Mora steel

U

Uncle Bill

Joined
Aug 24, 1999
Messages
434
I've read somewhere that this is a triple-ply steel from Sweden. Anybody have any experience with it?

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Bill

Unfortunate but Increasingly Necessary Disclaimer:

While this post likely contains incorrect information, fuzzy logic, poor grammar and misspelled words, what it does not contain is intentional malevolence toward anyone.


 
Uncle Bill,

Is that anything like that italian(?) Duplex steel?

I think the Duplex stuff is a core of 304 stainless sandwiched with 440B.

 
Scooter:

I have no idea. I've never heard of the Duplex stuff.

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Bill

Unfortunate but Increasingly Necessary Disclaimer:

While this post likely contains incorrect information, fuzzy logic, poor grammar and misspelled words, what it does not contain is intentional malevolence toward anyone.


 
Uncle Bill,
I don't know anything about the technical spec's on it but I use it daily. I am a BIG Finnish and Swedish knife fan and use one of the traditional knives here on the farm every day. It might do anything from cutting open feed sacks to carving a wooden handle smoother to castrating pigs. They are the only knives I own that will completely process a pig, when we kill one, without being resharpened. No they aren't paying me to say this! Leef
 
I have a bunch of Frost's Mora laminated blades, which I got from Lee Valley Tools, one of the best guys' toy stores in the world (www.leevalleytools.com, I think). The blades are actually made in France, I understand. The core is hardened to R62 and they hold a terrific edge; my choice for the woodworking shop and any finework. Blades are available from 3.25-4.25 inches long with a substantial full length tang, and very nice wooden handled assembled knives with about 4 inch blades (see chaicutlery.com -- there's one with a nice leather sheath)). I think they're one of the best knife deals in the world, great user knives. Most come with a very ugly but totally utiltarian black plastic sheath. The red-painted handled ones are traditional. Make sure they're marked Frost's and laminated, though; you can also get the ugly red-handled ones in straight carbon steel (which is still pretty darned good), I think Erickssen's are all non-laminated. If you mail order from Lee Valley Tools you'll get a great bargain because the Canadian peso is worth only about 65 cents US.

[This message has been edited by Alberta Ed (edited 18 November 1999).]
 
I think that one of the Mora knives that Cliff tested was a Frost's laminated model. As I recall it sliced nicely and the laminated steel allowed the blade to be bent with no damage, but it seemed to bend more easily than expected. The stainless models are probably 12C27 or whatever it is, typically at Rc57 or so, and the non-laminated carbon steel is often advertised to be Rc60. I have some of the Eriksson carbon steel and am very happy with them. Check Ragnar's forge and Chai cutlery for some more info on Mora knives.
 
What is the thickness of the spine on those knives? They look pretty thin in the scans, but from the good comments I am guessing that they are more than just kitchen knives with sheaths right?
 
The blade spine is thin, around 3/32 of an inch. They are not heavy duty choppers but excellent utility knives.
 
There is a reference to the Mora knife in this thread: http://www.bladeforums.com/ubb/Forum29/HTML/000049.html
called "Hollow Handle - Uses?" and no this does not imply that the Mora itself has a hollow handle.
smile.gif

The information in from James Mattis. Perhaps he will chime in here and comment on Mora steel.
 
The beauty of the Frosts and Eriksson Mora knives is that they cut things rather well, and if you trash one you're only out $10-$15 (a little more if you get the one with the leather sheath).

Frosts of Sweden is not to be confused with Frost, the US importer of a bunch of dubious stuff from Pakistan. Boths Frosts and Eriksson are located in the town of Mora, and have almost completely automated operations. Ragnar tells me he's visited the Eriksson plant where it's so squeaky clean you could picnic on the factory floor, and the only time human hands touch the knives is when they pack them for shipping.

Frosts makes knives in Sandvik 12C27 stainless, some kind of carbon steel, and the laminated carbon steel. Eriksson does stainless and carbon, but not laminated. The "classic" in the Frosts line is the #137 that they sell as a woodcarving knife, and would not be out of place at some medieval reinactment event.

The red birch handled utility knives come with cheap plastic sheaths that belong in a toolbox more than they belong on your belt. The best of the cheap plastic sheaths I've met in what's been shipped to me so far are the ones that come with the Eriksson #1.

The "modern" designs come with a better grade of plastic sheath. The Frosts 740-760-780 sheaths have ambidextrous sheaths with narrow throats so that the point may want to catch on the side of the sheath when you insert it. The Frosts 840-860 and the Eriksson 711, etc., have right-handed sheaths that are easier to use (if you're right-handed, of course). The Eriksson stainless Mora 2000 has one of the more interesting grinds I've met. I haven't decided whether or not I like it, but it shows what a robot grinder can do with thin stock. In the modern design knives, Eriksson used thicker stock (about 3/32") than Frosts does.

