Long-Eared High Carbon Steel Original Filipino Balisong butterfly Knife BF-72

The BF-72 Long-Eared is a 24cm high carbon Filipino balisong with a 12cm blade, brass handles set with kamagong wood, weighing 180 grams. It is a knife for flippers who work by feel and by sound rather than by watching their hands, and for anyone who cares how a pivot is set. Available unsharpened as a trainer for the same price above Add to Cart.

You hear a balisong before you see it

Give a knife to somebody who has been flipping for a year and watch where they look. They do not look at the knife. They look past it, or at nothing, and their hands sort it out.

That is because a balisong reports on itself constantly through two channels, and neither of them is your eyes. There is the sound of handle meeting handle and blade meeting channel, and there is the vibration that travels up into your palm. Both tell you whether the rotation closed square or landed a few degrees off, and both do it faster than vision can.

We named this one Long-Eared because that is the sense that matters here, and because a knife that talks to you is worth more than a knife that photographs well.

Pivot tension, and why we set it where we do

The pivot is the one adjustment that changes everything else about how a balisong behaves, and it is the thing most cheap knives get wrong in both directions.

Too loose and the handles wobble on the axis. The knife feels fast and it is actually just sloppy, the blade wanders in the channel, and over a few months the pivot hole wears oval. Too tight and the knife will not carry through a rotation at all. You end up muscling every movement, which is exhausting and teaches you bad habits you then have to unlearn.

We set these so a handle falls under its own weight from horizontal but does not free-spin. That is the point where the 180 grams does the work and your wrist supplies direction rather than force.

Tastes differ and yours may. Bear in mind that a pivot you tighten past its setting stops the knife swinging freely and one you loosen too far will not stay put on its own.

What brass and kamagong do to the sound

• Brass frame. Lower and duller than steel handles, which ring. Brass on brass is a knock rather than a clack, and it is the sound most people picture when they picture a balisong.
• Kamagong inserts. Philippine ironwood damps the frame slightly and takes the metallic edge off the impact. It is also why your hand is not resting on cold brass for a half-hour session.
• 180 grams at 24cm. Enough mass that impacts are firm and consistent, which is exactly what makes them readable. A light knife gives you a vaguer signal.
• Dimensional stability. Kamagong barely moves with humidity, so the tolerances around the pivot stay where we set them rather than drifting with the weather.

High carbon: the sharpest edge, and the maintenance that buys it

High carbon steel takes a finer edge than D2 or any stainless, and it returns to that edge on an ordinary stone in minutes rather than in a grudging half hour. If you like maintaining things, this is the steel that rewards you for it.

Hardened to 58-60 HRC. That is a compromise and we are content with which way it leans. A couple of points softer and the edge rolls under a hard cut. A couple harder and the tip chips instead of bending. A bent edge is twenty minutes of work. A chipped one is a regrind.

It corrodes if left damp. Wipe the blade dry after handling, particularly after a long session, because sweat is salt water and salt water works fast. A light oil film once a month covers everything else.

Done casually, the blade develops a grey patina that is stable oxide and protects the steel underneath. Ignored for a wet year, it pits orange instead, and that does not come out. Our D2 knives are the alternative if you would rather not think about it, at the cost of needing a diamond plate when they eventually dull.

Care for a brass and kamagong balisong handle

The brass will darken. There is no version of owning a brass-handled knife where this does not happen, and polishing it back only resets a clock. Most owners stop after the first year and let it go.

The kamagong needs nothing. It is dense enough to shrug off hand oil and it will not dry out and crack the way an open-grained timber would.

Ordering this high carbon dagger balisong

Trainer version, unsharpened, same price, chosen above Add to Cart. It is the right first purchase if you are still learning rollovers, because a 12cm high carbon edge is unforgiving about the mistakes everybody makes in month one.

Every knife leaves here with a fitted leather sheath. Use it for carrying and not for storing, because leather traps moisture against the blade and this steel has opinions about moisture.

Free shipping within the US, flat $49 worldwide for any order size. Check your local knife law yourself before ordering.