Mora #122 knife - A review
Patrick Gibbons
Recently I bought the Mora #122 detail carving knife and its fraternal twin, the #120 detail carving knife. I was wanting a good, all around bench knife and had not been satisfied with what I had been using. A bench knife is one of those unsung heros of the shop, easily taken for granted and unrecognized for its utility. It is capable of much more than simply marking out. I use mine to finish out the depth of dados after the saw has cleared most of the walls. A good knife can trim a gossamer-thin shaving from a tenon shoulder with more control than a shoulder plane. Glue squeeze out is easier cleaned out in some instances with a knife rather than a chisel. Of course it doesn't end there but that's a good start. I was very pleased with my Mora and found myself using it even more than I had other knives simply because it worked so well.
Many people use a single beveled, double edged marking knife. The points on these tend to break off or round over making them less than stellar for marking. It's particularly lacking when it comes to marking dovetails. For my taste they're also flimsy, both in the steel and the handle. Mine cracked at the shoulder when I applied too much pressure in a cut.
I tried using a Case seahorse whittler for a while. It comes equipped with three useful blades, a wharncliffe for the main blade, a pen and a coping blade. These were excellent shapes for woodwork, one would expect a whittling knife to have these, but the stainless steel was difficult to sharpen and the blades came with a standard vee shape grind, a grind poorly shaped for jobs around the wood shop and decidedly poor for carving.
The Mora knife is almost a generic term. At one time, there were many companies making Scandinavian style knives in Mora, Sweden. Today the Mora Knife Company is a merger of two of these companies. Many of their knife designs have been made since Viking times. The #122 is a carving knife and is well designed for woodwork. It has a blade that is about 2 1/4" long and .105" thick. At its widest it is 5/8". The blade shape is what I would call a wharncliffe though the Mora shape is actually older than a wharncliffe. The edge of the blade is flat and comes to a long, sharp point. The #120 has the curved part of the blade sharpened with the flat as the spine. Essentially it's the same blank. The handle is oval shaped and swells in the middle. There is a ferrule on the end but no guard. Counting the ferrule, the handle is about 4 1/4" and fits very comfortably in my hand.
The blade shape is ideal for a bench knife. One thing I was anxious to determine was how well the blade held up and if the knife would retain its sharp point. I've been well pleased with its performance. The blade is a laminated hard carbon steel with a reported hardness of Rc 61. It came sharp enough to shave with (yes I did try it out but not my whole face) but benefited from a few strokes on the hard Arkansas stone. Working with hard maple and white oak it maintained its sharp edge longer than any other knife I've put to use. On the web I've read that the Mora laminated blades can be easily bent and evidently this is purposely done to configure the blade for specialized uses. The Mora excels at slicing and shaving but doesn't like prying or hacking. It's a finesse tool and should be used accordingly.
One of the major reasons for the Mora's utility is the Scandinavian grind of the blade. Blade grinds are a controversial subject among knife users but most agree that the Scandinavian grind is optimal for cutting wood. This type of grind goes about half way up the blade and is perfectly flat. Though some may use one, generally there is no secondary bevel. I thought this would be a cinch to sharpen but found myself taking a little more time than I expected. I've become so used to sharpening knives with a vee that I had to think about what I was doing rather than just carrying on. Soon I had the hang of it. With this grind I found myself able to take light, delicate shavings that would be impossible with a regular pocket knife.
This knife is available at many sites on the Internet. I purchased mine from Ragnar's Ragweed Forge for $15.00. His site is a good read with lots of information and he retails a number of Scandinavian knife lines. The blade is available unhandled but interestingly every site where I found it it retailed for more than the knife itself. The knife comes with a plastic sheath which is a joke but works fine as a blade guard for a bench knife. Making a leather sheath seems easy enough and there are many tutorials on the web. My knife came with a loose ferrule but after positioning it in the vise and a few taps on the butt with a hammer it seated fine. One can easily remove the handle to customize the blade. I like this knife, it's a keeper
