Dulled Mora

C

Cold Kill

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Jun 19, 2011
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I bought a Mora 748 (Sandvik steel), and the curved part to the tip is dulled and burred. I don't have a stone higher than a 600 grit fine diamond, and I don't particularly want to damage the finish of mirror polished blade. I did buy an extra-fine polishing compound to strop, but I also don't have, not can I afford a strop. Quite a predicament I got myself into here... Help would, of course, be greatly appreciated.
 
If this is a user, you will have to cowboy up and carefully use your 600 grit stone. Most moras are about 20 smackers so im not quite sure where the safe queen feelings are comming from. Many of my knives look like they were dragged behind a car for sometime, and a few cost way more then 20 clams.
 
I know it's not a pricey knife or anything, but ruining the finish on even my $10 knives just hurts me. I hate to take something that was beautiful, and make it no longer so.
 
If you want to strop it, you can make a strop out of a scrap piece of leather, like an old belt. You can also strop it using whatever grit sandpaper you like.
 
I have heard that an old pair of jeans, balsa wood, cardboard, and I think a few other things can be used in place of a leather strop for a tight budget. Any truth to that?
 
You can strop on a piece of cardboard. I used real thin cardboard with white buffing compound on it taped to flat hard surface. On some of my Moras it took me hours to get the point of the knife beveled and polished even though I started with 400 grit sandpaper. Go to maintenance or goggle 'Old Jimbo' to get more info on inexpensive sharpening.
 
With the stropping compounds, are they all color coded? Mine is green, but was labeled as extra fine, but this is a field I have absolutely no knowledge in.
 
Well either way, my stropping worked like a charm. Used an old pair of jeans, cut a patch out, and stropped it. My Mora is now as sharp, if not sharper than it came in the box. The burrs came right up, and the edge is also very polished. The green compound works great.
 
I be he said:
If this is a user, you will have to cowboy up and carefully use your 600 grit stone. Most moras are about 20 smackers so im not quite sure where the safe queen feelings are comming from. Many of my knives look like they were dragged behind a car for sometime, and a few cost way more then 20 clams.
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Very well said. It's a tool afterall.
 
Cold Kill said:
With the stropping compounds, are they all color coded? Mine is green, but was labeled as extra fine, but this is a field I have absolutely no knowledge in.
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Green is most abrasive, followed by white, followed by red, if I remember correctly.
 
I find beauty in a tool that looks like it has been used. I get teary eyed when I see knives and firearms in a safe or case never to see their full potential.

I am glad that simply stropping worked for you. I use the red and the white.

Sounds like you might want to investigate sharpening systems.

Good Luck
 
Nah, I don't have much need for a sharpening system. I have a clamp-on guide that I use for heavy use knives (gives them a 25 degree edge), a pull-through for ligher use ones (about a 17 degree angle), and a strop and razor hone (at least 800 grit) stone for finishing. All I need is a workable edge to start with, and I can make it exceptional.
 
A Scandinavian ground blade is designed to be sharpened with the whole bevel laying on the stone and only if needed a VERY small microbevel can be added at the end of sharpening to make the edge tougher. To fix your problem it would probably be best if you had waterstones but some sandpaper over glass will cover any degree of sharpening your blade may need. Stropping may help but generally stropping is for making sharp knives really sharp.

As for compounds, they may look the same but all are not created equal. Green compound (chromium oxide) is usually the finest @ .5 microns/50,000 grit, unfortunately the green compounds found at Lows or Sears is not even close and is often not meant to be used with hardened metals. They still work but if you compared it to quality strops compound you would realize the night and day difference.
 
I bought my green off of amazon, and it is definitely a very fine compound. I can't use sandpaper, because none of them available to me are above a measly 200 grit, which is far too coarse for refining, and only really useful for fixing the blade. My Mora sees very light use, and I really only bought it as more of a show-off and company test knife. After buying this one, I am tempted to look at getting a higher quality Mora, like a tri-flex. Mine is a bit too large and unwieldy to get the use of a normal Mora. Stropping the edge as it dulls a little, or to fix small burrs works perfectly fine.
 
Your local auto parts store should stock up to 2000 grit paper.
 
NEver thought about an auto store... guess it makes sense when I think about it, it's not like you wouldn't need a fine finishing on some auto parts. May have to pick some up eventually, but for now what I'm doing works just fine for my Mora. Can't say how it will fare in the long-run, but I guess I will have to jump that hurdle when it comes up in front of me.
 
Cold Kill said:
NEver thought about an auto store... guess it makes sense when I think about it, it's not like you wouldn't need a fine finishing on some auto parts. May have to pick some up eventually, but for now what I'm doing works just fine for my Mora. Can't say how it will fare in the long-run, but I guess I will have to jump that hurdle when it comes up in front of me.
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It's a must to use wet/dry sandpaper, wood working sandpaper will not work.

I'm not exactly understanding that last part, if what your doing works fine then what was your question?
 
What I meant is that if just stropping won't be enough in the future, I will have to deal with that then, possibly including getting the sandpaper.
 
If you didn't want to mess up the finish, you shouldn't have gotten a knife with a Scandi grind. Heck, I sharpen my Mora's on the sidewalk! :eek:
 
Yeah...scandi's are probably the worst grind possible for someone who likes to keep their knives spotless looking...if it's that big of a problem I suggest putting a secondary bevel on it like a regular knife.
 
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