Handmade Damascus Steel Balisong Kitchen Chef Knife | Walnut Burl Wood Handle with Brass Bolsters and Leather Sheath BF-168

The BF-168 is a 12 inch Damascus balisong chef knife with walnut burl panels and brass bolsters. It puts a strong pattern on the blade and another on the handle, which is the sort of thing that goes badly far more often than it goes well.

Why two patterns usually fail

Because the eye reads competing patterns as noise. Two surfaces at similar scale, similar contrast and similar direction stop being two materials and become one confused object, and the knife ends up looking busier and cheaper than either part deserves.

The BF-167 solves this the easy way, by putting quiet bone next to loud steel. This one solves it the harder way.

Why it works here

• Direction. Damascus pattern runs lengthwise along the blade, in bands, because that is how the billet is drawn out. Burl has no direction at all. It swirls. Two patterns that do not share an axis do not compete, they contrast.
• Scale. The layers in the steel are fine and repeat many times. Burl figure is large and repeats never. The eye reads the blade as texture and the handle as image, and those are different jobs.
• Colour. Damascus etches to grey and near black. Walnut burl is warm brown with darker eyes. Nothing in the handle competes with anything in the blade for the same tone.

What burl actually is

A burl is a growth deformity. The tree responds to stress, an injury, a virus, an infection, by producing a dense knot of unorganised grain, and when that knot is cut into panels the disorder becomes figure. The little dark eyes scattered through it are dormant buds that never grew.

This means no two panels exist. Not similar, not close, none. The pair on your knife will not match the photograph and will not match anyone else’s.

Burl has to be stabilised, and ours is

Raw burl is unpredictable. Grain running in every direction means it moves in every direction too, and untreated burl on a knife handle will eventually cup, crack or lift away from the bolster. Stabilising forces resin through the wood under vacuum and cures it solid.

Stabilised burl does not need oiling, does not mind humidity swings and does not mind being washed. Any shop selling unstabilised burl on a kitchen knife is selling you a problem with a two year fuse. Ask them, and note whether they answer.

Specifications for this Damascus and walnut burl balisong chef knife

Ordering the BF-168

Sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, with a fitted leather sheath and a gift box. As with every Damascus piece here, the pattern is the purchase and the cutting is what any good tool steel would give you.

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