How to sharpen knives for a Mora drill

Mora knife sharpening

The most important condition that applies to the concept of a high-quality knife is its sharpness and the ability of the blade to hold it for a long time. The convenience of its use depends on how correctly and efficiently the process of imparting the initial sharpness to the blade was carried out.

Today, the leading manufacturer of knives is the Swedish company “mora”, which produces different types of tools: for hunters and tourists, for the household and food industry, for fishermen (moreover, for lovers of any fishing - summer and winter, and for the latter there are very popular many countries of the world - “ice screws”).

Brief information about Mora

This type of knives is produced in a small Swedish town under the same name - Mora, in the province of Dalarna, whose population has been engaged in knife making for several centuries and has become famous not only in the country's market, but also far beyond its borders.

Once upon a time, local artisans made knives at home (in their workshops), and all products were branded with the name of their city. The increased demand for local knives led to the fact that in the 17th century the first manufactories began to form and, very soon, the first factories appeared. The largest factories were Eric Frost, Karl Anderson and Ericsson.

Today they are one corporation that produces knives under the “Mora of Sweden” brand (the merger of the listed companies occurred in 2004).

Sharpening knives: is it possible to sharpen mora knives?

The fact that any knife, even the most expensive and the best, loses its sharpness over time, the cutting edge ceases to cut any density of material with just one touch, but requires additional effort in the form of pressure (moreover, stronger and stronger) - no one there is no doubt, this is a proven fact. Accordingly, it will need to be sharpened.

Considering that not every knife can be sharpened independently (so as not to spoil its quality characteristics), most owners of products from the most popular company doubt whether mora knives can be sharpened .

To provide an objective explanation of this issue, it should immediately be noted that only knives cannot be sharpened at home:

• with a ceramic blade (this blade should not become dull at all and require processing);
• with a blade made of mild steel (up to 45 HRC Rockwell, because such a blade breaks very easily);
• having serrated sharpening on the blade;
• with blades with a special coating that gives the metal hardness.

None of the listed restrictions indicate that there may be obstacles to sharpening mora knives, and this is primarily due to the material - steel is used for the blade, which for these products is selected as follows:

• stainless steel (54-57 HRC Rockwell);
• carbon and “triflex” (59-60 HRC Rockwell);
• laminated steel (up to 61 HRC Rockwell).

The only thing that needs to be done is to approach the process of sharpening such knives very carefully, observing some rules, the basics of which we will consider further (after all, the principle: “I sharpen it the way I want” will not work in relation to branded Swiss knives).

Methods and devices for sharpening Mora knives

Sharpening mora knives at home is carried out in one of the two most effective ways:

• when using a whetstone (or whetstone). For this type of work, you will need two bars: a coarse-grained one, on which the sharpening angle is displayed, and a fine-grained one - for subsequent grinding and finishing the edge of the blade directly to the desired state;
• with the help of musat. It is a device (looks like a rod) that is made of very high hardness steel, evenly coated with diamond chips. Musat mainly involves adjusting the edge, rather than radically correcting the sharpening angle.

There is another material that can occasionally be used for sharpening a knife - sandpaper. It is used in very rare cases when there is no musat or fine-grained stone “at hand,” but generally it is not used for good knives.

Machines with special abrasive wheels are already professional tools that are used by craftsmen. For those who have not used them before, trying to sharpen a mora is not recommended (the likelihood of ruining the knife is too high).

For household purposes, there are also such devices as mechanical sharpeners, but they are also not recommended for use with a good Swiss-made knife: they are easy to sharpen, but the products quickly become dull, which leads to a reduction in the service life of even the most reliable and durable tool.

Basic rules on how to sharpen mora knives

To begin with, I would like to clarify that high-quality sharpening of knives consists of such components as:

• perfect cutting edge sharpness;
• required angle;
• derivation of the correct surface geometry.

For example, for kitchen knives the optimal sharpening angle is 25 degrees, for tourist needs the knife angle should be 30 degrees, but for household tools (and food cutting) or for fishing needs it will need to be set at an angle of 35 degrees.

It is very important, before sharpening mora knives, to find out what hardness of steel they are made of (after all, one extra movement can lead to the fact that the knife can simply become dull).

