I work in a daycare center for kids 3-6 yrs old. A couple times a week few of us adults take the kids to the local forest where we make a fire (I've got the kids using a firesteel and cotton/jp and they've gotten good at using them!) and use are Mora knives to widdle. In Denmark Moras are very common.
I always have my Leatherman Wave with me and have had to use the metal file on it to sharpen the Moras. Has anyone else used their file as a feild sharpener?

No, but I have used emerycloth and got a shaving sharp edge with that. I suspect that if I wanted to I could use the diamond file on my Wave to get a pretty good edge...

That's what the diamond file is for.

Think you'll find the word is 'wittle' using a knife to 'widdle' sounds dangerous! :-)
The Sock

To whittle, not wittle! And who's the englishman?

Not me I'm a paddy.
But I stand corrected.
The Sock

Happy St. Paddy's Day in advance BTW...

Thanks!
No one can say the English are bad losers (there's a statue of George Washington outside the national gallery). They go wild for St Patricks day and most don't even know when their patron saints day is.
They started loving Irish theme pubs while the Irish were still bombing them :-)
The Sock

Remeber the Mora does not have a micro bevel on it , or should not. The bevel is the a saber bevel i.e. the whole sloped part of the blade is the bevel. You should sharpen the blade at this angle though with a file it might be harder. Maybe a small sharpening stone would be good to carry.
For wittleing you might get some of the more special purpose wittleing knives mad with a shorter blade. But it sounds like you are having fun and the kids are leaning valuable skills.
cheers

atoz is on with his info.

A credit card sized diamong plate might be ideal to sharpen these knives.

At Karamat what they do with students is simply use a hard board, carpet tape (sticky on both sides) and stick wet&dry sandpaper about 600 grit on it. They also use a kitchen ceramic tile for the hone. After experimenting you can graduate to a dedicated stone or a ceramic-diamond pocket whetstone for field sharpening such as the Fallkniven DC3 and DC4 because you know what you want.

Mors doesn't bother doing it stroke by stroke or doing a "clockwise circular motion", instead he cuts to the chase and just rubs it back and forth very quickly then use an ordinary leather belt to strop.

I think we're missing something here. Flashman works in a daycare and is teaching 3-6 year olds how to build a fire. Thats awesome! I can't see this happening at our local "Kinder-Care" here in the U.S.

I know there are "Life-Prep" courses in many schools, but probably very few that would teach anything like this. That would be a great class for any educational level. Forget the sandbox,let's make fire. Keep it up Flashman.

That may be true in theory, but is it practical in the field? Granted, it's easier to keep a consistent angle that way. But you'd have to remove a lot of steel to touch up the edge.

I always lift the blade off the bevel by just a hair when I sharpen my Moras. That way, I can put on a fresh edge in about 20 seconds, even with a small stone.

What about the rest of you?

I would be stunned if any institution was teaching children under 9 how to start or build a fire in the U.S. Teaching such things to kids in elementary school in the U.S. would probably get you fired.

I would be more stunned if a school was allowing chidren under 9 to use knives. A few months ago, a Florida girl was arrested for bringing a kitchen knife to school, using it to cut her food, not threatening anyone or anything else, simply because it was a WEAPON. And here, a school in Denmark is giving knives, that might be sharp as anything, to children half that age and letting them whittle! NICE!!

On another forum, a man found an old, very dull, Mora. He was asking whether to sharpen it by following the Scandi-grind or to just put a micro-bevel on it. Some said micro-bevel, others said do the hard work of following the grind. I voted for the hard work. Sharpen it via its original grind.

BUT!... I've found that, once the Scandi grind is honed to its optimum level of sharpness, the only way (for me, anyway) to get it as razor sharp as I want it, is to add a tiny micro-bevel. I still say follow the original grind, but then add a micro-bevel to take it to the next level.

Interesting observation! Seems I'm not alone here.

The thing is, for me, a Mora is a working knife. I'm talking the $10-15 ones with the plastic handles. They need regular touch-ups when working. Purists may cringe, but for me that means a micro-bevel.

But: I just compared a couple of well-used ones to a new one with the same blade. And surprise! the main bevel on the old ones has actually shrunk in size due to my bastardized sharpening style. This means the "wedge" is getting thicker than it was new, and possibly offers more cutting resistance.

So just for the heck of it, I may take a file and shape the bevel to its original angle and size, just to see if I notice a practical difference.

I agree with you. There is no need to sharpen the entire Scandi-grind (ala orthodox purist) while you're working - a quick, tiny, painless micro-bevel is not only faster and more efficient, but ultimately sharper. However, at the end of the week, or day, or whatever, taking the original grind down where it should be and, thus, removing the micro-bevel, seems to me the only way to go. Then, of course, once I finished, I'd add a light little micro-bevel to satisfy my lust for sharpnicity ((( )))

"Wittle" in Old English means something small.


The Englishman.