Victorinox Swiss Army FOLDING paring knife

[Dale Wambaugh]

I was doing a little web surfing today and what did my eyes behold but a FOLDING paring knife from Victorinox. I almost wet myself :)

I’ve long been a fan of the Little Vicky paring knife but never dreamed they would offer a folding version. This one has the rounded “tomato knife” blade shape and comes in plain and serrated versions and has a lock. The round tip is not as good as a general utility knife but is great for slicing and spreadables. You can slice the apple and spread the peanut butter too :)

I just ordered one so I’ll report back on the weight in a week or so. $16.99 online at several sources.

[Josh J]

Where did you find that!

[Dale Wambaugh]

There are several Victorinox dealers on the Web offering them. I was researching another knife and it popped up on the radar. Pure accident

Amazon has them at quite a premium. I found it with free shipping at Swissknifeshoop.com. There are others

My guess is under 2 ounces. My Little Vicky slams the scale at 0.8oz with the sheath. It reminds me of an Opinel more than anything else.

[Ken]

Available from Victorinox US, $16.80, multiple colors, advertised weight 1.5 oz.

[Kevin Babione]

Dale – Thanks for posting this.  I’ve been looking for something like this with a serrated blade and this is perfect!  Just ordered it from Swissknifeshop.com for $16.99 with free shipping.  Here’s the link if you want to go directly to this knife.  The website has a lot of knives and it took a bit to get to the right combination of search terms to find the knife Dale posted.

[DAN-Y]

Thanks Dale. I ordered a folder and the straight one. free ship

[Ian]

I’ve adopted a “Spreadsheets follow function” approach.  I’m willing to take on a massive 1.4-ounce weight penalty for something that performs better.

My concerns, perhaps unfounded, would be

1. Does it lock?  If not, will it become fiddly when cutting food? edit website says it locks

2. Is it harder to clean?  Will it become a biological nightmare at the end of a trip?

3. Does this actually improve upon the original design (subjective) or does it unnecessarily add a point of failure?

I’ll be interested to hear your thoughts once you’ve had a chance to play with it perform a scientific evaluation.

[DAN-Y]

Yes, yes and yes

[Dale Wambaugh]

It locks. IMHO, the major gain is that there is no sheath. The fixed paring knives don’t have much of a tang and none are really designed for anything tougher than slicing cheese or sausage.  My expectations are that this one is up to those chores.

Cleaning and folders is aways a concern. Cleaning fish is probably the worst folder contamination scenario and this blade design is not a good choice for gutting a trout, so it’s basic cheese, peanut butter and jam level stuff. I’m not too concerned.

I’ll have to wait to see what the handle groove is like for cleaning. I usually go after my Swiss Army knives with an old toothbrush, q-tips and compressed air. In the field it’s more like the corner of a bandanna and hot water.

[Kevin Babione]

I was happy to see the serrated version because I usually cut dried sausage in my lap and I like the finer control I believe I have with a serrated knife.  I will only bring it on trips where I have dried sausage and/or cheese.  Otherwise I have my Opinel #2 as my “I probably won’t need a knife this trip” blade.

Cleaning?  I’m with Dale – wiping with the corner of my bandana napkin after a dunk in my boiling dinner water.

[David Thomas]

Thanks for the heads-up, Dale.  I’ve always preferred the non-serrated version, which they offer in a folder now:

https://www.swissknifeshop.com/collections/paring-utility-knives/products/swiss-classic-4-3-foldable-paring-knife-by-victorinox

On a hunting trip, I’ve ALWAYS got a Little Vicky in my pocket, in the slide-on sheath.  But that’s kind of long in my pocket.  This will be much nicer to carry that way.

And maybe less likely to perforate the gut because of the rounded tip?

[Dale Wambaugh]

The rounded tip might be okay for scraping out a fish. Or were you talking about hunting? That seems like a taller order of cutting tools altogether.

I could see cleaning a rabbit or a grouse with one in a survival scenario, but if I were deliberately hunting, not so much. When you say hunting to me I think deer. Cleaning waterfowl was not my favorite outdoor experience and I’ll pass on that unless I’m very hungry!

