Mora/scandi grind edge retention?

[Poez]

I sharpen freehand and it does not take me that long. I keep a Mora carbon blade knife in a garage with my tools and keep it pretty often. I keep it strictly scandy probably because it's the only scandy blade knife that I have in regular use: it makes sense to widen your experience, even if that takes me a bit longer to sharpen and if I do it more often than I would have to with other grinds. The edge indeed feels more acute from the start but it also rolls quite easily. My experience with harder edge laminated Mora blades is quite similar: though in that case it chips, and you have to be conscious of that at all times you use it.
So when people ask about Mora in General Knife Discussion and I am in the mood to comment, I always say that they are indeed excellent knives FOR THE PRICE: after all, how hard it can be for $15 knife! Well, at least that was my personal experience with Mora.

 

[jac_solar]

Probably less than a full minute. I was trimming a little from the haft of a tomahawk handle to better fit the eye of the hawk head. I barely removed any wood. Just a few thin shavings.
I too have whittled for hours with other blades with no problems. That's why I was so surprised when this happened!

Like I said though, this is my first scandi ground blade, so I'm not completely sure what I should expect from it.

I'm not experienced with knives or edge retention, but that doesn't sound like what you should expect from any type of edge -- especially not a "scandi" type of edge, which is known for being good at whittling.

 

[ninjarabbi]

I haven't had that issue with my Mora's. I've cut a decent amount of wood with my Classic and it still has a good edge, and I've cut plenty of cardboard with my 511 and so does it. I wouldn't straight up create a secondary bevel because one of the benefits of Mora's is the ease of sharpening. If your edge isn't lasting long it might just be better to apex your grinds at a slightly steeper angle with the last few swipes and see if that helps. Its barely even a micro bevel but it might be enough to keep your edge from rolling. Like I said, I haven't had to do that but it might help.

 

[Thomas Linton]

I haven't had that issue with my Mora's. I've cut a decent amount of wood with my Classic and it still has a good edge, and I've cut plenty of cardboard with my 511 and so does it. I wouldn't straight up create a secondary bevel because one of the benefits of Mora's is the ease of sharpening. If your edge isn't lasting long it might just be better to apex your grinds at a slightly steeper angle with the last few swipes and see if that helps. Its barely even a micro bevel but it might be enough to keep your edge from rolling. Like I said, I haven't had to do that but it might help.

I have not had that problem with the three MORA knives I have and have used, but they all came with the typical secondary bevel.

 

[Firestrike]

No issues with mine, I sharpen it freehand all the time on a Smith's Tri-Hone. It has seen the inside of a Blacktail and two or three mulies. It's a Companion in Carbon steel.

 

[me2]

I have a full set of large DMT stones that I used to sharpen this. I keep them very wet as I sharpen to help disapate any heat.
I did have a stubborn burr to deal with, but I am pretty confident that I got rid of it. I finished the sharpening on leather strops with 2 different stropping compounds.
Yes it was the first sharpening after the factory.

Maybe I'll try and sharpen it down some more to get past any overheating from the factory. Just sucks that it takes a LOT of work to make much progress removing matterial from that larg of a surface. haha.... I spent hours and hours sharpening it the first time!

Did you deburr on the stones or were you relying on the strops to remove it? What was your finest DMT? The edge angle is roughly 10 degrees per side (dps) I would guess? Maybe 12?

 

[kniferbro]

Isn't "a zero grind with a secondary bevel" an oxymoron? Wouldn't that just make it a normal v grind?

 

[Thomas Linton]

Isn't "a zero grind with a secondary bevel" an oxymoron? Wouldn't that just make it a normal v grind?

Yes, but magical thinking has reasons reason knows not.

 

[BryFry]

Did you deburr on the stones or were you relying on the strops to remove it? What was your finest DMT? The edge angle is roughly 10 degrees per side (dps) I would guess? Maybe 12?

Can't remember what the exact DMT grits are, but I have Black, Blue, Red, Green, and Tan. Pretty sure I got the burr with the stones before going to the strops.

Isn't "a zero grind with a secondary bevel" an oxymoron? Wouldn't that just make it a normal v grind?

I would say yes. Did somebody here say that? I might have missed it.
I sharpened this knife to a true zero grind. But I hear that a lot of folks forgo the zero and add a secondary bevel. ...Seems to me this kind of defeats buying a scandi grind as adding the secondary grind/edge turns it into more of a sabre grind, I think.

 

[BryFry]

Just checking back in.
I resharpened the edge, grinding it down further, keeping it a true zero scandi grind. Made absolutely sure there was no lingering burr. Grabbed a piece of walnut from my back yard and started whittling on it to see how it would go.
After a few minutes I ended up with the same problem. The entire edge of my knife looks like a mangled saw blade again.

I'm going to assume that the zero grind is just too thin for this steel, so I'll try adding a secondary edge/bevel and see how that works.

I'll be honest and say that this experience doesn't exactly encourage me to invest in any more scandi ground "bush" knives. Popular as they are.

 

[Thomas Linton]

Can't remember what the exact DMT grits are, but I have Black, Blue, Red, Green, and Tan. Pretty sure I got the burr with the stones before going to the strops.



I would say yes. Did somebody here say that? I might have missed it.
I sharpened this knife to a true zero grind. But I hear that a lot of folks forgo the zero and add a secondary bevel. ...Seems to me this kind of defeats buying a scandi grind as adding the secondary grind/edge turns it into more of a sabre grind, I think.

The Scandi grind as defined at BritishBlades.com (saber grind with no secondary bevel) is a concept rarely turned into a knife by a maker.

But it's easy to correct.

I just took delivery of a Rovaniemiemi Konepaja ("RPK") puukko made in Rovaniemi, Finland sometime between 1965 and 1989. It has the traditional secondary bevel, in this case a convex secondary bevel. Timo Hietala, who ran the company and decided to make knives, tried some new ides for his "Tunturi Puukko," such as slicing the handle wood in halves for easier/better assembly. But he stuck with the traditional puukko blade.

 

[Frederick89]

All the zero edge stuff is a misunderstanding. The fact that Julius Pettersson (the smith appearing in Ray Mears Sweden episode) puts a zero edge to his blades doesn't mean that every other smith around the Fennoscandic peninsula does the same.

Swedish and Norwegian handforged blades have more often almost a zero edge, but also a wider edge angle (25-30°). Finnish blades have a more acute edge (18-20°) and very often some kind of microbevel, being it convex or V. But keep it mind it's really a micro bevel, not a big secondary one.

In addition to this, hikory isn't exactly a soft wood. I'd say put a convexed edge on it. But just the edge, not the all bevel.