Differences between Opinels

[dfitch81]

Hey all - just got a No7 Carbon and noticed a few differences from my other Opinels, got me wondering if others have seen the same details in their own examples and if those differences are peculiar to the No7 or pop up in some runs of the other sizes as well.

The first ones that stood out to me - and the ones I'll ask mention here (though there are others, too) - have to do with the Virobloc locking collar: there is a small, hollow rectangular indentation stamped into the center of the collar on the No7 which isn't present on any of my other Opinels. Viewing the knife mark side up with the blade open and the collar in the locked position, the indentation is dead-center in the middle of the handle and is in the same position that the digits "08" are etched into the collar of my No8 when similarly locked open. The locking itself is the next big difference with my No7: my others can all be locked open by turning the collar in either direction, but the collar on my No7 can only be turned towards the pile side with the blade in the open position - the metal that would need to have been removed from the collar to allow rotation in the other direction was not cut away.

So - anybody else seen these kinds of variations? What others have you noticed? Thanks!

 

[Ernie1980]

Can you post some pictures please?

 

[Bartleby]

The rectangle in the locking ring fits into a slot in the collar beneath it. It seems to be intended to function to prevent the locking ring from being removed accidentally when opening the blade from the closed and locked position. It has the unintentional result of preventing the ring from turning far enough to fully lock the blade open on some individual knives.

 

[dfitch81]

Would post pics, but I'm doing this from my phone at the moment and can't seem to figure out how to get pics on my phone to upload here (the uploader wants a URL, seems I can't just copy from my phone's gallery).

 

[BigBiscuit]

Would post pics, but I'm doing this from my phone at the moment and can't seem to figure out how to get pics on my phone to upload here (the uploader wants a URL, seems I can't just copy from my phone's gallery).

photobucket mobile is your friend.

 

[knarfeng]

Opinel recently made some changes to the locking collar. There's some posts about it somewhere's or other.

So it's because it's new stock, not because it's a number 7.

 

[jackknife]

It seems that in their infinite wisdom, or lack of, they have decided that a design both time proven and reliable, needed fixing even though it was not broke. Now, they had made it much more difficult to mod the locking ring to rotate further around for increased security. Hopefully they haven't made it so the protrusion isn't too much to be ground off. I like the Opinel ring to be able to rotate almost halfway around.