[bradmacmt]

Guess I don’t understand the excitement… the regular SS no.6 will do anything you need to do…

 

[DAN-Y]

Guess I don’t understand the excitement

 

:-) that’s funny

[Dale Wambaugh]

Never cared much for Opinels. I get the appeal, but I’ve had them swell too tight to open and I find the lock hard to manipulate.

There are 10,362 small knives out there. To each his own.

[David Thomas]

“the regular SS no.6 will do anything you need to do”

I need it to go in the dishwasher to wash the sockeye salmon slime and caribou guts out of it.

A first date on a picnic with wine, cheese and salami?  Absolutely!  An Opinel.

It’s been 25 years since my last first date.

[bradmacmt]

I’ve never had an issue getting trout guts or elk guts out of an Opinel. For Elk I use the vastly larger and heavier no.8 @ a staggering 1.5oz. :)

But I will add, it’s a crime against all that is sacred to put a knife, any knife, into a dishwasher!

[Bonzo]

The best thing to do to keep an old-school knife in-tune is to use it regularly….but if your Opinel gets a bit stiff – either blade or lock – slip the locking ring off and give it a good cleaning with a brush, and then lube both the ring and blade pivot with some beeswax.  That should get it butter-smooth in short order.

[Dale Wambaugh]

Update: don’t bother with swissknifeshop.com. I placed my order and several days went by.  I emailed them to find that they wouldn’t be shipping for at least another week. I suspect they list items they don’t stock and order them per demand. I canceled and ordered from Victorinox instead.

[Ian]

The little vicky with a sheath isn’t easy to find right now.  I’m sure it’s out there somewhere but when I resorted to checking a West Marine listing and they were sold out, I figured it probably wasn’t worth the effort to search even more obscure knife shopping options than a website that is primarily designed for boaters.

I was about to pull the trigger on the folder but the SS Opinel #6 with olivewood handle seduced me away.

Edit it just occurred to me that with our avatars, if we could convince Sharon to comment on this thread, we’d have a lovely parade of puppies.

 

[David Thomas]

Ian: Yeah, the Little Vicky & Sheath was out of stock all the places I checked.

Dale, “Or were you talking about hunting? That seems like a taller order of cutting tools altogether.”  Yeah, hunting.  Caribou usually, but sometimes bears, less commonly elk or antelope.  Maybe mountain goat this coming year.  The Little Vicky is ideal for butchering those (but too small for fish, though, I want a 7″ blade on a small halibut and 9-10″ on a large halibut).

Manfred dressed out a black bear with a 1″ blade (JUST the blade from a Havalon, no handle) to prove it could be done.  He’d done it butchering pigs, but that was the first time saving the hide.  If you take the hide back to the ankle joints, you can just cut the tendons and the joints then pull apart.

On the caribou, we also use a bone saw to take off the hooves and lower leg, but what else would you need any more than a wonderfully sharp paring knife for?  The quarters, backstop, tenderloins, neck meat, etc all come off very easily using the Little Vicky.  Lacking the bone saw, I’d cut the tendons on the knee joint to take it apart and field strip the meat off the upper lower leg. I keep debating deboning in the field – I’ve carried SO many femurs back to Adak town, but we keep throwing the quarters in the packs, humping them out, and processing the meat in the kitchen of a heated ex-Navy condo in town.

[Dale Wambaugh]

The last Vickie I got came from a West Marine store. The bare knives and the nylon belt sheaths are readily available from commercial fishing supply stores here. Cheap too.

[Kevin Babione]

I ordered from Swiss Knife Shop on December 12 and just received shipping notification from them.  I wasn’t in a hurry so receiving it early next week will be fine.

[Dave @ Oware]

Dish Washer! Maybe for a butter knife. Saw a roommate run a Swiss army knife thru the washer and the scales melted off. Are these different plastic?

“And maybe less likely to perforate the gut because of the rounded tip?”

Might make it useful for some skinning too?

[Philip Tschersich]

I use the Little Vickies as paring knives and they have done hundreds of laps through the dishwasher. Zero issues. No pitting, corrosion, or other blade damage, no handle changes.

Note that there are literally thousands of Victorinox knives stashed all around the decks of commercial fishing boats in Alaska. We are talking constant exposure to a saltwater environment. They may develop a bit of rust after a while, but they can spend years taped to a stanchion ready to cut a line in an emergency with no significant degradation.

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