Helle Odel or Fjellkniven for the Kids Xmas

[Triquetra]

I want to get my two kids a good quality knife for Christmas as a first knife to start learning on. I’m debating between the Helle Odel and the Helle Fjellkniven. I have the Odel and love it but it’s about $25 more and Christmas is a little tight this year. I’ve never handled the Fjellkniven so I don’t know if it is a good fit for small hands but it seems to have a little more of a guard with the contoured handle. My boy just turned 7 and my girl 13. Any recommendations or opinions?

 

[tonym]

I have never handled the Odel, but I have the Fjellkniven. The fit and finish on mine is good, but far from perfect. The blade was centered, grind even, but there is a small gap between blade and bolster. Nothing however to hurt the performance of the knife. The handle is beautiful and well contoured.
Being that this is for your children, the handle is something to look at. It is quite wide and thick on the Fjellkniven. Judging by pics of the Odell, its quite a bit thicker than your odel.
It measures about 1 3/8" wide and 1" thick, at widest and thickest parts. So if you think the handle will not be too large for your children I'd say go for it. I really like my Helle Fjellkniven!

 

[Triquetra]

The Odel is just right for small hands. I know that on the Ragweed site it says that the Fjellkniven is for small to medium size but it's hard to judge without picking one up. I was almost going to go another route and looked at the RC3 but it seems that they are even more expensive.