Building a Mora-based kit

A

AlexSchira

Joined
May 12, 2007
Messages
355
This last week, I ended up with a book by Cody Lundin. The thing completely changed my outlook on outdoors equipment, and I'm looking into updating my gear accordingly. But one thing in his book that interested me was how he cocooned his Mora sheath in duct tape, and yet tucked a lighter and other bits into the tape as a last-ditch kit if all you had was the sheathed knife. I do know of the nicer sheaths out there with dedicated pockets and the like, but with a couple Clippers ordered and on their way, I'm curious what I could do to the sheaths when they get here.

I have...far too much gear lying around, lot of odds and ends I wouldn't mind finally using in a kit. Depending on the size of the sheath I might be able to tape on a closing-lid container to it for an extreme micro-kit. I can easily see packing a Photon, firestarter, tiny prybar, purification tabs...Tiny odds and ends that could round out my options if for some reason stuck with just the knife.

Well, that and because I love starting new kits.

Anyone have experience with working with cheaper sheaths like this?
 
clippers are a great knife but the sheath is not the best imo becaues the knife while secre is not "super secure" in the sheath...I made a kit out of my clipper sheath by cutting up some innertube from a bike tire, (like rubberbands) and slipping them around the sheath..than you can slip otems in and they are held securely a small led, a bsa hotspark, a spycapsule full of tinder, and a strap made of 2 loops of parcord and you're on your way to a decent kit...good luck
 
Unless it's a true survival kit (something you'll never touch unless you're actually in an emergent situation) then I'd recommend either doing like Riley said and wrapping the goodies under some innertube sections, or attaching a small pouch to the sheath.

I don't really dig on devoted survival kits, I'd rather keep a group of items that I regular use somewhere where I'll always have them with me. That way I'm not wasting space, weight, gear, and I know each object is functioning because I'll have used it recently.

Example of mora mini-kit:

Knifekitandpot009.jpg

Knifekitandpot006.jpg
 
Snap. I can't be doing with them either. Either you end up doubling up on gear, or not using the gear within 'the kit' because it isn't an emergency, and thereby you don't get to practice. Or you end up opening it up anyway 'cos you want the tarzan bar, or need a bit of abduct tape, or have a headache or somethin'. There are only a a tiny amount of items I carry that are really reserved for last resorts, and don't get used as just part of the stuff I have with me. Such things are for water purification or are snare wire.
 
I've used the bike-tire-inner-tube-section thing instead of the duct tape, and find it works just great. I agree that the Clipper, in particular, has some retention issues (holding the knife into the scabbard). You might want to get creative about coming up with a means of holding it in more securely. One option might include drilling a lanyard hole toward the rear of the handle (no steel there), and threading something through that and the scabbard. If you had the Craftsman model (which is what SpookyPistolero has in his picture) instead of the Clipper, you'd find that the lanyard hole lines up perfectly with a hole in the belt tab of the scabbard, and you can thread a mini-carabiner through the lanyard hole and the scabbard hole and lock the knife in VERY firmly, until you actually need it, in which case you just remove the carabiner.

Personally, I'd leave out the prybar (I'd have other priorities for the weight and space that'd take up). For "carry-it-with-you-everywhere" purposes I love the Horseshoe Mountain firestarters better than the rectangular-slab kind, because the HM ones are about a quarter the size of the rectangular ones, but still come with enough magnesium to get you through weeks of wilderness survival. Before affixing the other stuff to the scabbard, you might think about masking-taping a few small fishhooks, maybe a couple of large sewing needles, and perhaps an X-Acto blade to the side of the scabbard, and then wrapping several yards of 60- or 80-pound-test BRAIDED fishing line around the lot, followed by another layer of masking tape. The tape is flimsy, easily removed, and just serves to hold everything in place while you wrap it up. This is a way of getting a great deal of tough, small-diameter cordage and a few useful little things like hooks into your kit, taking up almost no space. I like Fox 40 Micra whistles, too. If you include a compass, make sure it really works--some of the "button" compasses are so unreliable you'd be better off just navigating by sun and stars. (Anyone got a recommendation on a really-good, inexpensive "button" compass that actually works?) Water purification tabs might be a good idea. In a thread several months ago, a guy with a screen name like "Tiros" or "Tyros" posted a thread in which he'd pimped-up a mini-Bic lighter, taping needles and a blade to it, stretching an O-ring around it to keep the gas-release button from being pushed down accidentally, and other stuff like that. It might be worth adding a little lighter (with at least the O-ring addition) to your kit--which I think Lundin does.

