OPINEL Toughness Report

A

ARundrpillow

Joined
Jun 6, 2014
Messages
171
I bought one of these kid version Opinels for my 4 year old son a week or so ago. He absolutely loved that he know has a real knife. He has seen me do much chopping and heavy woods work with my fixed blades and has been at me constantly sense he got it to go out in the woods so he can chop. We went out last weekend and he put this knife to the test. He chopped on a small dead tree with a purpose for a long time straight. He was showing no regard for breaking the knife whatsoever. Pounding and pounding with repeated over strikes. I facilitated where I could but hes young and just wanted to chop so I let him have at it and have some fun.
The blade has been filed super dull and will not cut skin so I was not worried about him getting cut. He actually works safely, keeping his other hand clear and stands properly to where if he misses he does not get hit. It was just super rapid fire strike after strike as hard as he could. All in all he put a crushing on this knife like it was never meant to withstand and it held up amazingly. Not a bit of damage to the blade, lock or handle. These truly are well built tough knives that can be over used if necessary. It took about 10-15mins up continuous abuse and looks brand new. This is the knife pictured below. His has horses on it.

 
Update: We went camping last weekend and my son again beat the crap out of his Opinel. I walked away from the fire at one point and walked back up to find him batoning through the end of a 1" stick. I never showed him how to do this. He has just seen me do it many times and took it upon himself to try it. Surprisingly enough the knife performed beautifully even absorbing his not so accurate strikes on the lock and handle. I cannot say enough good things about this knife and how well it serves as a childs first knife. He has broken nearly every toy he has put in his hands and i dont believe he is capable of breaking this knife at this point, which is saying a lot.
 
Haha thats awesome! My kids get SAKs, but if I ever stumble upon these Opi's I'll buy some for sure. I certainly love the grown up Opinels. :)
 
Awesome review. Yet another reason why everyone should own an Opi. I think some destructive (adult) testing may be in order.
 
They're much tougher knives than most give them credit for! :)
 
Having been around nearly unchanged for almost 120 years, they must be doing something right. ;) Opinel is one of my favorite knife brands of all time. :thumbup:
 
A guy on YouTube did a hard use test that was pretty strenuous on the giant opinel model and it didn't blink an eye.
 
I did up some spuds the other night with my 9. I just had to be a little careful not to cut myself with that little straight razor. :) I think that I'll grab a larger size some day when I bump into them, that would be fun.
 
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