Now let's look at the recommendations: how to sharpen mora knives for those who have encountered this more than once. So:

• Before you start sharpening, the blade must be thoroughly cleaned of dirt;
• if sharpening stones are chosen for the process, then first they work with a coarse-grained stone (until a burr (a strip of metal along the edge of the blade) appears along the edge of the blade), and after that they move on to the second stage - grinding with a fine-grained stone;
• It is best to place the sharpening stone on the table, providing it with a reliable support;
• When editing musat, you should guide the edge away from you, i.e. from the base (the part in contact with the handle) towards the tip;
• there is no need to press too hard on the block or nut with a blade, this will not improve or speed up the process, but the accuracy of the angle may be lost;
• When sharpening, the pressure of the blade on the whetstone must be gradually reduced so that the final movements are light, more like gently stroking the whetstone with the blade;
• it is necessary and as often as possible to rinse the blade and bar with water;
• when the edge shines brightly and evenly, you can finish the sharpening process;
• After the procedure, it is recommended to wipe the block or musat with an alcohol solution.

You can check the quality of sharpening in several ways. For example, run your thumb very carefully along the edge - the irregularities will be noticeable, and if you feel that the edge is slightly rounded, this indicates that the blade is not sharpened. A perfectly sharpened knife will cut newsprint with one touch (this indicator can also be used to determine the sharpness of the blade).

At first glance, a process such as sharpening a knife may seem like an easy task, but this opinion is wrong; it will require attention, patience and time to improve your skills.

Source: https://knife.adstores.ru/article/zatochka-nozhey-mora

How to choose the right auger knives: what shape ice auger knives should be, use, sharpening

One of the main tools for fans of winter fishing is, of course, an ice auger. Picks are a thing of the past and have been replaced by more convenient, lightweight and high-quality devices for preparing the surface of a reservoir for the fishing process. Ice screws differ in their characteristics and technical design. It is important to choose suitable knives for the drill, which, if necessary, can be quickly changed on the spot.

During the winter season, ice drill knives are a popular consumable item. Sometimes during one fishing trip two or even three sets fail. This is due to the fact that, as a rule, on all river beds the ice is simply saturated with sand and the instrument becomes completely unusable after a dozen holes. In this case, a fishing secret will help: bend the edge outwards with a metal object from the inside, but this will not help for long.

The following will save you from frequently replacing the cutting parts of the ice drill:

• Selection of high-quality tools and spare parts for them.
• Spare kits must be of the same brand, or an analogue, ideally suitable for the ice auger model.
• Proper use, transportation, cleaning and storage of equipment.

When purchasing you need to consider:

1. Features of blade sharpening.
2. General geometry.
3. Heat treatment level.
4. Steel sample.

Serrated and spherical knives

Today on the fishing equipment market you can see a variety of drill cutters. The most common:

• Serrated.
• Oval.
• Universal.
• Stepped.

Which knives are best for an ice drill, everyone chooses for themselves.

All of them are designed for different surface types and weather conditions. To choose the right ones, you need to know how they differ:

Serrated blades are an indispensable assistant in the fight against heavily moistened ice. They will help out when winter is already receding and water from the spring sun begins to wash small channels on the surface of the reservoir, abundantly saturating the ice layer.

Small contact area reduces drag force. It's worth noting that the blades need to be "break-in" (approximately 30-40 holes), during which time the drilling can be a little aggressive.

Some manufacturers may experience a “snack” when it gets from the ice into the water.

Oval (spherical) - suitable for almost all possible types of ice cover on water bodies. As a rule, spherical ones are included in the basic kit with most ice drills from well-known companies that are present on the Russian market. Unfortunately, this form has one critical drawback: the cutters become dull rather quickly, and it is almost impossible to sharpen them at home.

The cost of sharpening from a professional is, as a rule, 50% of the price tag for new ones in the store, and it is undesirable to subject them to this procedure more than three times.

Utility and step knives

Universal - also called flat, deserve the attention of anglers due to their ease of maintenance. It’s easy to sharpen and straighten the blades yourself, thereby avoiding additional costs for the services of a professional. But when working with a flat blade, you will have to put in much more effort to drill the hole.

Ideally, it is better to take these knives with you to the pond for backup, and not as your main equipment.

Stepped - this equipment is indispensable when the temperature drops below -15 °C. Two blades located side by side create a crumbling effect, which for frost-hardened ice is much more effective than a cutter, without unnecessary loads. In warmer temperature conditions, these auger blades are ineffective. Sharpening them yourself is not as easy as flat ones, but it is possible.

