In issues 38 and 39 of Bushcraft and Survival Skills Magazine is a two-part article by Ben Orford on taking an old Mora Clipper knife and modifying it. Everyone has a Mora Clipper or at least they should do as for the price it is an excellent piece or kit, I personally had two from when they were made by Frosts Knivfabrik before they merged with KJ Eriksson in 2005 to form Morakniv.
The first step of this project is to remove the blade from the plastic handle, that plastic is extremely tough and I found that reassuring as it only has a partial tang and yet they generally take a hell of a beating.
The second step is to fit the blade into your new handle and fix in using an epoxy, I no longer have the tools available to drill and shape such a handle myself so I contacted Ben about making me a handle like the one he made in the article. He agreed and I picked it up at the Wilderness Gathering, as with any item that leaves “The Craft Lab” the handles were finished to an extremely high standard.
Using 151 Epoxy (5.11 make clothing) and a small cable tie I applied the epoxy to the slot in the handle along with the tang of the blade, it was filled with sufficient epoxy that when I fitted the blade into the handle excess epoxy oozed out and was promptly wiped away using some spirit on some paper towel. After being clamped blade up while the epoxy fully set I am very pleased with how it looks and will soon be working on a sheath to go with it within the next few weeks.
