Talon Philippine Visayan Damascus Steel Blade Butterfly Balisong Knife USA Made Gift For Him With Beautiful Handle BF-128

The BF-128 is a Philippine Visayan balisong with a Damascus blade: 29cm open, a 14cm blade, 220g, brass with black micarta. That is a twenty-seven dollar fifty gap on an identical description, so here is what is behind it.

The Damascus line, priced

Run size, and nothing else

This one and the BF-130 came from a longer run. Setting up a run of forge-welded blades costs the same whether six blades or twenty come out of it, so the setup divides further and every knife in the batch is cheaper. That is the entire explanation.

Same steel, same forge welding, same number of folds, same heat treat at 58-60 HRC, same 29cm frame, same brass, same micarta, same pivots, same person checking it.

What we do not do, and it costs us money

We do not grade Damascus blades by pattern.

Every forge-welded billet comes out differently. Some blades emerge with tight, dramatic, high-contrast layering. Some come out quieter, with the lines running more evenly and less theatrically. A shop that wanted to could sort the batch, call the best ones a premium tier, and charge forty percent more for the top of it.

We do not, for two reasons. The first is that pattern quality is not knife quality: a quiet pattern and a dramatic one cut identically, hold an edge identically, and last the same number of decades. The second is that grading by looks would mean deciding on your behalf what a good pattern is, and we have watched enough customers choose the quiet blade over the loud one to know that is not our call to make.

So the blades go out unsorted and priced by what the run cost. You get whichever one came next, and it will not look like the photograph.

What that means when it arrives

• The pattern will differ from the pictures. Every blade does.
• Contrast varies. Some are dramatic, some are subtle, and neither is a fault.
• The pattern narrows and retreats near the bevel. That is what grinding an edge into layered steel does.
• A faint texture under a fingernail is correct. It is what tells you the pattern is forged rather than printed.
• Dark round voids in the pattern would be a failed weld. We do not ship those, and if one reaches you, tell us.

The Damascus steel on this butterfly knife, and the one thing it asks of you

Layers of high carbon steel forge-welded, folded and drawn out, heat treated to 58-60 HRC. It takes a very keen edge and comes back on an ordinary stone in minutes, without a diamond plate.

There is no chromium in it anywhere, so it rusts if left wet. Wipe the blade dry when you put it down, oil it lightly once a month, and do not store the knife inside the leather sheath. That is the whole maintenance requirement and it takes about eight seconds a day.

The frame and the micarta balisong handle

Twenty-nine centimetres open at 220g, the traditional Visayan and Batangas full size. The rotation is slow and deliberate, which is forgiving while you are learning and slower when you want to change direction quickly. It asks a firm grip.

Black micarta on brass: cloth or paper in cured resin, dimensionally stable, indifferent to moisture and sunlight, and grippier than polished horn in a warm hand. It needs nothing from you at all, which balances a blade that does.

Ordering this Damascus balisong

Unsharpened trainer, chosen above Add to Cart. A fitted leather sheath comes with it, cut for the 29cm frame rather than the standard 24cm. US shipping is free, flat $49 to anywhere else for the whole order.

Run size, not a lower grade of steel, is what separates the price on this knife from some of its siblings, and how D2 and Damascus actually compare on this site is covered in our steel comparison guide. The Talon sits in the Damascus steel knife category. The Bukal comes from the same longer run with identical specifications.