Fox Handmade VG10 Super Steel Original Filipino Balisong Butterfly Knife with Brass and Kamagong Wood Handle | 24cm Lightweight Flipper Gift | BF-46

The BF-46 Fox is a 150g VG10 balisong, brass handles with kamagong wood inserts, 12cm blade, 24cm open. It is one of the cheaper light knives in the animal series and it is the one we would pick to actually carry, so this page is about what happens to a knife like this after six months in a pocket rather than what it looks like on day one.

Brass ages, and that is the point

A brass-handled knife that has been carried does not look like a brass-handled knife in a photograph. Within a few weeks the yellow dulls. By month three there are darker patches where your fingers sit and brighter runs where the sheath rubs. By the end of a year the whole thing has gone a soft brown that no factory finish reproduces.

This is oxidation, not damage. It does not weaken anything and it does not spread to the blade, which is stainless and indifferent. If you like it, do nothing. If you hate it, a soft cloth with a little metal polish takes it back to bright in a couple of minutes, and you can repeat that as often as you like for as long as you own the knife.

The sheath

Every knife here ships with a fitted leather sheath, cut for its own frame rather than pulled from a bin of generic ones. Two practical notes from people who have carried these for years. Leather holds moisture, so a wet sheath should be left open to dry rather than closed with the knife inside. And a new sheath is tight on purpose, because leather stretches and a sheath that starts loose ends up useless.

Six months of carry, in order

• Week one. Nothing has changed except that you now know how heavy 150g is in a trouser pocket, which is not very.
• Month one. Brass is dulling. Pivots may need their first drop of oil if the action has gone slightly dry.
• Month three. Finger patterns visible on the handles. The leather has taken the shape of the knife.
• Month six. Check the pivot screws. Vibration loosens them eventually on every balisong ever made, and a quarter turn puts it right.

Specifications for this VG10 balisong

Why 150g is the carrying weight

The heavier knives in this range sit at 175g and up, and while 30g sounds like nothing on paper it is the difference between a knife you forget about and a knife that pulls on a pocket by the end of a day. Light also means the Fox starts and reverses easily, at the cost of aerials being less forgiving. For a knife that gets picked up in idle moments rather than practised with in sessions, that is the right compromise.

The steel, and what VG10 gives this butterfly knife

VG10 is a Japanese stainless made for kitchen knives, around 60 HRC and roughly 15% chromium, so it takes a fine edge and shrugs off sweat and rain. It is the least expensive steel band on this site, which surprises people who assume the name implies a premium. The drawback worth knowing is that a properly dull VG10 edge takes more work to bring back than 440C would.

Before you order this VG10 kamagong balisong

Knife laws differ by state and by country. Check what applies where you live before buying anything you intend to carry. That is not a disclaimer we are hiding at the bottom in small type, it is the first thing you should settle.

The trainer option above the Add to Cart button gives you the same knife unsharpened. Free US shipping, flat $49 worldwide.

the VG10 comes out of the quench at 58-60 HRC. Harder than that and it chips; softer and you are sharpening it every fortnight.