If you're going to count on using a condom as a water container, as Lundin recommends, you might want to experiment beforehand and see if you can actually fill it with a significant amount of water--I hear it's hard to do.

A couple of firestraws, or fatwood sticks (best to round those off, to keep from cutting your inner tube) might be good.

Consider keeping the flashlight in a place that lets you have ready access to it without disassembling your whole kit.

Oh--one last thing: I am nervous about any survival-kit configuration that involves having a cord around my neck that has a higher breaking strength than my neck does. Survival situations are, by definition, chaotic and unpredictable. I figure that if there's any time in my life when I'm likely to be climbing out of a car window, jumping out of a building, climbing a tree, hanging upside down, crawling into a helicopter, squirming out of a submerged vehicle, etc., etc., it's most probably going to happen in a survival situation. When that is what's going on, I might really be glad not to have a pre-made noose around my neck to catch on whatever tree-branch or car-mirror and turn a chaotic situation into a fatal accident. Also, the neck rig allows the knife/kit to dangle at all kinds of unpredictable and dangerous angles if you happen to get upside-down or into an other-than-right-side-up position. What I prefer, then, is to make the cord a bit longer, and then deploy it over one shoulder and under the opposite arm. It can catch on stuff that way, but it won't strangle me or break my neck. The under-the-arm deployment means the knife is held in more or less one place. Might give those things a thought.

Have fun experimenting with building your kit! And if you come up with any new ideas, let us all know!
 
I'll admit I've always been skeptical about the condom thing...No way to properly close the things even if they don't break, rather just take an extra freezer bag. Likewise, I'm also not sure about burying the things out of reach, hence why I'm thinking of a way to make it accessible while staying out of the way. Lastly, it'll be belt-dedicated, Moras are just too big to be neck-knives, and I only EDC a Photon on a fitted cord to avoid the risks mentioned.

As for essentials to include, I'm throwing in either a Bic lighter or Spark-lite kit, along with an extra Fox 40 Micro I have. That covers heat, signaling, and the blade in the knife itself...If I can find a way to put in Katadyn tablets that'll cover water as well.
 
Return of the J.D. said:
I've used the bike-tire-inner-tube-section thing instead of the duct tape, and find it works just great. I agree that the Clipper, in particular, has some retention issues (holding the knife into the scabbard). You might want to get creative about coming up with a means of holding it in more securely. One option might include drilling a lanyard hole toward the rear of the handle (no steel there), and threading something through that and the scabbard. If you had the Craftsman model (which is what SpookyPistolero has in his picture) instead of the Clipper, you'd find that the lanyard hole lines up perfectly with a hole in the belt tab of the scabbard, and you can thread a mini-carabiner through the lanyard hole and the scabbard hole and lock the knife in VERY firmly, until you actually need it, in which case you just remove the carabiner.

Personally, I'd leave out the prybar (I'd have other priorities for the weight and space that'd take up). For "carry-it-with-you-everywhere" purposes I love the Horseshoe Mountain firestarters better than the rectangular-slab kind, because the HM ones are about a quarter the size of the rectangular ones, but still come with enough magnesium to get you through weeks of wilderness survival. Before affixing the other stuff to the scabbard, you might think about masking-taping a few small fishhooks, maybe a couple of large sewing needles, and perhaps an X-Acto blade to the side of the scabbard, and then wrapping several yards of 60- or 80-pound-test BRAIDED fishing line around the lot, followed by another layer of masking tape. The tape is flimsy, easily removed, and just serves to hold everything in place while you wrap it up. This is a way of getting a great deal of tough, small-diameter cordage and a few useful little things like hooks into your kit, taking up almost no space. I like Fox 40 Micra whistles, too. If you include a compass, make sure it really works--some of the "button" compasses are so unreliable you'd be better off just navigating by sun and stars. (Anyone got a recommendation on a really-good, inexpensive "button" compass that actually works?) Water purification tabs might be a good idea. In a thread several months ago, a guy with a screen name like "Tiros" or "Tyros" posted a thread in which he'd pimped-up a mini-Bic lighter, taping needles and a blade to it, stretching an O-ring around it to keep the gas-release button from being pushed down accidentally, and other stuff like that. It might be worth adding a little lighter (with at least the O-ring addition) to your kit--which I think Lundin does.

