Any love for small Opinels?

I don't always use the lock, but sometimes I need it, so the N°06 is my choice. I'd go smaller if they locked.

I5xuzq9.jpg


Old pic. The carbone one is nearly black now, and I've added an olive. R-L beech, oak, bubinga, bubinga.
 
takokato said:
I might have to pick up a no. 4 to try out. No. 7 seems to be the sweet spot for me but I never seem to mind the chance to try something new. I added a No. 2 to an order recently because it bumped me up to free shipping. I’m enjoying it more than I thought. An added bonus is that it fits in all the tiny pockets some of my pants have. We womenfolk can’t always accommodate a full sized pocket knife.
Here is my No. 7 and No. 2
View attachment 1562523
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No 2 is surely the smallest they make? I didn’t realize it was so tiny.
 
Planterz said:
I don't always use the lock, but sometimes I need it, so the N°06 is my choice. I'd go smaller if they locked.

I5xuzq9.jpg


Old pic. The carbone one is nearly black now, and I've added an olive. R-L beech, oak, bubinga, bubinga.
Click to expand...
The bubinga on the right is really nice. Wonder why they discontinued using that wood.
 
As another data point, my 3 and 4 are both carbone. I haven’t carried them, mostly because my 6s suit me so well. A 5 might also work, but I have never run across one in stock and haven’t felt the need to go looking. A hipsterish young lady of my son’s acquaintance wears a No.3 on a neck cord, necessarily tip up. It has never opened on her.

I find it unfortunate that the slim models, the garden knife and the premium woods only come in inox. Any supposed performance advantages are meaningless to me. My knives get occasional use, and are stropped far more often than they need.
 
MililaniGrown said:
The bubinga on the right is really nice. Wonder why they discontinued using that wood.
Click to expand...

Yeah, I hit the lottery on that one. Symmetrical on the other side, and chatoyance in the right light.
 
With my almost psychotic obsession with 'how small can I go..." I feel almost duty bound to try a number 2 for daily carry. 😲
 
Fass said:
I was just wondering if anyone carries one of the smaller Opinels on a regular basis? I mean the #5 and below. I've been playing around with a #4 lately and I'm liking it. The thing is sharp like you wouldn't believe it!
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bought both a #6 and a #8 both in carbone and inox and also in birch and olivewood. Swapped both blades to get two carbone/olivewood, my favorite configuration. You can only do the with 6s and 8s. i prefer 8 size.

interestingly I recently calculated blade cutting length divided by weight for all of my knives. The top three were no surprise: Opinel 6, Antonini Medium, and Opinel 8.
 
I'll echo the posters above and say that the No 6 is about as small as I go. I have had about a dozen go through my hands, as I give them out to friends for birthdays or special events. When I went to Philmont as a Boy Scout, our ranger told us to leave "heavy" knives behind, as we wouldn't be needing knives out on the trail. That thought gave me some pause, but I squirreled away 4 or 5 No 6s anyway! I handed them out to the guys once we were properly on the trail, and they were perfect - lightweight, screaming sharp, and easy to handle. I like the idea of the virobloc, even if I don't use it that often, so I am wary to go smaller than the 6!
 
I read someplace a while back that Pablo Picasso used a number 5 Opinel to carve a complete sculpture. This was of course long before the introduction of the viroblock, so it must have been good enough. I did not real any report of Picasso loosing any fingers in the process.
 
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