My page with Mora Knives is
http://www.chaicutlery.com/moraknives.html

Ragnar's page with Mora Knives and more is
www.ragweedforge.com/cat-kniv.html

We've had long conversations with each other on northern knives, along with life, the universe, and everything.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
Donald, some of the cheapest Moras (or equivalent like Fiskars' plastic-handled knives) have hollow, plastic handles. I guess that is just for reducing the weight, since there is nothing to cover the space inside the handle. One could put some matches or other little things in it and use some duct tape to keep them inside. You could also use them as spearheads if you whittled the end of a stick to fit inside the handle. But the sheaths of the hollow-handled Moras (and Fiskars' as well) are quite insecure in my opinion.

Jani

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Two important questions in life:
Do they have a catalog?
Did you know there's a town called "Batman" in Turkey?

[This message has been edited by Jani Kemppainen (edited 19 November 1999).]
 
I have 3 or 4 different versions of the Swedish utility knife that's being discussed here- I love 'em- they take & keep an edge & cut like hell. Excellent "beater" knives that take some real abuse with a little steely grin & will outperform many knives at 3x or 4x the price. At less that $20.00 a pop, you can't go wrong & you'll wonder why you didn't know about these sooner. Go with the wooden handles.
(Just my .02 Krona)

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Runs With Scissors
AKTI# A000107
 
As a teenager I read incredible things about a knife known as a Norse King that had a laminated steel blade. It said that you could bend the blade 90-degrees without breaking and yet had an edge that you could hammer through a bolt. This was marketing hype for a classic Mora knife.

What I hadn't realized was that the blade was relatively easy to bend and it didn't spring back. The outside layer was soft rather than spring tempered. As I recall I did indent the edge when hammering it through a bolt. The blade wasn't what I expected and I really didn't like the guardless traditional Mora design. I cut finger notches into mine.

I recently got an updated Swedish Army design Mora with molded plastic handle and Sandvic 12C27 (non-laminated) blade. The sheath is cheap plastic, but the knife design is really sound. This cost me a big $6.60 plus shipping.

As part of a little test I was running I used this blade to strip meat from some beef ribs and do a little joint seperating. The design and blade worked well. Next I stabbed and chopped the rib bones until I indented the edge. With some heavy steeling and honing on a diamond plate I completely restored the edge in about 15 minutes.

PS. The edge indention was about the same as another knife I was testing in parallel. The other knife cost 10 times as much and I was not able to fully restore its edge.



[This message has been edited by Jeff Clark (edited 19 November 1999).]
 
I'm learning a lot here about the Mora knives, but not much specifically about the triple-ply steel. Anybody care to shed some light?

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Bill

Unfortunate but Increasingly Necessary Disclaimer:

While this post likely contains incorrect information, fuzzy logic, poor grammar and misspelled words, what it does not contain is intentional malevolence toward anyone.


 
I don't know quite what you want to know about the triple ply steel. It is a tradional way to make a blade that won't break and yet has an edge that is so hard that it tends to be brittle. Swedish steel in general is noted for being highly pure and often having a little vanadium in the ore. Swedish steel gets sharp.

When they laminate the steel the central layer has a higher carbon content than the outer two layers. They heat treat the blade to make the high carbon core (I'm guessing it is 1% or higher carbon) take on a 60 or slightly higher rockwell. The lower carbon outer layers stay down in the low 50's. It seems like they may even be below 50.

When you use the blade it stays sharp for a long time because of the high carbon and high rockwell. When you sharpen the blade it is easier than usual because of the fine swedish steel in the core. Since the traditional grind of these blades is a single bevel from the flat part of the blade all the way to the edge you frequently rework the entire bevel surface when you resharpen the blade. The soft outer layer makes this easy to do. It's a pretty slick combination and the prices are great.

The only issue I can see is that the somewhat thin blades with soft outer layers bend easier than US users would expect.
 
I don't know if it's possible but a laminated blade that I'd be more interested in would offer something like a superb edge holder that might be too brittle and/or expensive if used full thickness, and a more conventional tough steel in the outer layers. Something like CPM-10V in the middle layer and S7 or 5160 in the outer layers.
 
Frosts-Mora also uses a steel called "Tri-Flex" in their model 780 utility knife. It's supposed to be somewhere between their plain carbon steel and the laminated carbon steel, but I don't know exactly what their catalog is trying to say. Zone-tempered, I guess, in a mass-production robotic sort of way. Mike Swaim tested the Frosts knives and posted in rec.knives some time last year. He found that the Tri-Flex edge chipped for him in I-forget-what stage of testing, but he had high praise for the plain carbon steel in its price category.


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- JKM
www.chaicutlery.com
AKTI Member # SA00001
 
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