If you're going to count on using a condom as a water container, as Lundin recommends, you might want to experiment beforehand and see if you can actually fill it with a significant amount of water--I hear it's hard to do.

A couple of firestraws, or fatwood sticks (best to round those off, to keep from cutting your inner tube) might be good.

Consider keeping the flashlight in a place that lets you have ready access to it without disassembling your whole kit.

Oh--one last thing: I am nervous about any survival-kit configuration that involves having a cord around my neck that has a higher breaking strength than my neck does. Survival situations are, by definition, chaotic and unpredictable. I figure that if there's any time in my life when I'm likely to be climbing out of a car window, jumping out of a building, climbing a tree, hanging upside down, crawling into a helicopter, squirming out of a submerged vehicle, etc., etc., it's most probably going to happen in a survival situation. When that is what's going on, I might really be glad not to have a pre-made noose around my neck to catch on whatever tree-branch or car-mirror and turn a chaotic situation into a fatal accident. Also, the neck rig allows the knife/kit to dangle at all kinds of unpredictable and dangerous angles if you happen to get upside-down or into an other-than-right-side-up position. What I prefer, then, is to make the cord a bit longer, and then deploy it over one shoulder and under the opposite arm. It can catch on stuff that way, but it won't strangle me or break my neck. The under-the-arm deployment means the knife is held in more or less one place. Might give those things a thought.

Have fun experimenting with building your kit! And if you come up with any new ideas, let us all know!
Click to expand...

Thanks!! some great ideas regarding the fishing kit.

H
 
The idea of ranger bands just derailed my rough-cut duct tape idea. Been thinking it over more, and using a longer piece of inner-tubing around the outside of the sheath should fit a lighter, whistle, Photon, other smaller objects. I have some time before the knives arrive to get the bands and think about what to put in them.

Now, for something more mainstream...What's the easiest way to cord-wrap a sheath with real 550 cord? It might be tricky with there being no attachment points besides the upper part of the clip, but there has to be a way to keep some cord on it.
 
AlexSchira said:
The idea of ranger bands just derailed my rough-cut duct tape idea. Been thinking it over more, and using a longer piece of inner-tubing around the outside of the sheath should fit a lighter, whistle, Photon, other smaller objects. I have some time before the knives arrive to get the bands and think about what to put in them.

Now, for something more mainstream...What's the easiest way to cord-wrap a sheath with real 550 cord? It might be tricky with there being no attachment points besides the upper part of the clip, but there has to be a way to keep some cord on it.
Click to expand...

If you really want to wrap the sheath with 550 cord (and maybe you won't), your biggest issue is going to be holding the loops that are out toward the edges of your wrap so that they don't unravel. One possibility would be a round of friction tape around the scabbard before you start wrapping--it would be sticky enough on both sides to hold the cord that you wrap over it. Another possibility would be to use a method of tying that finished off the wrap and went over/around the wrap, just to keep the wrapped paracord in place.

Now, that said, what I like is to do a relatively-thin wrap of braided fishing line right over the scabbard (possibly enclosing some other thin tools like needles, small blade, fish/bird/small-animal hooks) (you could also do this with thin snare wire), then put a layer of tape over that, just to keep it in place, and follow up with the ranger-bands / inner-tube-sections. I think the paracord wrap would pretty much keep you from using the ranger-band method of holding other stuff like whistle, firesteel, etc. onto the scabbard. What I do with the paracord is what Lundin does: braid it into a lanyard for (in Cody Lundin's case) neck use, or (as I prefer) over-the-shoulder use. (By way of fuller disclosure, I'll mention that Lundin says he's never had any problem with the around-the-neck rig, and that putting it under your shirt eliminates some of the flopping-around, dip-it-into-the-stream- you're-getting-water-from problems that concern me. Depending on how you braid the paracord, and how much you wrap it around itself, etc., you can get a heck of a lot of paracord into that braided lanyard.

One other thing I've sort of toyed with the idea of including is a small, preferably sightable mirror for signaling. I've seen some that are 2 inches wide, which would just barely, MAYBE, work with a neck rig. I figure I'd want Lexan rather than glass for the carry-on-you application. You'd want to have it covered/protected somehow, as anything that's hanging around your neck is going to get banged into things a good deal over the months. If anyone has a good lead on where to get a decent small sightable mirror for these purposes, I'd like to hear about it. (If you can't get a suitable sightable mirror, you might be able to use Alloway's method of sighting a non-sightable mirror, holding your fingers out in a V, sighting so that the aircraft/etc. you're trying to signal appears between your fingers, and guide the flash using the light on your fingers to put/keep the flash on target.) Thoughts, anyone?
 
