Decent Knife

[Bowland blades]

I don't have a magnifying glass handy - but if I run my nail down the cutting edge, I don't feel any chips.

Depends will find chips that need flatting off and a new secondary, won't find those you can
easy handle without flatting off first

 

[dartmoordog]

I don't think you can go far wrong with the Asda jeans that I knock about in. £8 each or £12 for two pairs. I prefer the black over the blue, less easy to see in whatever light.

Why spend anything more ?

Good heavens! One would not be seen in anything less than a good Levi Jean, one does have standards to maintain.

 

[forest50]

Whatever knives you buy and use, the most important thing is understanding the basics of what bevels and geometry are, how that applies to the type of grind your knife has and how best to sharpen it.

I have seen so many knives over the years which have been butchered badly by people sharpening them incorrectly. Technique is sometimes to blame but often it is because they are not even attempting to sharpen the right part of the knife. This results in changing the intended geometry of the blade which not only alters how it performs but ends up with an edge that then needs a ton of work to correct the error and bring it back to the original design. Correcting a poorly or badly butchered knife means removing a crap ton of metal to realign the bevels so they apex to the intended edge once more. Heavy corrections mean lots of work on stones, paper or ceramic which is boring and also wastes abrasives as you will damage whatever sharpening abrasive you use more quickly when having to spend lots of time removing material from the steel.

Scandinavian grind knives (like Moras) are where I see most of the issue in terms of what parts of the blade needs attention. The irony being that they are the easiest of all knifes to sharpen if done correctly.

At the risk of teaching a good many to suck eggs, if this helps even the odd Mora owner realise a proper edge, then it is worth posting the following:

Below is a picture of a knife that has a type of V or flat grind. Basically the main body of the blade tapers down towards the sharp end with the very business end of the knife that does the cutting having very small bevels, one either side of the blade. These bevels need to be in contact with the stone/abrasive with just enough metal being removed to bring the two sides together to form a perfect apex which results in your cutting edge. These knives are easy to sharpen in terms of removing metal quickly because such a small area of the knife is in contact with the stone/abrasive but at the same time, any errors can happen quickly due to this. It is harder to keep the knife at the exact angle on the stone, with each change in angle on every sharpening stroke inducing more potential error.

You can see the tiny bevel on this knife. It is the shiny bit that is about 1mm wide along the edge of the blade.

Next knife is a scandi grind (a Mora in this instance) which has huge bevels in comparison to the previous knife. About 10mm and very obvious to the eye. This Mora has seen a good amount of use with the main body of carbon steel being a bit battered with heavy patina. The bevels however are shiny in exactly the same way as the tiny bevels on the previous knife are shiny. That is because this entire surface area needs to be in contact with the stone/abrasive when sharpening is undertaken. The same concept applies. You remove enough material from the entire surface area of both bevels until the edges are brought together to form the perfect apex. Think of it like a roof. Those shiny bits are where the tiles are and you sharpen (remove material) the tiles until the roof has a perfect ridge. At that point, your edge is formed. This edge can be refined by using finer and finer abrasives once the initial edge has been realised but is not needed for most applications.

Moras are easy to sharpen due to the large surface area of their bevels. It is very intuitive to hold this angle on your stone/abrasive because you can easily see and feel it beneath your fingers.

If you hold the knife flat to your stone/abrasive on the main body of the knife, it will look like this whereby you can see a gap between the stone and the cutting edge of the knife

You want to tilt the blade until the full surface area of the bevel (the shiny bits on the pictures above) sits flush on the stone. It will then look like this with no gap being visible between the cutting edge and the stone. If your knife has been sharpened poorly in the past, there might be the smallest gap here, as you have in effect ground away at the wrong part of the blade and created extra bevels at the very cutting edge of the blade. I have seen this loads with folks using pull through sharpeners or trying to sharpen a scandi grind in the same way as a flat grind. To correct this, you will need to remove a crap ton of material from the bevels until the geometry corrects to the original design.

What is the best way to sharpen a Mora? In my view, it is using either wet n dry paper on a flat piece of granite or a very hard stone like a diamond stone. The issue with sharpening Moras, especially if you are correcting previous damage due to incorrect sharpening is that you can dish and damage soft whetstones quite easily due to how much material needs removing. If you dish (put a concave shape in to the stone surface) your stone, it then makes sharpening correctly nigh on impossible. The stone needs flattening lots and you plough through them quickly resulting in replacements being needed more often than is necessary.

