Some of you reading this review are probably looking to pick up your first whittling knife and don’t know what to get or know exactly what you want to whittle.
Others are looking for a great general purpose wood carving knife that you can put some power behind and easily strip off a lot of wood. Well you have come to the right place!
The Morakniv 120 is a very well designed wood carving knife with a laminated high carbon steel blade that can quickly remove wood and add fine details to your wood carving.
From its well designed blade to its comfortable handle, it will quickly become one of your favorite wood working tools and be one of the knives you reach for the most.
The Mora 120 is based off of the popular Sloyd knives and are excellent for all around wood carving. I like to pack it in my camping bag to use while on my outdoor adventures.
Quick Stats
| Steel | Laminated High Carbon Steel |
| Rockwell Hardness (RC) | 59 – 60 |
| Comes Sharp | Yes |
| Sharp Edge After 30 Min | Yes |
| Average Price | $25 – $30 |
| Recommended for Beginners | Yes |
| Blade Length | 2.4″ |
What I Liked
At first, I thought that I wasn’t going to like this knife very much because I was use to my small and thin whittling knives, but after getting some serious whittling time with this knife I found it to be highly versatile.
The Mora 120 is perfect for medium to large whittling projects, sits comfortably in the hands, and is ready to use from the manufacture. I had no issue using it and didn’t feel that it was necessary to use my other knives to complete the wood carvings
Comfortable Handle
The first thing you will notice when holding your new Mora 120, is the smooth and comfortable birch handle. This knife handle can easily be held by larger hands and makes the tool that much easier to manipulate.
It has a nice oiled finish that won’t slip in your hands like some lacquered handles. This gives you a firm and secure grip on the knife providing maximum control as you slice away layers of wood.
Sharp and Ready to Use
I am always appreciative of manufactures that send their tools ready for immediate use. This way you know what the ideal condition is when you receive it and can easily maintain them.
The Mora 120 comes from the manufacture sharp and ready to cut through wood. There is no need to sharpen or even hone the knife once you receive your knife.
Full Tang Construction
One major thing I look for with a knife that will get heavy use is a full tang construction, and the Mora 120 has exactly that.
With this knifes full tang construction, I can continuously use the knife without any worry of the blade starting to rock or come loose. This provides the user with a highly durable knife designed for long term use.
Great Edge Retention
At the core of this knife is a high carbon steel blade hardened to RC of 59 – 60. This gives the knife excellent resilience for extended use. Plus, with it’s laminated steel design, you can easily bring the edge sharpness back with little effort.
When using this knife, I found the cutting edge able to withstand extended use without quickly dulling or chipping. I was expecting the laminated portion of the blade to dull out fast and start to loose its edge, but it holds up to whatever I am able to throw at it.
Affordable Price
This knife can commonly be found for less than $30 shipped to your door, and it is worth every penny spent on it. I have tested out a bunch of different knives and this one is provides a lot of value for the price when compared to other whittling knives.
Comes With A Sheath
It is my strong belief that all fixed blade knives should come standard with a sheath or something to store them in.
The Mora 120 comes with a basic, but handy sheath that you can attach to your belt or place in your toolbox. The sheath isn’t anything fancy and is made out of plastic, but it does exactly what you need it to do.
Easy to Sharpen
The Mora 120 comes from the factory with a very easy to maintain cutting edge with no extra bevel. This makes it extremely easy to strop and maintain a razor cutting edge to quickly cut through wood.
All I do is line up the flat portion of the blade on my leather strop and start sharpening. You don’t have to worry about any odd angles to maintain, just match the existing grind to the surface your preferred sharpening tool and start sharpening.
What I Didn’t Like
With all the benefits this knife has, there are a few drawbacks that may make t difficult for some whittlers. My main issues were with the thickness of the blade and the overall length, making it more difficult to whittle smaller details and smaller wood carvings.
Thick Knife
First thing that bothered me, the actual blade width. A thicker whittling knife can make it harder to push through the wood you are cutting as it is a thicker wedge that must be pushed between two sections of wood.
The blade thickness is about double that of other whittling knives like the Flexcut cutting knife shown above. You can really tell the difference between the two knives pictured when doing stop and push cuts. The Mora knife will only sink into the wood about half as easily as the thinner FlexCut Knife will.
This needs to be taken into consideration, especially if you are doing smaller details or smaller wood carvings.
Longer Blade
Personally, I like my whittling knives to be between 1.5″ and 2″ for maximum control and to easily allow detailed paring cuts.
The Mora 120 has a 2.4″ blade that can be a little cumbersome for easily applying small details to your whittling project. Sometimes I find that I have to wrap some athletic tape around my pointer and middle fingers so I can choke up on the blade to add in those small features with the tip of my knife.
Sheath is to Long
One of the reasons why this knife can come with a sheath for such a great price is that Morakniv uses a basic “universal” sheath for some of their knives. This same sheath can be found on the 106 and the 122.
Now since this sheath can fit multiple length knives, it is a bit long for the 120 as you can see in the picture above. It is nearly 2.5″ too long for this knife! But really that doesn’t matter too much as it does exactly what it needs to.
Tip Can Bend
This issue was just recently discovered when I was getting a bit aggressive in one of my wood carving projects (the canoe pictured at the very top of the page).
I found that I had accidentally bent the tip of the knife when I was cutting through a particularly difficult knot in the wood and noticed that some of my cuts with the tip weren’t flat anymore.
This was easily fixed by bending it back in place on a hard surface and flattening it with my 1000 grit stone, but just keep this in the back of your mind if you start cutting through a tough spot with your Mora.
Best Places to Buy Your Mora 120
These knives are available nearly everywhere wood carving knives are sold, but here are some of the places that I have found with the best prices around.
Amazon
Amazon will be most peoples go to source for these knives as they may be able to get free shipping though Amazon Prime. The prices on here are hard to beat and very competitively priced.
Click here to pick up your Mora 120 on Amazon.
Ebay
As I don’t have Amazon Prime myself, my favorite place to go to get things shipped at the absolute best price is Ebay. I can usually find these knives shipped to my door for around $27 and is hard to beat.
If you want to pick one up for yourself and check out the prices on Ebay, click here https://ebay.to/3ajO7i7
More Knife Reviews
If you want to see more knives I reviewed, click the link below and find what whittling knife is best for you!
https://carvingisfun.com/category/whittling-knife-review/