AlexSchira said:
Now, for something more mainstream...What's the easiest way to cord-wrap a sheath with real 550 cord? It might be tricky with there being no attachment points besides the upper part of the clip, but there has to be a way to keep some cord on it.
Click to expand...

http://www.therangerdigest.com/Tips___Tricks/PARA-CORD_KNIFE_HANDLE/body_para-cord_knife_handle.html

Ignore the first photo unless you want a lanyard.

I did this to my #510, and I LOVE it! Fills my hand real nice now, even better than before.

You might want to thicken the ends of the sheath if you are going to do this to a sheath, so it doesn't unravel off the ends. You could just use a build up of black electrical tape to create a ridge on each end to keep the cord from sliding off.

2111341678_956d42c8c6.jpg
 
Just got back from a trip, both Moras waiting for me on the doorstep. Gave this sheathing thing a test-run on one of them, didn't turn out that badly, will take pictures later.

I started out by taping an orange Mini lighter onto the back side of the sheath near the tip, couple layers of duct tape and some electrical tape on the end so the silver doesn't show. This made it thick enough on the end to cord wrap (Thanks for the link, stingray!) with some OD I had lying around, and managed to tuck in a couple Micropur tablets along the back side as well with a strip showing at the top to pull them out easier. Whole thing is still compact enough that I can wear the thing in my front pocket, clipped to the watch pocket in my jeans. Unless you look from the side the lighter-bulge doesn't show at all.

What I'm rather proud of, is how I solved the problem of having an easily accessible/detachable light. I noticed a little thimb ride on the side of the sheath to push on while drawing the knife...drill a hole through it, slid in a tiny length of bead chain with a clasp, and threw on a Photon Freedom (I have a small collection of the versions, I can mix and match LED and body color) in a quick release holster that blocks the button so it won't come on. One sadly non-matching rubber band around it to keep it from flopping around, and I have had a very fun half hour on the thing. Might pick up some inner-tubing later to protect the Photon better and match the rest of the sheath, but overall, I'm happy with it.

...Oh, and the...knife itself is fun, too. Kind of forgot about it.
 
As promised, poorly lit pictures.

Here it is side by side with its stock twin brother.
PICT0080.jpg


From the side, you can see the bulge where the lighter is buried under the tape and cord.
PICT0084.jpg


Here is a close-up of the way I rigged the light through the thumb-loop. Was tricky drilling out the plastic to make way for the chain, but it worked out very well. I can unsnap the light from the clip and the band at any time, swap it out with a different color or version, the only problem is that the band looks like crap. Just need a ranger band and it'll look look fine and protect the light better. Also, notice the silver wrapping of the purification tablets tucked under the cords.
PICT0088.jpg


Things to work on? Tuck more tablets in next time, possibly use red or orange cord for an emergency kit instead of this more subtle version, and possibly just save the tape and ranger-band the lighter underneath the cord or over the cord if possible. With bright cord and a Doug Ritter yellow Photon on the side along with the orange sheath/handles...This could make a garishly visible piece of kit. But for now, I prefer it dark and blending.
 
Thats not a bad looking kit you got there. I'm not a fan of the stock sheaths that come with the mora's but that looks like it should work to me. I may try this myself to see how it does for me. Thanks for the pictures!

Warren
 
Hi Alex,

Great start...

If that rig is supposed ti be a survival one, in my opinion the mini Bic should not be that deep.

Fill your bath with cold water. Enter the bath and lie in it with your clothes.
When you start shivering, try to unwrap your rig to use your fire starter.

You see what I mean? ;)

Frog.
 
I'm rethinking the whole duct tape thing. Some inner tubing would make it easier to get out, without the extra hassle. The cord-wrap has held up, I'm confident this setup is indeed durable despite its flaws, I could bang this around for a year or two without worrying. Still a few more cold months before it goes out with me, more time for tweaking.
 
a solution to the lighter problem would be to attatch a small ferro rod to the sheath instead something cheap like a bsa hotspark is great for starting fires w/ a little practice, and works when wet.
 
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