Mora Pathfinder Fail

[Johnny Canuck]

Interesting read thanks for the link

Mora knives offer incredible value to performance ratio. Some of their models are ten quid, and for that ten quid you are probably getting 70% of the edge retention and 70%* of the toughness of a 250 pound semi-custom knife.

*rough guess

I wrote this article a few days ago about a different way of approaching outdoor tools, away from the 'survivalist' mentality. Just my thoughts, I welcome disagreement, all part of the fun!

 

[tsitenha]

OldJimbo, I think that Ron Hood has unfortunately passed away June 2011, check your 6, you may catch a glimpse of him some misty nigt

 

[OldJimbo]

OldJimbo, I think that Ron Hood has unfortunately passed away June 2011, check your 6, you may catch a glimpse of him some misty nigt

Darn, yet another gone under! I had a copy of the web page he made after a falling out with Jerry Busse and have had many chuckles over the years.

Thanks, Sandbender.
Hopefully everyone sees that it's a post about not losing the use of a knife which is in constant use, and not just a rekindling of the old arguments of what breaks a knife or which knives break.
I've only ever broken one knife, a seriously built all stainless folder. I used it to cut some sticks which were sticking out on a logging road, and the blade broke part way up, obviously due to a defect. This one is my buddy's knife as I've misplaced the pic of my broken one.

For sure it broke because I flicked it at a hard stick to notch it for pulling and breaking, and the sudden shock was too much for a defect in the heat treat, but it was a shock to have a knife which I'd done lots of cutting with for a very long time, to suddenly fail. We tried some light batoning with my buddy's identical knife to see if it was similarly afflicted but it did fine, and is still fine so many years later. Since then I don't really trust a knife unless I've done some regular batoning with it to check for defects.
That was a darned handy knife being all stainless so I could use it for cutting wire, dressing fish, then wash it and pour some boiling water on the blade before using it to cut up lunch. I've often wondered if the use of boiling water hastened the defect..
Similarly delving way back into memory, I deprived myself of the use of my Mora by dropping it into a log jam beside a river. I was up notching branches and then breaking them off for a fire, when I dropped the knife. and it fell between the logs. So I went and got the truck axe and cut my way in to retrieve the knife. That was a lot of work to retrieve a $10 knife, but I've been more careful with dropping stuff ever since, so the lesson stuck.