Flying Squirrel Vg10 Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-45

The BF-45 Flying Squirrel is a 24cm VG10 balisong, 150g. A flying squirrel glides rather than flaps, and the knife has the same unhurried quality. The handle is kamagong, which is the part of this knife worth several hundred words.

Kamagong is not a marketing word

Kamagong is Philippine ebony, from the genus Diospyros, and the heartwood is the part that matters. It is one of the densest timbers that will still behave itself as a handle: dense enough that a block of it sinks in water rather than floating, and close-grained to the point where it barely accepts an oil finish because there is nowhere for the oil to go.

The colour runs from very dark brown to genuinely black, usually with faint streaking that only shows in direct light. Against polished brass that is most of what this knife looks like.

What density actually gets you

• It does not shrink. Open-grained timbers take on and give up moisture with the seasons, and a handle insert that shrinks becomes an insert with a gap you can catch a fingernail in. Kamagong barely moves.
• It does not need feeding. No oiling schedule, no wax, no wiping it down with anything. It is close enough grained to look after itself.
• It resists dents. A knife that lands on a tiled floor twice a week will mark a soft wood handle within a month. This takes a great deal longer.
• It carries weight. Some of the 150g is the wood, which on a lighter timber it would not be.

The trade is that dense wood is harder to work. It blunts tools quickly, it burns rather than cuts if you rush it, and the dust is unpleasant. That is our problem rather than yours, but it is part of why a kamagong handle costs more to make than a synthetic one.

How a kamagong balisong handle ages next to the brass

The two halves of this handle go in opposite directions and we think that is the good part.

VG10 steel on this butterfly knife, since you will want it

VG10 out of Takefu in Japan: about one percent carbon, fifteen percent chromium, with cobalt and vanadium refining the grain. Very keen edge, long edge life, and enough chromium that a damp pocket is not a crisis.

We heat treat to 58-60 HRC, a little under kitchen-knife hardness on purpose. Balisongs get dropped, and at this hardness the edge rolls when it hits the floor rather than chipping out. Sharpening wants ceramic or diamond, a steady angle, and about twice a year.

150 grams and how it flips

Light and quick. It changes direction without arguing, which is what you want for chained work, and it will not tire your forearm across a two-hour session. The cost is that it arrives sooner than a heavier knife does, so your timing has to be a little more honest.

Trainer, sheath and shipping on this VG10 drop point balisong

The unsharpened trainer is the same knife, selected above Add to Cart. Same steel, same wood, same 150g, no edge. The price does not move because grinding an edge is one step in a build with many.

Leather sheath included, cut to this knife. US delivery is free and the rest of the world is $49 for the order, not per knife. Read the knife law where you live before you buy rather than afterwards.