Scandi vs other grinds

[J. Doyle]

Envisioning? Have you actually used one, then?

Yes, I have. It was several years back. I've used moras at least twice.

Nothing memorable evidently. Your question is in no form an answer to mine. Or anything at all to change my mind.

So, never having used one, you reached this opinion?

A Mora 511 costs $11. You can actually find out for yourself pretty easily if you wanted to.

Maybe you should wait for an answer to your previous question before making untrue assumptions.

 

[dogstar]

I just think traditional puukko knives had thinner stock than knives we see today.

This, and several others who have mentioned that thinner scandis work as better all-around cutters.

Unfortunately, the whole destructive testing trend has moved more people toward "robust" and "heavy duty" knives with 3mm or thicker stock. My favorites are the regular 2.5 or 2mm blades. They are good enough to get the job done.

 

[Hammer67]

Unfortunately, the whole destructive testing trend has moved more people toward "robust" and "heavy duty" knives with 3mm or thicker stock. My favorites are the regular 2.5 or 2mm blades. They are good enough to get the job done.

I think the Woodlore actually started the 'chubby scandi' trend...but it got worse after that.

 

[dogstar]

I think the Woodlore actually started the 'chubby scandi' trend...but it got worse after that.

You might be right, I was just learning to use a knife back then.
Weren't there a bunch of people trying to make an upgraded Mora back then? There was money to be made, for sure.

 

[lonestar1979]

I like puukkos with higher grind....they perform way better than most scandis...for most tasks.

 

[NapalmCheese]

I have a really hard time envisioning a scandi grind carving wood so much better (or ANY better, really) than any other grind. And I'm not a complete stranger to wood carving or whittling.

I think the idea is that scandi grinds can act like a chisel while you're carving in that you lay the flat of the bevel on the work and it makes it easier to control cut depth by levering off the shoulder.

That said, I'm not a scandi grind fan. In my experience they don't do anything really better than nearly any other sharp knife and they take too long to sharpen since you necessarily have to remove more material.

 

[luethge]

I think the idea is that scandi grinds can act like a chisel while you're carving in that you lay the flat of the bevel on the work and it makes it easier to control cut depth by levering off the shoulder.

That said, I'm not a scandi grind fan. In my experience they don't do anything really better than nearly any other sharp knife and they take too long to sharpen since you necessarily have to remove more material.

Well put.

 

[dogstar]

Tonight I made chili, with my Mora 511. It has 2.5 mm blade thickness. Obviously, not as easy to work with as my 1.1 mm Victorinox paring knife, but it wasn't unbearable either. Chopping onions was a little of a challenge because it tended to push the onions apart. Earlier in the day, I cut an apple with it, and it had a tendency to run to the outside, which is similar to saber grind knives I have used. I dropped on a tile floor, which gave the edge a nice ding. Such is the life of a kitchen knife.

 

[scdub]

I’ve owned a few. Two of the “scandi grinds” I’ve used are actually Japanese knives made by Shosui Takeda.

I like them for carving - the thin edges bite really well. I find the scandi to be slightly more controllable in wood when I’m paying attention, but also more likely to bite deeper than intended if I’m being sloppy.

To me, the main advantage is ease of sharpening due to being able to lay the bevel flat on the stone. Even my wife and, at the time, young son were able to produce sharp edges, freehand, on a small diamond plate with minimal instruction on a couple of Moras I got for them. That’s not really possible with most other grinds (chisel and straight razor hollow grinds being the exceptions).

The main disadvantage I see is that the relatively thin edge can be more prone to damage, and because the primary bevel isn’t interrupted by a secondary bevel like in most knives, chips in scandi grinds tend to go a little deeper/be bigger I think…

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

Tonight I made chili, with my Mora 511. It has 2.5 mm blade thickness. Obviously, not as easy to work with as my 1.1 mm Victorinox paring knife, but it wasn't unbearable either. Chopping onions was a little of a challenge because it tended to push the onions apart. Earlier in the day, I cut an apple with it, and it had a tendency to run to the outside, which is similar to saber grind knives I have used. I dropped on a tile floor, which gave the edge a nice ding. Such is the life of a kitchen knife.

Clean little mod.

So stupid why they wont bring back the classic red 510's.

 

[CVamberbonehead]

I think scandi grinds are way overrated. I had a Mora classic (and a couple other plastic Moras that I used as bait knives or gave to people) once that I got rid of after a lot of carving, normal use, and even gutting a deer (it was too scary to use though since the handle was as slippery as a Vaseline factory and it guided your fingers right towards the edge. No guard on it either since the workers at Mora think guards are for sissies and they hate your fingers , plus the sheath was a cheap, ugly plastic tube with 2 retention settings, "fall out and lose your knife into your foot" or "sugerglued into this awful sheath"). I also had a custom scandi that was cool but not for me.

They work great on wood carving because they are like a chisel. Thats the upside and the downside lol. They work on wood because it is too hard to really get the knife in deep, but on anything else (like cutting up an onion for instance) the grind just gets caught up because they are so splitting wedge like. Its awful. I tried to like mine, after all the internet told me that a scandi grind would make fuzz sticks, split wood, whittle spoons, make furniture, carry in my groceries, wash my car and turn me into Bear Grylls. I was disappointed, and I kept a scandi around for a while just for wood work (I made a long bow using the Mora to scrape the bow down for instance) but that was really all they were good for.