Moras tend to come from the factory not particularly sharp in my view. They have a workable edge but you can attain a much much more refined edge that will be dangerously sharp. They are not really a grind type that I personally like for cutting in to animals. They are a grunt blade, good for cutting in to wood and such and probably why lots of bush craft folk use them. I see it as a beater utility knife. Useful but not a slicing tool for intricate cutting work on flesh, skin etc. V grinds are better for that but are certainly harder to keep properly sharpened. They do tend to retain a better edge in my view though. Scandis can be very sharp and then the edge can just drop off the cliff and become very poor at slicing quickly.

I would encourage anyone to get a Mora or a cheap scandi grind to practice sharpening on. They are easy and promote good awareness and technique in terms of what sharpening actually is.

Once your knife is sharp, keep it sharp using a leather strop coated in compound like green dialux. That will increase the length of time between needing lengthy and boring sessions on the stones.

You are correct, if you are only working on the main bevel.

The cutting edge of a Mora is actually an almost invisible secondary bevel, at a few degrees greater angle than the big primary one that you are keeping flat against the stone.

To actually sharpen it using only this method you would need to grind away a lot of metal until the blade edge had retreated sufficiently to remove the secondary bevel altogether. This would take ages, and leave you with a scandi-zero profile.

Which would be quite impractical. The edge would be weaker due to the smaller included angle, but most importantly the only way to properly sharpen it would be to remove more of the primary bevel, highly laborious.

By having an almost invisible secondary bevel the actual cutting edge can be maintained by stropping, even with a steel, but if you want to touch it up on a whetstone it is vital that you do it at the correct angle and take off the bare minimum of material, otherwise you will just blunt it. Mora publish the angles applied at the factory. It barely takes a couple of strokes. The more you take off, the more work you will need to do in the future to knock back the primary bevels.

Skilled people can maintain a Mora indefinitely by stoning both primary and secondary bevels each time, keeping each in proportion. To reiterate, simply stoning the primary bevel by pressing it flat against the stone will not sharpen it. You must then lift the blade a tiny amount, a couple of degrees maybe to touch the secondary bevel, which is the actual cutting edge.

I think this has been very clearly described, earlier in the thread.

BTW, hunting knives don't need to be sharp enough to slice unsupported sheets of paper, or cleanly shave with. Nor do they require full tang or enormously thick blades, keep those for bushcrafters to baton logs for their fires, and those who think they might not be able to "survive" without one.

You have given a very comprehensive explanation here must have taken ages, Wish I could get my Mora to look like yours But I do think there good Knives an Expensive knife would be good but wasted on me.Thanks

 

[muddy42]

I would think that using a Lansky you are adding a secondary bevel?

I'm pretty rubbish at knife sharpening - but do have a Bark River which while sharp - not as sharp as I would like. There is a Japanese guy on yourtube - virtuovice - who seems to manage the sharpening process on stones by using a rocking motion, and finishing off on the strop. Not skills I have at the minute!

Yes, a lansky would add a secondary bevel, but there no reason why it couldn't be a very sharp fine second bevel though.

I would not advice any rocking on stones that results in sharpening at a varied angles. Personally I find it very hard to maintain the angle and get any knife sharp on stones. I need a guide, either via a lansky or a scandi grind that creates its own guide.

 

[Erik Hamburger]

Can any one recommend a decent knife for use as a stalking knife i want a good quality knife with a fixed blade but i do not want a custom knife just run of the mill quality 3.5 /4" blade

If you want something a little nicer than a £5-£12 knife (which will do the job, btw...) I suggest you have a look at this Finnish range, which will set you back around £40-£50 incl. P&P. : Hunting Knives

 

[elspread]

If you want something a little nicer than a £5-£12 knife (which will do the job, btw...) I suggest you have a look at this Finnish range, which will set you back around £40-£50 incl. P&P. : Hunting Knives

+1 for Marttiini knives. Cracking kit

 

[Jamouk]

If you want something a little nicer than a £5-£12 knife (which will do the job, btw...) I suggest you have a look at this Finnish range, which will set you back around £40-£50 incl. P&P. : Hunting Knives

Got one of these .. someone bought me the boar headed one for my 40th a couple of years ago .. Lovely knife but never had the heart to use it and get it dirty

 

[Acm]

I bought the Fallkniven F2z mk1 when they were on sale. The mk1's blade was about 4mm thick and useless as the filleting knife it was meant to be. Very sharp and resides in my hunting rucksack. Underrated hunting knife.

I bought one of these last week and I’m chuffed to bits with it. Agree, really underated! Have done 3 deer and butchered two pigs with it now. Brilliant