Pandayan Traditional Series Dagger Balde D2 Steel Beautiful Butterfly Balisong Knife USA Made With Cool Handle BF-95

A double edged dagger balisong in D2 tool steel, brass bolsters and narra burl scales, 24cm open and 200g on the scale. It is the way into our Pandayan Traditional line, and it is also the hardest blade shape in that line to grind properly. Which is the opposite of what most people expect from the cheapest one.

Pandayan means the smithy, and that is the whole claim

It is not a brand name somebody invented in a meeting. Pandayan is the Filipino word for the forge, the actual shop where a blade gets made. We put it on these three knives because they are the plainest things we build. A blade, two handles, a pin. No anodised titanium, no channel milling, no pocket clip pretending this is a tactical folder.

The pattern comes from Taal in Batangas, and more precisely from Barangay Balisong, the neighbourhood that handed the knife its name. The older word was baling sungay, folding horn, because the handles were carabao horn. Ours are narra burl. That is a change and we will say so rather than dress it up as unbroken tradition.

Why the dagger is the difficult one

A hunting blade has a belly, and belly hides sins. Let your grind line wander half a millimetre across a curve and nobody’s eye catches it, yours included.

A symmetrical dagger has four bevels that all have to agree with each other and with a centreline running dead through the middle of the blade. Hold one up to a window and roll it slowly. Any drift shows up as a shadow that thickens on one side and thins on the other. There is no curve to blame it on.

We grind these against a reference line, by hand, and we scrap more dagger blanks than any other shape in the shop. That is also why we keep making it. A symmetrical dagger is a plain statement about whether the person holding the grinder can actually grind.

What you actually get with this D2 balisong

• Blade: D2 tool steel
• Hardness: 58-60 HRC
• Handle: brass with narra burl wood
• Overall length: 24cm open
• Blade length: 12cm
• Weight: 200g
• And.75 if you want it unsharpened

200g at 24cm sits in the middle of our range, which is a good place for a first serious balisong. Light enough that twenty minutes of practice does not leave your wrist filing a complaint. Heavy enough that the handles carry themselves through a rollover instead of stalling halfway and waiting for you to do the work.

D2 butterfly knife steel, and what it is not

D2 is a high carbon tool steel carrying enough chromium that people call it semi stainless, which mostly means it will still spot if you put it away wet. It holds an edge for a long time. It is also stubborn to bring back once it finally goes dull. We take ours to 58-60 HRC, which is hard enough to hold a bevel through months of use and short of the range where a symmetrical point snaps off the first time somebody leans on it.

That is the honest trade. You sharpen it less often, and when you do, you are there a while. If you want steel that returns to shaving sharp in four passes on a ceramic rod, buy something softer and accept you will be doing it every month. Anybody advertising both properties in the same blade is selling you a story, not a knife.

The question you are really asking about two edges

Two sharpened edges means two edges pointed at your fingers while you are still learning where your fingers are. We are not going to tell you that is the same as a single edge. It is not.

So order it as a trainer. The option sits directly above Add to Cart, the price does not move, and the trainer is this exact knife with the bevels left blunt. Learn your rollover and your aerials on that, then come back for the live blade once your hands have stopped thinking about it. We would rather sell you two knives in that order than one in the wrong order. There is more on this in our trainer guide.

Check your local law on double edged blades before you order the sharpened version. Daggers are treated more harshly than knives generally in a lot of places, and that is worth ten minutes of reading.

Living with a narra burl balisong handle

Burl is the part of a tree that grew wrong. A knot of swirling, tangled figure instead of straight fibre. It is why no two of these handles look alike and why yours will not match the photograph exactly. If that bothers you, buy something moulded.

Narra is dense and it darkens as you handle it. The oil off your hands is not a problem to be solved, it is the finish arriving slowly. Keep water out of the pivots rather than fussing over the wood, and the knife care guide covers that routine properly.

Every one leaves here in a fitted leather sheath. US shipping is free. Everywhere else is a flat $49 regardless of how many knives go in the box, which is worth knowing if the BF-96 hunting blade has also caught your eye.