Mole Handmade D2 Tool Steel Original Filipino Balisong Butterfly Knife with Brass, Carabao Horn and Jigged Bone Handle | 29cm Full Size Collector Gift | BF-78

The BF-78 Mole is a 29cm balisong with a 14cm D2 blade, 220g. The handle carries carabao horn and jigged bone on the same knife, which is unusual enough to be the whole reason this page exists.

Two animals on one handle

Almost every knife we build uses one insert material. This one uses two: carabao horn, which is black and hard and glassy when polished, against jigged bone, which is pale and slightly textured. They could not be more different and that is the point.

Putting two natural materials on one handle is a decision a maker makes for looks and then has to live with technically, because the two do not behave the same way and never will.

The last row is the one useful piece of common ground. Both came off an animal, both would rather be dry, and both fade if the knife lives on a sunny windowsill.

Why a maker would do this

Honestly? Because the contrast is striking and because the bone sits where your fingers land while the horn sits where they do not. The grip texture goes where it is useful and the polish goes where it can be admired without costing you anything.

The cost is on our side rather than yours. Two materials means two sets of blanks to select, two fitting operations with different tolerances because horn and bone move differently under a cutter, and a higher reject rate because a knife with two natural inserts has two chances to have one of them crack in the middle of a build.

Expect them not to match

Neither material matches the photograph and neither matches its own pair. Horn colour runs with the growth of the animal, bone takes dye and finish unevenly by nature, and no two of these knives are identical.

• Normal: colour lighter or darker than the photo, streaking in the horn, variation in the bone, a faint texture you can feel.
• Not normal: a loose insert, a crack running through one, a gap you can catch a fingernail in, anything that moves when you flip it. Those are ours and we will fix them.

What D2 steel does on a 29cm balisong frame

D2 is an air-hardening tool steel: about one and a half percent carbon and eleven to twelve percent chromium, which is just under the threshold where a steel counts as stainless. It holds an edge better than anything else we sell and it is stubborn to sharpen, wanting diamond rather than ceramic.

We run it at 58-60 HRC. On a 14cm blade that number matters, because a longer blade flexes more, and a harder heat treat would turn that flex into a chip instead of a spring.

The frame is the traditional Batangas size, veinte y nueve, 29cm open. It rotates slowly and deliberately at 220g, which gives you real time to correct a mistake and asks a firm grip in return.

Living with a carabao horn butterfly knife handle

Keep it out of long direct sunlight. Do not put it away wet, and dry both the horn and the bone if it got damp. Neither needs oil, though a light wipe once a year keeps the horn deep and the bone from drying. The blade will look after itself for months at a time.

Ordering this D2 balisong

Unsharpened trainer, selected above Add to Cart. Same two materials, same 220g, no edge. A fair number of people order this one blunt, since the appeal is largely the handle.

A fitted leather sheath comes with it, cut for the 29cm frame. Free US shipping, flat $49 to anywhere else for the entire order.

The Mole is built around D2 tool steel and a brass, carabao horn and jigged bone handle, finished at 29cm for a grip that suits everyday carry. For how this blade steel stacks up against the others we work with, our comparison of D2, Damascus and 440C blade steel sets D2, Damascus and 440C side by side. It sits inside our D2 tool steel collection, and if the Monarch catches your eye too, the Monarch D2 balisong shares the same build philosophy.

Buying for groomsmen? This balisong also comes as a matched set of 6, 15% less than buying six singly, and each one can carry its own engraved name.