Damascus Balisong Butterfly Knife Original Traditional Filipino Butterfly Batanga Knife with Handmade Steel and Raindrop Handle Black Mamba Knives USA | DB-12

Description

Polished steel handles with a patterned inlay panel running down each one, a row of drilled holes and filework along the spine, and a blade carrying a clear raindrop figure. The DB-12 is 11.4 inches open on 5.9-inch handles at 7.0 ounces, which makes it one of the largest knives on this bench.

How a raindrop pattern is made

Raindrop is not something that folding produces on its own. The smith presses or drills a grid of shallow dimples into the surface of the finished billet, then forges the whole thing flat again. Grinding down through those disturbed layers exposes them as concentric rings, one ring set per dimple, marching along the blade in a regular sequence. That is why raindrop reads orderly and repeating where a purely folded pattern wanders across the steel with no particular plan. It also means the figure sits at a known depth, so a heavy refinish will change how it looks rather than simply brightening it.

Seven ounces on long handles

Those three numbers describe a slow, deliberate knife. The mass sits out at the ends of a long lever, so a rollover needs real wrist commitment to begin and then does not want to stop once it is going. Two consequences follow honestly from that. Your forearm will notice after twenty minutes of practice in a way a compact balisong never causes. And a knuckle rap from seven ounces travelling that arc hurts considerably more than the equivalent from a small knife, so learn anything new with the blade shut and a guard on it.

Living with a layered blade

High-carbon laminate at 58-60 HRC will oxidise if you let it. It is worth reading whether Damascus rusts and why before your first humid week with the knife, because the answer changes how you store it far more than it changes how you use it. A dry cloth after handling and a thin film of oil before it goes in a drawer is the entire routine, and skipping it for a fortnight in August is how etched faces get freckled.

The steel handles

Bare metal handles are the low-maintenance option: nothing to shrink, nothing to swell, nothing to oil. They are also colder in the hand in winter and they ring on close, which some owners love and some find sharp. Bright steel shows fingerprints immediately and hides scratches poorly, so this knife looks best either freshly wiped or thoroughly used, and not much in between.

Lineage and the smaller option

The Batangas lineage this shape descends from is covered in where the balisong came from, which is worth twenty minutes if you are buying your first one. If this size is more knife than you actually want, the compact 6.2-inch DB-15 with stag handles is the same steel in roughly a third of the footprint. Both are made in Memphis, Tennessee. Please confirm your local rules before ordering.

Model: BMK-DB-12