Reviews from people

Last season the Yaroslavskys caught my attention. All the inconvenience that they caused me arose due to the insufficient thickness of the blade (about 3 mm). Because of this, it was not possible to screw in the countersunk screw completely and, as a result, the screws were constantly being unscrewed and I spent the entire fishing trip with a Phillips screwdriver at the ready. They cut well enough, but this running around with constant tightening of the screws completely blurred the whole picture.

Alexei.

I have been a fan of Barnaul knives for a long time. They last a long time, drill well and quickly, I had a complete set. But I recently bought an imported ice drill and these blades will no longer fit on overseas equipment, so I immediately bought a Swedish storage unit. The spare knives were not sharpened as well as the set of equipment itself, so I had to spend money on the services of a master.

Basil.

I have been using Tikhvin knives for a long time and am very pleased. I also sharpen it myself using an abrasive stone or sandpaper. The main thing is to position the blade at the correct angle, sharpen only in circular movements and follow the sequence of edge processing, then the result will be no worse than in the workshop. When fishing, it is better to take several types of blades, and at night I advise you to use universal knives.

Alexander.

Source: https://sudak.guru/rybolovnye-prinadlezhnosti/ledobury/kriterii-vybora-nozhey-dlya-bura.html

Alexander Neimark: Sharpening ice drill knives Mora-Expert

The saddest thing I ever heard about these knives is that their surface is hardened in one way or another. I was unable to obtain reliable information about this. But be that as it may, the knives hold up to repeated sharpening - both my knives, sharpened over several fishing trips before the end of last season, and Max Dydykin’s knives, sharpened by him a year ago, retained their sharpness.

We will process the inner, concave side of the knives. Perhaps processing the outer, convex side would have helped us save energy, but I have not tried this. What if there is still surface hardening there?

Sorry, I don’t know any special terminology. I will call the surfaces that we are going to process “slope” and “cutting edge”.

In order not to get confused with numbers, let's assume that at least one of our knives is in such a condition that the angle of the cutting edge can be visually determined. Our task is to restore the knives, that is, to form the angles of the edge and cutting edge approximately the same as they were on the new knives.

So let's get started.

Sgon

It seems that the angle of the drive does not play a decisive role. On the three pairs of knives I examined, these angles are initially different, and that’s okay.

Therefore, when forming a grind, you mainly need determination: turn on the electric sharpener with a circle of approximately suitable diameter, press the knife tightly against the end of the emery wheel (it should not be flat, but convex, semicircular) and smoothly draw the knife along it. If the hand trembles, repeat the procedure.

You just have to do this on the second knife too, the distance from the mounting holes to the cutting edge should be the same. However, you need to form a squeegee much less often than to straighten the cutting edge. To damage the drive, you need to do something more significant than just plant the drill in the sand.

Cutting edge

Straightening a cutting edge is a delicate matter; an ordinary electric sharpener will not help us here. Since a special sharpening tool is rare, we do it manually.

To begin with, we take a round or semicircular diamond file and roughly form the cutting edge, trying to restore its former shape. We hold the file in a simple way, perpendicular to the cutting edge. In the article by A. Mailkov “When the ice drill does not drill” in “Rybolov” 6/99, other advice is given.

I don’t know what to say. Most likely, the author is describing other knives. The article does not directly say that he sharpened knives from Mora-Expert.

To a first approximation, the job is done. But if you stop there, sharpening is enough for two or three holes. In order for knives to work for a long time, the cutting edge must be polished - the more carefully, the better. At a minimum, you will need the most delicate finishing block (nowadays it is not difficult to buy one; most often they have the shape of a parallelepiped the size of a finger).

Using an electric sharpener, we turn the parallelepiped into a cylinder and work with it like a file, at first quite decisively, in the end - barely touching it. We wash both the knife and the block with water as often as possible. If the cutting edge shines brightly and evenly, you can finish. And you can, if the ardor has not dried up, move on to the next stage - grinding paste. P. Motalov in the article “Russian Exotica” (see “RRZh” 3/00) recommends applying the paste to a leather-covered mandrel.

This is probably better, but a cylinder made of hard wood will also work, for example, a piece of bamboo fishing rod (without varnish) or a very dry spruce knot with a diameter of 10-20 mm.

Source: http://www.myfishstory.ru/2010/01/13/poleznye-sovety/aleksandr-neymark-zatochka-nozhey-ledobura-mora-ekspert