Pandayan Traditional Series Hunting Balde D2 Steel Beautiful Butterfly Balisong Knife USA Made With Rose Wood Handle BF-97

The BF-97 is the hunting blade in the Pandayan Traditional line: 24cm open, a 12cm D2 blade, 200g, brass with rose wood. The series name is the part worth explaining, because most shops selling “traditional” knives could not tell you what the word means.

Pandayan means the smithy

In Tagalog, panday is a smith. Pandayan is the place a smith works: the forge, the shop, the bench. It is a workplace rather than a style, and it is the right name for this line because these knives are named after where they are made rather than after what they look like.

That distinction matters more than it sounds. A great deal of what gets sold as a traditional balisong is a modern design with a heritage word attached to it. This is the opposite: a plain working pattern that is traditional because the way it is built has not changed, not because the shape is quoting something.

What actually happens in a pandayan

Not much that would surprise a smith from 1920, which is the point.

1. Blade stock is cut and profiled. The outline of this knife exists before anything is hardened.
2. The bevels are ground. This is where a good blade separates from an adequate one, and it is entirely hand and eye.
3. Heat treat. Our part is controlled where an old smith judged by colour, and it is the one step that has genuinely improved in a century.
4. Handles are cut, the channels are worked, and the wood is fitted to the brass rather than the other way round.
5. Pivots are set by hand, one knife at a time, until the handle falls freely without swinging past its arc.
6. Sharpening, finishing, and a final check.

The step people underestimate is the fifth. Pivot tension is not a specification, it is a judgement, and it is made by somebody holding the knife and flipping it. That is most of what you are paying for and none of it appears on a spec sheet.

The hunting blade

A hunting profile carries its belly forward, so more of the edge is curved and the curve sits where a drawing cut wants it. That suits pulling the blade through material rather than pressing down into it, which is what most real cutting actually is.

Against the dagger in the same series, which is symmetrical and points-first, this one is the better everyday shape. Against the tanto, which puts everything into tip strength, this gives up point rigidity and gains cutting length.

If you are buying one knife from this line to actually use, this profile is the one to buy.

Rose wood balisong handles and brass

Rose wood is dense, warm brown, and regular in its grain, which means two of these knives will look broadly alike where a burl handle never would. It darkens over the years and takes a soft polish where your hand sits.

The brass will go brown. It always does, polishing it back only restarts the clock, and most owners stop caring about that within the first year.

D2 steel on a butterfly knife, briefly

An air-hardening tool steel, about one and a half percent carbon and eleven to twelve percent chromium. That last number sits just below the threshold for calling a steel stainless, which is why the trade says semi-stainless and means it.

Best edge retention we sell. Stubborn to sharpen, wanting diamond rather than ceramic. We heat treat to 58-60 HRC, which is where it rolls instead of chipping when the knife meets a floor. Sharpen it twice a year and otherwise ignore it.

Ordering this D2 rosewood balisong

The unsharpened trainer is the same knife, selected above Add to Cart. Same steel, same 200g, same balance, no edge, and the price does not change because grinding an edge is one operation in a long build.

A fitted leather sheath comes with it. Free US shipping, flat $49 to anywhere else for the entire order. Balisong law varies by country and by US state and is worth checking before you order.