I like a hollow grind or a convex. Or anything else besides a scandi really lol. That edge is great for shallow cuts and nothing else. Cutting things with a scandi is like cutting with a razor blade taped to a corner of your house. Its super sharp at first, then you get the knife into whatever youre cutting and it suddenly seems dull because the edge geometry is a right angle lol.
Now Im going to throw a ninja smoke bomb and escape this thread before all of the bushcraft buckskin folks come and try to beat me with their many crappy home made wooden spoons. Catch me if you can on your wooden old timey bicycles that you all batoned out of conveniently pre-chainsawed logs!

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

I think scandi grinds are way overrated. I had a Mora classic once that I got rid of after a lot of carving, normal use, and even gutting a deer (it was too scary to use though since the handle was as slippery as a Vaseline factory and it guided your fingers right towards the edge. No guard on it either since the workers at Mora think guards are for sissies and they hate your fingers , plus the sheath was a cheap, ugly plastic tube with 2 retention settings, "fall out and lose your knife into your foot" or "sugerglued into this awful sheath"). I also had a custom scandi that was cool but not for me.

They work great on wood carving because they are like a chisel. Thats the upside and the downside lol. They work on wood because it is too hard to really get the knife in deep, but on anything else (like cutting up an onion for instance) the grind just gets caught up because they are so splitting wedge like. Its awful. I tried to like mine, after all the internet told me that a scandi grind would make fuzz sticks, split wood, whittle spoons, make furniture, carry in my groceries, wash my car and turn me into Bear Grylls. I was disappointed, and I kept a scandi around for a while just for wood work (I made a long bow using the Mora to scrape the bow down for instance) but that was really all they were good for.

I like a hollow grind or a convex. Or anything else besides a scandi really lol. That edge is great for shallow cuts and nothing else. Cutting things with a scandi is like cutting with a razor blade taped to a corner of your house. Its super sharp at first, then you get the knife into whatever youre cutting and it suddenly seems dull because the edge geometry is a right angle lol.
Now Im going to throw a ninja smoke bomb and escape this thread before all of the bushcraft buckskin folks come and try to beat me with their many crappy home made wooden spoons. Catch me if you can on your wooden old timey bicycles that you all batoned out of conveniently pre-chainsawed logs!

Ninja smoke bomb was pretty funny

I agree about the spoons (what are they doing with all those spoons!?) but I'd have to disagree about their sheaths... I think mora sheaths are ingenius, yes even the shitty black ones that came with the classic you mentioned using, just need a little modding. A classic is probably not the ideal knife for gutting a deer, but I've used a classic in many other wet conditions and the way the handle is shaped pretty much locks in hand.

YMOV, but hey ho.. to each his own!

 

[CVamberbonehead]

Ninja smoke bomb was pretty funny

I agree about the spoons (what are they doing with all those spoons!?) but I'd have to disagree about their sheaths... I think mora sheaths are ingenius, yes even the shitty black ones that came with the classic you mentioned using, just need a little modding. A classic is probably not the ideal knife for gutting a deer, but I've used a classic in many other wet conditions and the way the handle is shaped pretty much locks in hand.

YMOV, but hey ho.. to each his own!

All joking aside, they're ok. I see why people like them, but they just arent for me as someone without a spoon fetish. Maybe they just really like soup and they are trying to drive up their stocks in Campbells/Progresso....

 

[dogstar]

Clean little mod.

So stupid why they wont bring back the classic red 510's.

The have black 510s. However they are 2 mm instead of 2.5 mm. I'm tempted to buy one.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

All joking aside, they're ok. I see why people like them, but they just arent for me as someone without a spoon fetish. Maybe they just really like soup and they are trying to drive up their stocks in Campbells/Progresso....

Yeah, I'm with you.

Bushcrafter/camping type of guy here. Learning to carve a spoon in a pinch is one thing, but the never ending stream of spoons doesn't make much sense outside of therapy. Still love mora's though! I had one classic I abused on purpose, and was shocked at just what it could take.

 

[SwissHeritageCo]

The have black 510s. However they are 2 mm instead of 2.5 mm. I'm tempted to buy one.

Funny, I was just looking for them now.. ebay was the last place I bought the black 510, been a minute since I looked.

Do they still sell the red 511's?

 

[dogstar]

Funny, I was just looking for them now.. ebay was the last place I bought the black 510, been a minute since I looked.

Do they still sell the red 511's?

Well yes (and other colors, too), but they are totally redesigned from the one in my photo. It's a rounded handle now. Still dirt cheap, though!

 

[AntDog]

My only scandi ground knife is a Morakniv 120, that I bought as a blade blank and put a handle on it. I keep reading what great whittling knives these Moras are. I don't agree. At least not for the way I whittle. It's okay, but a long ways from great. I think the scandi grind gets thick to quickly behind the edge.

My knife

O.B.

Agreed. It’s like a little tiny grind, then full thickness of the blade dragging and smashing through everything you cut. Hell with all that, I highly dislike scandi grind. Gimme full flat all day.

 

[luethge]

Fun to use. I’d definitely reach for a flat or convex grind 99% of the time though.

 

[Arathol]

FWIW, the new Morakniv produced Moras can't hold a candle to the old knives made by other makers.
As you can see on these 50+ year old Erik Frost knives, a #2 with a #4/0 and a #1/0. the blade grinds are much higher, making for much improved cutting ability. I guess they never heard of the Scandi grind back then.....