essential kit compared: knives
We’re now up to the fourth in a series of posts where I compare and contrast my kit with Matthew De Abaitua’s list of the only gear you really need from The Guardian Camping Guide. This time it’s knives, and Matthew opts for classic Opinel wooden handled pocket-knife, that has, according to the Wikipedia, ‘been manufactured since the 1890s in the town of Saint-Jean-de-Maurienne in the Savoie region of France‘.
Now I totally agree with Matthew that Swiss Army Knives are jack of all trades and master of none, and I’ll be adding this design classic from Opinel to my Christmas List, but for camping I’ll still take the Magnusson Folding Combo Utility Knife I picked up at B&Q for about 17 quid.
It’s also a pocket knife with two folding blades. One blade is partly serrated, which is very useful for sawing small branches. The other is actually a holder that takes Stanley Knife type blades, so extremely sharp and great for sharpening sticks to a point. It’s also very useful for a whole range of DIY, so more multi-purpose than the Opinel even if it’s unlikely to ever be featured in an exhibition at V&A or MoMA.
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[...] gear you really need guide, which I’ve been using to compare and contrast with my own kit on here. Funnily enough the Cath and Math Camping blog that Matthew and his wife Cath write coincidentally [...]