Car Camping Knife Kit/Storage? Glamping

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Sep 12, 2009
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Cooking knife setup for car camping? It would be nice to have a sheath for the knives for safety/transport. I'm looking for a chef knife & a few smaller paring knives + storage. Only cooking up store bought food. No wild game, although it's easy to convince me to buy more knife toys.... always prepared.

I'm debating this knife roll


Throwing in the edge guard for extra measure


Any feedback on knives & storage is welcome

car-camping.jpg


Knife Roll
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Edge protector
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mora and opinel will be top choices for this area - great value, utility and slicing ability for food prep
 
Certainly not expensive stuff. I primarily use Victorinox paring knives. For inexpensive, I like the Pioneer Woman knives that Walmart sells. You'll have to get some sort of device to carry the knives in your car if you want such.

Ontario knives are always pretty good. (Old Hickory)
 
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mora and opinel will be top choices for this area - great value, utility and slicing ability for food prep

Mora's fixed blade certainly seems like an option! Not sure I want to deal with food bits getting into the opinel. Definitely prefer fixed blade + sheath. Thank you!
 
Grab a Cold Steel Roach Belly for ~$15, it comes with a functional plastic sheath and works great as an impromptu food prep knife. Cheap, durable and effective.

I cook at home with a bunch of nice kitchen knives, mostly Japanese knives with white #1 or super blue cores, but for cooking in the bush on my last trip I ended up using a Roach Belly for pretty much everything and didn't feel like it got in my way at all. IMO, it's a great beater knife.
 
From a guy in restaurants for 30+ years, get good with handling a knife and you can get by with one kitchen knife. At most, a chef/gyuto/santoku, a serrated bread knife and a smaller paring knife. Spend as little (or as much as you want) on the knife roll. Just make sure they don’t rub around on each other and all is good...not a problem though if you just need one food prep knife.
 
I use the KAI Pure Komachi 2 line of kitchen knives for Car camping. They are inexpensive. (Really really inexpensive, if you live close enough to go to the annual Dec. factory sale.) They cut well, and seem to stay sharp as well as my more expensive Shun knives. And the big reason they make good car camping knives, each knife comes with it's own plastic sheath.

kai-pure-komachi-2-sandwich-sheath.jpg


O.B.
 
A G4 "chef" knife for vehicle camping, and a Gatsby serves both as a prep and table knife. Sheaths that can be worn around camp could me more convenient than a knife roll.

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Obligatory photo of me cooking while vehicle camping.

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I don't it has been mentioned but I'd stick with stainless steel over carbon (especially if you go Mora). Any residue/juice/etc on a carbon blade will rust it.
 
I usually just wrap one of my kitchen knives in a dishtowel and throw it in a basket. For me bringing a cutting board/surface is also important. Those edge protectors look handy.
 
I picked up a few Zyliss knives just for this purpose.
They come with plastic covers that have decent retention and won't rattle off during transport.
Lightweight for backpacking duty if that's something to consider and they work just fine. No frills and inexpensive.

You could always hit up my favorite Chef Knives....site and grab a nice Japanese style with a saya to protect the blade if you want something on the pro side.
 
Vitronox makes magnetic knife sleeves that work really well. My cousin is a chef, and uses them for both storing and transporting her good cutlery. Just lay the blade on one side of the cover, and flip the other side over. Since they are magnetic, they literally snap right on, and won't come off until you want them to. Much better than the plastic ones you're looking at. Most kitchen stores should have them, as well as Amazon.

Of course, if you're even remotely handy, you could just go and buy some of the flexible magnetic material (like they use for car signage), and make them yourself.

victorinox-edgemag-9inch-1.jpg


For camping, we just bought a semi-decent set of knives from a kitchen store (think they are Caphalon) that came with their own plastic sheaths. Since we're in a travel trailer, they just go in one of the drawers under the sink. But for car camping, any knife or tool roll will work - or buy some heavy canvas, leather, etc., and make your own - scrap material at a craft/fabric store can be had for next to nothing. (I'm cheap, and like making my own stuff when I can).

Someone else mentioned a cutting board, and if you don't already have one, they are indispensable. Normally, at home, I prefer wood, but for camping, I keep a small plastic one that's roughly 8x12. They're cheap enough that when one gets too beat up, I can just replace it. And since it's plastic, I don't worry about it getting left in the rain, or otherwise abused.

If you really want an all-in-one setup, checkout the Gerber Frescape set. Top of the box that acts as a cutting board, and the two knives fit in their own slots inside the box. I have no idea on the quality of it, but for car camping, it looks like a nice little set-up. Should be able to find them for $25-$30 all day long.
Nugade-komplekt-Gerber-Freescape-camp-kichen.jpg
 
From a guy in restaurants for 30+ years, get good with handling a knife and you can get by with one kitchen knife. At most, a chef/gyuto/santoku, a serrated bread knife and a smaller paring knife. Spend as little (or as much as you want) on the knife roll. Just make sure they don’t rub around on each other and all is good...not a problem though if you just need one food prep knife.

Agreed! One could get an F Dick chefs knife plus a paring knife for around $35...that would probably more than suffice.

That said, I think you are missing the key knife for what you are doing...a big ol' bomb proof chopper for beating the bejeebus out of innocent trees. If you are not going to do that, why even go!
 
Mora's fixed blade certainly seems like an option! Not sure I want to deal with food bits getting into the opinel. Definitely prefer fixed blade + sheath. Thank you!

I use Opinel all the time for food prep. Camping this weekend I used a #10 carbon model to slice up all the potatoes, onions, and peppers for breakfast burritos on the camp stove. I don't worry too much about getting stuff in the pivot.

Of course, I had about 20 knives, including a bunch of fixed blades, including several custom knives. Still used the Opinel. If you get a set of stainless, you are even lower maintenance. (I also had a stainless #8 in my pocket but the 10 came out first, so it got used).

No pics of the food prep, but here image three of the knives getting the fire going...

IxvidUD.jpg
 
I keep a Victorinox Fibrox chef's knife in my camp kit (plastic tote with all the car camping essentials which stays clean, packed and ready to go in the garage) with the same edge guard OP linked. Also in there is an Opinel #8 to use as a general purpose/paring knife and a Victorinox Climber (extra blade + can/bottle opener etc).

That set will handle any camp kitchen task I need. The Fibrox series from Victorinox are a great value and are super durable and very rust resistant, so they'll take the abuse and neglect of a camping trip.
 
I take the monster Opinel #13. With us. My kids call it the Watermelon knife.
 
Not a chef's knife by any means, but a Mora Companion is my go to for car camping (which comes with a great sheath). We have really fine tuned our kit the last few years and it has shrunken substantially.

If I were going full out chef at camp every night (which I mostly avoid now), I would bring an ~8" Gyutou, probably VG10, with a decent clamp on blade protector.
 
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I would bring an ~8" Gyutou, probably VG10, with a decent clamp on blade protector.

I bought a couple of mora's as well as the Cold Steel Roach Belly for community steak knives. I might make my own custom kydex sheath for a VG10 cheff knife. That will work for the cheaper set I don't care about.

Eagle Scout, thank you for suggesting these. If I ever get a giant RV like you then I'll definitely invest in a set like this.
https://bradfordknives.com/gatsby/430-gatsby-steak-knife-roll.html
 
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