Liger Handmade High Carbon Steel Original Filipino Balisong Butterfly Knife with Brass and Kamagong Wood Handle | 24cm EDC Flipper Gift for Him | BF-70

The BF-70 Liger is a 24cm high carbon balisong, 12cm blade, 180g, brass with kamagong. The blade on this knife will go grey and the brass will go brown, and this page is about the second of those, because everybody talks about blade patina and nobody explains the handle.

Brass does not stay gold

It arrives bright. Within a month the shine has gone from wherever your fingers sit. Within a year the flats are a dull gold moving toward brown. Within five it is a deep brown with occasional green in the recesses, and it looks nothing like the photograph on this page.

That is oxidation, it is entirely normal, and it is not damage. Brass is copper and zinc, and copper reacts readily with the air and the acids on your skin. The layer it forms is thin, stable and protective, which is exactly what happens on a church roof and for the same reason.

What the pattern tells you

The interesting part is that it is not even. Brass darkens fastest where it is handled most, so after a year the patina on your knife is a map of how you hold it. Two identical knives, two owners, two completely different handles.

If you want it bright again

Any metal polish and a soft cloth will take a brass handle back to close to new in about twenty minutes. It is completely reversible and does no harm.

Two honest notes. First, you are only resetting a clock: it will be dull again within a couple of months, faster than the first time because the surface is now more reactive. Second, keep the polish off the wood, because polish residue in the grain of kamagong is genuinely difficult to get out.

Most owners polish a brass knife exactly once, look at it a month later, and never bother again. We would suggest skipping the first step.

Green, and when to worry

A little green in the recesses is verdigris and it is not a problem. If a knife has been somewhere very damp for a long time it can build up thicker, and at that point it is worth removing with a cloth and a little vinegar, then drying properly, because thick verdigris holds moisture against everything nearby including a carbon blade.

You are unlikely to see this unless the knife has been in a shed or a garage for a year.

The high carbon blade on this butterfly knife, briefly

Plain carbon steel: iron, around one percent carbon, essentially no chromium. Fine grain, keenest edge we grind, comes back on any ordinary stone in minutes. Wipe it dry when you put it down and it will darken into a grey patina that protects it. Left wet it pits orange, which is permanent.

Heat treated to 58-60 HRC, which is where it rolls rather than chips when it lands on something hard.

Between the blade going grey and the brass going brown, a knife like this one changes more in its first two years than most objects you own. That is either the appeal or the reason to buy stainless bolsters instead, and we build both.

Kamagong, the balisong handle that does nothing

Philippine ebony, dense enough to sink in water and close-grained enough that it barely takes an oil finish. It needs no care, will not crack or shrink, and will take a soft shine at the contact points across several years. It is the one part of this knife with no maintenance story at all.

Ordering this high carbon kamagong balisong

Unsharpened trainer, selected above Add to Cart. Same brass, same weight, no edge, and it patinas on exactly the same schedule.

A fitted leather sheath comes with it. US shipping is free, everywhere else a flat $49 for the whole order regardless of size.