High Carbon Steel Filipino Balisongs Butterfly Brass with High Grains Rose Wood or Walnut Burl Wood Insert Black Mamba Knives World Class Knives | BMK-429

Description

Brass bolsters at both ends of each handle, a figured hardwood panel filling the middle, copper pins through the lot, and a plain satin blade with a long straight edge and a shallow upswept tip. It is the most traditional-looking knife on this shelf, and the one whose handles will look least like anybody else’s.

Which timber you get

This model is built with high-grain rose wood or with walnut burl, whichever the shop has cut and stabilized when your order comes through. The two are not interchangeable to look at and they do not behave the same either. Rose wood is oily, dense and close-grained, running chocolate through to purple-brown with dark streaks tracking more or less in one direction, and it barely moves once it has dried. Walnut burl is the opposite temperament: swirled, open-celled, its grain interrupted in every direction at once, lighter and tanner in tone, and far more inclined to breathe with the seasons. Either way, the panels on your knife were cut from a slab nobody else’s came from.

Why timber over resin

Because figure like this cannot be reproduced to order. A resin scale is consistent by design; that is the entire point of it and also the entire limitation. Wood gives you a surface that was decided by a tree and not by a supplier, which is why the same model photographed twice never quite matches itself. If you want certainty about exactly which panel you are getting, wood is the wrong material and we would rather say so.

What it means for the hardware

Timber working against brass is what eventually loosens pins on wood-handled knives. Wood expands and contracts with humidity, brass does not care, and over enough cycles something has to give. The countermeasure is unglamorous: keep the knife out of the bathroom, out of an unheated garage and off a sunny windowsill, and put a trace of the right oil on the panels once or twice a year to slow the moisture exchange down. Do that much and the pins stay exactly where they were peened.

Size and handling

The frame opens to a shade over nine inches, and handles slightly longer than the blade give a large hand real purchase, which makes basic rollover work feel unhurried rather than twitchy. Brass carries momentum, so a chained sequence pulls through instead of stalling halfway. Beginners generally find this weight forgiving.

From our bench

Cut, drilled, heat treated, fitted, sharpened and tested in Memphis, then sent out with a black leather belt carrier. If you would rather commit to the burl specifically, we build the same frame in walnut burl. Balisong rules vary by state and country, so confirm yours first. Lifetime warranty, as always.

Model: BMK-429