prying, but both of these blades would be trivial to break when prying as the body is so thin, and the tips are also slender so they can't dig in hardwoods anyway. The edges are also very acute so the spine in general would not be likely to take hard impacts (another usual advantage for carbon steels).

By the way, you might check the edge retention tables in the #1260 review. Some data seems to be missing from them.

Yes, it isn't finished yet. I still have the rope cutting to do, finished up the last of the carpet cutting the weekend, four rounds with a few blades.

-Cliff

Cosmic Superchunk · Oct 17, 2003

Cliff, very interesting review. My fave Mora is the KJ Eriksson # 22 in carbon steel which I got from Ragnar at Ragweed Forge. I really like the thin blade and it takes a wicked edge. For shear slicing power, you gotta love that Scandinavian grind. Sharp as lightsabres!

Tzvi · Oct 18, 2003

I am surprised the Mora knives did not come sharp. It was my impression that all there knives were razors NIB. I have the swedesh Army mora..came with a wicked edge.

Anyhow thanks for the review, No I will just buy some of the better knives offered by Ragweed.

Cliff Stamp · Oct 20, 2003

I have bought more than half a dozen of the inexpensive puukko-sytle knives, none were sharp NIB, however all could be made very sharp with a few minutes of honing. The steel machines very easily and in most cases the less than stellar NIb sharpness is just a matter of edge alignment, a light stropping works a lot of the time.

It should also be noted that the performance NIB, regarding edge retention and edge durability may be lower than optimal due to weak metal left on the edge. Jim Aston has done numerous comparisons and found that both aspects can be greatly improved on such knives after an extended period of sharpening.

-Cliff

Tzvi · Oct 20, 2003

Thanx for the heads up, I guess I'll get a Helle or Martini.

BTW I bought some "old" (new but had been in a warehouse for some time, or so they claimed) Mora knives with plastic sheaths and red handles form "major surplus n survival" and they were very sharp. Gave it to my brother, he loves it.

Quality must have come down scince that peice was made. Poor edge retention...hmm seems they are having problems gettig the thin edge hard?

Sounds like regresion to me.

Cliff Stamp · Oct 21, 2003

The edge retention isn't poor, however NIB it can be less than optimal. This is true of many knives not just these puukko styled ones. For production knives it is common to see less than optimal edges with spots reflecting light, and have edge retention reduced due to burrs and other weakened aspects. This is on knives with prices more than 10x the above. This is why in general I would recommend not judging the performance of a knife until you have sharpened it a few times (which is good logic for several other reasons as well).

Personally this isn't an overally critical feature of a knife. Assuming you buy it as a user, the NIb sharpness is of little consequence, though it is nice to have it functionally sharp NIB. What is more important is to have a sensible edge profile (angle and thickness match intended scope of work) and that the edge bevels be clean and crisp to allow for easy of sharpening.

-Cliff

Tzvi · Oct 22, 2003

"though it is nice to have it functionally sharp NIB."

That is what I liked about Scandanavian knives, little razors. And yes they can sharpned even if NIB condition is less than Ideal.

Everybody likes more for their money.

OTOH it might be a good way to practice sharpening single bevels before moving on to more expensive (Marttini, Helle etc.) knives.

Cliff Stamp · Oct 22, 2003

Yes, one of the strong upsides is that they are *really* cheap, so they make good "toolbox" knives. It is common to see them regarded as disposable knives, use until the edge takes too severe damage and then just replace since the smaller ones are like ~$5.

-Cliff