Quality Butterfly Knives

How can you judge the pivot on a pinned balisong when there is nothing to adjust?

Buyers who come to us from modern production knives often ask the same slightly worried question: where are the pivot screws? On a traditional Batangas balisong there are none. The pivots are drilled and pinned, and the fit between blade and handles comes from hand fitting at the bench rather than from a screw you can turn at home. That changes how you judge quality, and it changes what you should do if something feels off.

Pinned, screwed, washers and bearings

Most modern butterfly knives use pivot screws with washers, bearings or bushings between the blade tang and the handle. Tighten or loosen the screw and the action changes. That is convenient, and it also means a badly made knife can be rescued for a while with a screwdriver.

A pinned knife has no such escape hatch. Traditional Filipino balisongs use none of those three systems. If the holes are drilled true and the pins are set properly, the handles swing freely and still close square on the blade. If the work was sloppy, there is nothing to turn. We like that. It means the quality of the knife is exactly the quality of the hand fitting, with nowhere to hide.

What a good pinned pivot feels like

You do not need tools to test one. Hold the safe handle level and let the other handle fall. It should swing freely under its own weight and stop cleanly, without grinding or catching. Close the knife and sight down the spine: the blade should sit evenly between the handles, resting against neither. Hold one handle and press the other gently sideways; you are looking for little or no side play. Finally, shake the closed knife beside your ear. A rattle that changes when you hold the latch still is the latch. One that does not is the pivot, and that is the one to worry about.

Before any knife leaves us it goes through four checks by hand: function, alignment, pivot action and blade condition. The tests above are how you repeat the middle two yourself.

If it does not pass, do not reach for a drill

Resist the urge to fix a pinned knife yourself. Disassembly or modification voids our warranty, and a peened pin is not something you undo and redo on a kitchen table. Our warranty covers misaligned handles, loose pivots, faulty locks and workmanship problems in blade seating or assembly. If you spot one on arrival, tell us within 48 hours of delivery. If it develops later, our pivot and hardware support is there for exactly this.

The full diagnosis method, including the section on pinned knives, is in our balisong tuning guide. For how pinned construction compares with modern pivot systems, read washers vs bearings, and the claim process is on our warranty page.

Pivot and build questions