Handmade Balisong Kitchen Chef Knife | Forge Finished High Carbon Steel | Stag Handle with Leather Sheath BF-165

The BF-165 is a 12 inch balisong chef knife, hand forged in high carbon steel, stag handle. The dark surface across the flat is forge scale. Half the market sells that look as a black coating sprayed on at the end, so it is worth explaining what the real thing is.

Forge scale, and how to tell it from paint

When steel is worked at forging heat, the surface oxidises into a hard blue black layer. That layer is iron oxide, it is part of the blade rather than on top of it, and it forms in a pattern determined by where the hammer actually landed. Leave it and you get a surface no two of which are the same.

A sprayed coating is uniform, sits proud of the steel, and chips off at the edges within a season. Scale does not chip. It wears, slowly, in the places your hand and your board touch most, which is a rather nicer way for a knife to age.

The quick test on any knife: look at the bevel line. On a forged finish the transition is slightly irregular because it follows the grind. On a coated blade it is a perfectly straight masked line. Once you have seen the difference you cannot unsee it.

Why the edge bevel is bright

Because you cannot leave scale where the edge is. The apex has to be ground into clean steel or it will not take a proper edge, so the bevel is polished back to bright metal. The contrast is a consequence of doing it correctly, not a design flourish, and it is the fastest way to check whether a forged blade has actually been sharpened or merely shaped.

Does forge scale help food release?

A little, and less than a row of hollows would. The surface is very slightly rougher than a polished flat, which reduces the suction a wet slice can generate. Do not buy this knife for that reason. Buy it because a hand forged surface looks like it was made by a person, which it was.

Stag, and why the pieces will not match

Stag is antler, shed naturally and cut into panels. The bark texture on the outside is what makes it grip so well with wet hands, and the pale core is what gives the cut faces their colour.

Antler is not uniform. Density, colour and texture change along the length of a single tine, so two panels cut from the same antler will differ, and panels from two antlers will differ a great deal more. If you want a pair that match perfectly, you want a synthetic. We would rather sell you the antler.

Living with carbon steel in a kitchen

It will patina. On this blade that matters less than on any other knife we make, because the flat is already dark, so the grey that develops on the bevel simply moves it towards the rest of the blade.

Wipe it dry. That is the whole rule. Everything else people write about carbon steel care is an elaboration of wipe it dry.

Specifications for this forged balisong chef knife

Ordering the BF-165

Sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, with a fitted leather sheath cut for this frame and a gift box. Keep it out of the sheath between uses.

Laser engraving is $29, chosen on this page. Free shipping inside the United States, flat $49 worldwide.