Description
Camel bone scales framed in scroll-engraved yellow brass, on a Damascus balisong whose blade carries a broad swirling pattern rather than a tight one.
| Overall length | 8 inches |
| Blade length | 3.5 inches |
| Handle length | 4.5 inches |
| Steel | 1095 + 15N20 Damascus, 352 layers |
| Hardness | 58–60 HRC, oil tempered |
| Weight | 7.23 oz |
| Handle | Brass Engraved With Camel Bone Handle |
Often bought as: a gift, usually for someone who collects rather than someone who flips, because this is a knife that photographs and displays better than it hides in a pocket.
Camel bone is not a substitute for ivory
It is its own material, and a better one for this job than most people expect. Camel bone is denser than cattle bone, takes a high polish without going glassy, and carries faint natural speckling and fine dark lines through the cream ground. Those marks are the giveaway that it is real: uniformly white, unblemished scales are usually synthetic. Here it is left in long unbroken panels down each handle, pinned with small copper rivets and framed top and bottom by brass, so the bone is the largest single surface on the knife.
Engraving cut, not stamped
The brass bolsters carry a deep foliate scroll worked in relief, with fish-scale texturing in the backgrounds and a sculpted profile at the bite end. It is cut into the brass, which is why the recesses hold shadow so strongly under a light and why the raised scrollwork will brighten with handling while the low ground stays dark. Stamped decoration goes the opposite way and flattens out. The blade is a long spear point with a wide ricasso, and the 352 layers read as broad wandering swirls across the flat rather than fine rings. Our note on what a layer count actually means explains why the same count can look so different from knife to knife.
Looking after bone and carbon steel
These two materials want opposite things, which is the only complication. Neither 1095 nor 15N20 is stainless, so the blade takes a wipe and the barest smear of oil once you have finished with it. The bone wants no oil at all; it will absorb it and stain unevenly, and the marks do not come out. Apply oil to a cloth, then to the steel only. Keep it off sunny windowsills and away from radiators, because bone checks when it dries too fast. A dry cloth on the scales and the brass is the whole job. Whether a pattern justifies that much fussing is a reasonable thing to ask, and we take it up in are Damascus knives worth it.
Questions
Will my pattern match the photograph? No two do. The swirl is set when the billet is forged.
Is it sharpened? Yes, it arrives with a working edge.
What is the copper-handled one? That is the BMK-2005 in brass and copper.
Model: BMK-2004
Oliver K. (verified owner) –
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