No. 8 Pruning Knife

Trusted brand. Quality tool.

At first I thought, wrongly, this was too large for whittling or carving. I don't have either bandsaw or jigsaw so It actually worked perfectly to "hog" off excess edges with the flat edge and used the curved pointy edge to refine. I could then use a couple other Opinels and other tools to detail and finish off. Maybe not conventional but darn workable. The sharpness of Opinel's are it's strongest asset, and they're easy to sharpen and strop back up.The caricature evolved from a block of wood4"H. X 1"Sq.

I purchased this for harvesting mushrooms and doing other gardening chores. The inward curved blade makes cutting tough stems much easier, and also makes cleaning dirt from mushrooms and all simpler. I just need to add a small chip brush and I'm set.

I'm a mycologist who always has a mushroom knife on me, and I realize Opinel sells a variant of this knife with the mushroom brush on the end, but I dislike carrying knives with brushes in my pocket because the bristles poke my leg and fingers. I leave the brush ones for my "okay, I'm going mushroom hunting" field kit. This knife, though, is the best mushroom knife I've found to keep in a pocket every day because it's super light compared to other brushless folding hawkbills. Seriously, the wood construction makes it surprisingly light, so it doesn't weigh on the pocket at all.The curve on the hawkbill is perfect for digging under a mushroom to extract it with the base intact (for identification or specimen collecting), to cut right at the base of the stem (for foraging to eat), or for bringing the knife towards you to cut through a cap or stem (to check for cross-sections or for staining/bruising reactions). It's plenty sharp enough for that too, and the locking mechanism is easy to lock and unlock with one hand (while carrying a hand lens or more mushrooms with the other).With this knife I'm always ready for an unexpected mushroom that I come across.

This is my second one because my wife "misplaced" my first one. I often find this blade shape more useful than the clip shape. Love the light weight of Opinel knives.

Difficult to sharpen and doesn’t come sharp

The knife I got was obviously used, hence the loss of a star. The tip was blunted and it was dull and stained.. A few minutes sharpening and it was shaving sharp.Opinel is a good brand, and this was no exception. Simple, lightweight, and performs well out of its price range

great design and craftsmanship, nice little pruner