D2 Tool Steel Filipino Balisongs Butterfly Stainless Steel Brass with Bone with Rose Wood Inserts Black Mamba Knives World Class Knives | BMK-482

Description

This is the sawback. The edge is cut into a run of deep, aggressive teeth from the point most of the way back to the ricasso, with a line of bored holes above them and a spear tip finishing the profile. The handles alternate black horn and warm red-brown rosewood between brass bolsters, pinned in copper, so the whole knife is striped along its length.

A busy handle, honestly described

Two insert materials rather than one, divided by the brass of the channel and by the pins that hold them. The dark segments read almost as shadow, the timber reads red under a warm light and browner under a cool one, and the metal sits between the two as a third tone. It is considerably busier than the single-panel builds in this line, and whether that comes across as rich or as cluttered is a matter of taste we are not going to try to argue you out of. Look at it in daylight before deciding.

The two materials do not behave alike

Rosewood moves with humidity. Horn barely moves at all by comparison. After a couple of seasons in a dry climate you may be able to feel a fractional ledge at the join between a wood band and the metal framing it, one that was not there on the day the knife arrived, while the dark band alongside stays put. It does not reach the pivots and it does not change how the handles close. A light oiling of the wood a couple of times a year keeps the movement too small to notice, and there is no benefit at all in oiling the horn on the same schedule.

What the serrations are for and what they are not

A toothed edge tears through fibrous material such as rope, webbing and green wood far faster than a plain edge does, and it stays useful long after it has stopped being sharp in any conventional sense. What it will not do is slice cleanly, and it cannot be brought back on a flat bench stone. Each gullet needs a tapered rod, worked one tooth at a time from the back of the blade. Most owners never sharpen a sawback at all, and on a knife bought principally to flip that is a perfectly defensible decision.

The steel under all of it

D2 is a high-chromium, high-carbon tool steel, which is why it holds an edge far longer than plain carbon manages and why it is so stubborn against anything softer than diamond. Stain-resistant but not stainless, which means drying it off after use is prudent rather than pressing. Where it lands against the other steels we work is set out on the knife steel chart, and the steel-by-steel comparison explains what that means in practice the first time you need to touch an edge up.

Finished by hand in Memphis

Profiled, drilled, hardened, tempered, fitted, pinned, sharpened and tested here in Tennessee, then packed together with a hand-sewn black leather carrier. If the striping is doing too much for you, the quieter single-material build of this handle is the calmer option at the same money. Satisfy yourself on the law where you live before buying. The guarantee never runs out.

Model: BMK-482