Which Opinel size do you prefer?

What are your favorite sizes of Opinel?

  • Total voters
    88
The slims are very elegant knives and look really nice, especially with polished blades.

The bigger models have very nice flexible blades that can be used for filleting or meat de-boning.
 
#6 is small yet very handy for quick cutting jobs. Just enough. I also picked the #8 because I like the garden knife with a drop point.
 
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I voted #8, 9 and 10.
I found anything below #7 is just too small for me, mostly due to the handle size.
I think #8 is comfortably small, 9 is a nice medium and 10 is just about perfect. 12 is definitely big and 13 is obscenely oversized for a folding knife.
 
I purchaswd some No. 6, 7 & 8s for a very specific task. I wanted a food dedicated knife to cary with me while out & about and traveling. I find it so annoying to have a dull knife at a restaurant or break a plastic knife. (I also carry a Ti spork.)

The No. 8 is a great size but slightly larger than I needed.

The No. 6 was able to cut any food I encountered. But food often got pushed into the hinge area. And the handle was a bit small for a good grip.

The No. 7 is a nice compromise. Small enough to easily carry around. Big enough blade & handle for convenient use.

I put a few serrations near the tip where the cutting edge touches a plate. Now it stays sharp much longer.

The fish tail grip shape is not for me. I sand off the top (or is it back) and make a nice curve. Fits my hand very well now.

So I vote No. 7.
 
The strange thing is that despite having a few Opinel users I tend to use an Old Bear, I think L or XL, more.

I noted that the Old Bear swells up more easily than the Opinels, meaning it gets hard to open every time you wash it.
 
I don’t much do a whole lot physical work these days but I used to carry Opinel and Victorinox pretty much every day, a number 10 was my general other garden and brush, blade. Then when it was temporarily lost I bought number 7. Saved 4 quid on a no10.
Over my working life I’ve had 6, 7, 8. No complaints about any of them.
It used to be common to polish the blades.
For no reason I can remember I stopped carrying the Opinel, and just relied on my penknife or box cutter in my tool bag.
 
EngrSorenson said:
You mean Opinels were commonly sold with polished blades, or that was a modification people made?
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We polished them ourselves, usually going through grades of wet & dry starting at 240, 600, 1000 and 1500. More if you want. Belief was it inhibited rust. Our scoutmaster did it and the scouts followed suit. This would have been late 1970s. We also stuffed as much grease (Mitchell’s light marine, if memory serves) into the slot believing it would stop the rain swelling wood and the blade shut.
 
willisoften said:
We polished them ourselves, usually going through grades of wet & dry starting at 240, 600, 1000 and 1500. More if you want. Belief was it inhibited rust. Our scoutmaster did it and the scouts followed suit. This would have been late 1970s. We also stuffed as much grease (Mitchell’s light marine, if memory serves) into the slot believing it would stop the rain swelling wood and the blade shut.
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I noticed you used the term "quid" meaning you're probably from the UK, so what did you guys do about the lock... or did it not matter because you were camping?
 
EngrSorenson said:
I noticed you used the term "quid" meaning you're probably from the UK, so what did you guys do about the lock... or did it not matter because you were camping?
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That wasn’t a problem in those days. The legislation in those days covered fixed blades in excess of 6 inches. (Considered a deadly weapon) Everything else was guidelines. The locking blades thing came in because of a man whose son was stabbed ran a campaign backed by a few left wing MPs and strangely right wing newspapers, that was in the late 80s. Even so “ legally” you can carry any knife with good reason. However practically some knives are very pointy (spyderco) or very tactical and no peeler will accept any reason. Slipjoint or not.
Context stands for a lot too. So the middle of the city you have no real reasons to carry anything but a small penknife or utility knife. Where I live no police officer will ever care unless you’re kicking bins over at midnight.

Strangely-
my sister as a nurse worked in A&E occasionally, every stabbing she came across in over 30year career was a domestic incident,with a kitchen knife, usually the victim knew who stabbed them. Sad but there you go.
 
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