I assume you mean the $9 Frost Mora as the inexpensive sheath knife? http://www.eknifeworks.com/webapp/eComme...p;amp;SKU=FS860 I've never tried Frost--any good? I'm attracted by the price, and plan to get one! How about sharpeners? I've read the article on this site, which recommends Eze-Lap diamond sharpeners. Any in particular, and a good online sources? <img src="/images/graemlins/laugh.gif" alt="" />

Try www.ragweedforge.com Ragner is a good guy with good prices and always gets the order out very fast. He sales many Nordic and other knives including the Mora’s which are made by KJ Eriksson and Frost.
I was surprised how much knife I got for that amount of money. I customized my wooden handled carbon steel knives by flaming the handles and putting turpentine and linseed oil mix on them. To seal the area between the blade and handle I used bee’s wax to keep it food grade and keep junk out of the handle area.
I have some of the Triflex, laminated and straight carbon steel blades but have not done enough testing to push them far enough to see the difference in them.
I use DMT sharpening stones on them followed by a leather strop and jewelers compound. These knives can be made to be very impressively sharp using the red stone followed by the green stone then the strop.
I think you will find www.outdoors-magazine.com has some very useful information regarding these knives and several different sharpening methods and the equipment available today.

The one and only major problem that I find with the traditional Mora style is that there is absolutely no guard and the handle is one with by its very shape and material (painted wood) encourages slippage when used by wet hands. Outside of that it's a great design.

Brian:

You could always grind down or use a rasp on the wood handle to create concave depressions, as well as putting ridges around the handle so it is not as slick.

Bountyhunter

Mora type knives w/ gaurds also the plastic handle ones

full selection of mora knives

Adam

Are Mora's blade tangs press fit into the wood or do they have anything holding the tang to the handle?

Bountyhunter

The standard, red handled Mora's are an engineer's worse nightmare. The differential tempered rattailed tang goes into a wooden handle with a securing roller pin hammered into the butt. Cut one apart and theres all kinds of empty space inside. But then Mors Kochanski had this decidely canadian field test of stabbing a tree and then standing on the handle as a test. Mr Kochanski used Moras. The slightly up scale versions with plain wooden handles and guards are a little better, but the sheaths lose the traditional deep security. The Moras with plastic handles are perhpas the best. The Mora 2000 is their idea of a survival knife. It has a larger blade with an interesting double thickness, very 'grippy' handle and good sheath. It is a bit pricey vs the competition, though EBAY sometimes has good deals. Frosts are excellent knives. Basically they offer the laminated blades some people prefer. But stainless, high carbon or laminated they all cut, are cheap, sharpen easy, are distributed in america by a great guy ( Ragnar) and teach the owner knifemanship while saving for something 'better.'

The standard wooden handled Moras can be made much better by simply taking them apart, filling the voids with epoxy, and reassembling them. Easy directions for same can be found here: http://www.oldjimbo.com/survival/mora.html

M

Great info Mike. Thanks for sharing!

After Chris’ repeated praise of the Moras, I purchased the Triflex Craftsmen #780 ( http://www.ragweedforge.com/SwedishKnifeCatalog.html ) and really like it. Even though this has a bit of a guard molded into the handle, I’m a klutz and still could run my fingers forward and over the blade. Thus, I use a lanyard just big enough to insert the hand (without thumb)—this absolutely keeps the hand from sliding forward even if my grip is poor. If I am wearing gloves, I insert the index finger and as many other fingers as I can get into the loop of the lanyard. On very small knives, I use at least a pinkie or ring-finger lanyard. (A Primer on Lanyards at http://bill-hay.com/Lanyard.htm may be informative.) In all these cases, I can let the knife dangle from the lanyard if I need to use my hands—kind of like the HideAwayKnife ( http://www.hideawayknife.com/main.php ) that Brian purchased recently.

Pete