Mora: which steel?

If you could only have one Mora, which steel would it have?

  • Carbon

    Votes: 21 31.3%

  • Laminated Carbon

    Votes: 6 9.0%

  • 12C27

    Votes: 10 14.9%

  • 14C28

    Votes: 30 44.8%
  • Total voters
    67
D

dogstar

Joined
Jan 23, 2011
Messages
4,399
I know Moras are like potato chips (in addictiveness and price), and you can't just stop at one.

However, if you could only have one, which steel would you choose?

I've only known the carbon flavor, so that is what I am going with.
 
They are all fine with me, but I'd choose simple carbon for no other reason than that I appreciate a nice patina on a fixed blade. Lam'd carbon would be second for the same reason, though I'm not sure I'd find any actual performance advantage over the "monosteel" carbon blade for my uses, so just Carbon gets the nod from me.
 
My wife and I prefer stainless for our camping knives, i.e. 14C28N, because these are usually used on food and can't always be cleaned up right away after use. We aren't as big of a fan of patina as others here, and it's harder to tell when it's clean or dirty when having to look at the patina. We have three in stainless and 1 in carbon right now.
 
DocJekl said:
My wife and I prefer stainless for our camping knives, i.e. 14C28N, because these are usually used on food and can't always be cleaned up right away after use. We aren't as big of a fan of patina as others here, and it's harder to tell when it's clean or dirty when having to look at the patina. We have three in stainless and 1 in carbon right now.
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As far as I know the Garberg is the only one offered in 14C28. All other stainless is 12C27.
 
dogstar said:
As far as I know the Garberg is the only one offered in 14C28. All other stainless is 12C27.
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I have one of the Garberg Sandvik 14C28N, then 3 others, and one of the other 3 is Carbon steel.
 
I got a carbon basic knife to try it out. Nice little user. If I bought another, it would be 12c27. Ive had good luck with that steel, so why not?
 
I have several Mora laminated carbon steel knives, mainly for wood carving, and they hold a very good edge. I gave one to a trapper friend who was amazed how well it compared to the standard carbon steel Mora. However, I don't think the laminated blades are as sturdy as Mora's carbon and stainless blades -- the side panels are quite thin and they will bend. I prefer Mora's carbon steel knives but both those and the 12C27 blades will take a very fine edge with little effort -- and the Sandvik 12C27 is highly rust resistant.
 
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I like the stainless on Moras because largely they're knives I don't want to have to think about. If I put it away in a box in the basement and pull it out twice a year, I'd like to know it's going to be how I left it. This is largely in reaction to the fact that I just found a few spots of rust on my Carbon #2, in spite of the fact that it was patinaed and had a thin film of oil on it. Not a big deal, but I realized I just don't use it enough to do casual maintenance... I have to be thoughtful about it, and for me that can be a challenge.
 
dogstar said:
However, if you could only have one, which steel would you choose?
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Quality wise, their carbon and stainless are about equal, with carbon for more style and stainless for less maintenance.

If I can have only one Mora, then I will look forward to the model they offer rather than the steel they offer. Especially when 14C28N is only one 1 or 2 model.
14C28N is better than the 12C27, but the price is also much higher. Garberg is still the classic design with stronger tang. Utility wise, the Kanbols or Mora 2000 seem better in my opinion, even if the steel is "inferior".
If I get to the carbon only model like the Pathfinder, I would rather go for some Finnish made instead for lower price at similar quality.
 
G. Scott H. said:
Lam'd carbon would be second for the same reason, though I'm not sure I'd find any actual performance advantage over the "monosteel" carbon blade for my uses,
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Laminated isn’t only about a performance advantage it’s about ease of sharpening, with a Scandi (woodworking) grind it’s sorta like sharpening a short full flat grind & requires removing a lot of metal relative to a convex, so replacing a large amount of that metal with softer stuff helps enormously when sharpening by hand.

Alberta Ed said:
I have several Mora laminated carbon steel knives, mainly for wood carving, and they hold a very good edge. I gave one to a trapper friend who was amazed how well it compared to the standard carbon steel Mora. However, I don't think the laminated blades are as sturdy as Mora's carbon and stainless blades -- the side panels are quite thin and they will bend.
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Yes they are softer (not the hard center) & will bend easier if subjected to a prying force, the layers might even separate if twisted backwards & forwards but that’s not the intended use for these knives, they are excellent woodworkers.
 
While I don't mind carbon steel, for some of the reasons already mentioned I go with stainless on Moras. For me, they are knives that I don't carry but just keep around the camp when I'm camping, use them for food often, and use them as needed without much thought. Then, they typically stay packed in one of my camping bins the rest of the time.

I also prefer stainless in my hiking knives. I want to be able to just cut an apple (honestly the main thing I use it for other than the occasional carving on a walking stick), rinse it off in the creek, wipe it dry on my pants, throw it in the sheath, and go on about my day without worrying about it much.
 
The Garberg costs about what we'd pay for THREE of the standard 12c27n stainless Moras, hence why my other 2 stainless are the cheaper 12c27n that we often use as steak knives in the camping kit. The carbon was my latest Mora, at a similar price point (under $15), that I thought might become a camping beater knife and not used for food, so I didn't have to worry about how much of the patina was just patina and how much of that was because it's actually dirty or grimy.

EDIT - autocorrect shortened Garberg to Garber
 
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12c27 and 14c28n are pretty much objectively better than the carbon they use in every way except being only SLIGHTLY harder to sharpen.
 
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