Pandayan Traditional Series Tanto Blade D2 Steel Beautiful Butterfly Balisong Knife USA Made With Rose Wood Handle BF-98

A tanto point balisong in D2 tool steel, brass and rose wood, 24cm open and 200g. It is the top of the Pandayan Traditional line, and it is the one people buy when they want a tip that will not fold on them.

Let us deal with the obvious objection first

A tanto is a Japanese point shape. This is a Filipino knife. We know.

We are not going to invent a heritage story where the tanto was quietly Filipino all along, because it was not, and the internet already has enough of that. What happened is simpler: the Batangas balisong pattern is a chassis, and it has been carrying whatever blade shape the customer wanted since long before we existed. Putting a tanto grind on it is not a betrayal of anything. It is what a working smithy does when somebody walks in and asks.

The frame is still the tradition: Taal in Batangas, Barangay Balisong, the pin and channel construction that has not needed rethinking. Pandayan is the Filipino word for the smithy, and that is what this line is named for. The blade on top of it is a choice.

What a tanto point actually buys you on a balisong

Look at the tip from the side. Instead of a curve tapering to a fine point, you get a flat primary edge that stops, then a second short edge angling up to the tip. The point sits at the meeting of two straight lines rather than at the end of a long taper.

That means there is a great deal more steel immediately behind the tip. On a fine drop point, the last few millimetres are thin, and thin points are the part of a knife that breaks. On this one they are not thin.

The cost is delicacy. You will not be doing fiddly tip work with this, and if your idea of using a knife is peeling the film off a package with the very end of the blade, buy the hunting blade instead.

Sharpening it is easier than you think

This is the underrated part. A curved edge has to be sharpened with a rolling wrist motion that most people never quite master, which is why so many home sharpened knives end up keen along the flat and blunt at the tip.

A tanto is two straight sections. You sharpen the main edge flat on the stone, lift, then sharpen the short front edge flat on the stone. No rolling, no guessing. In D2 that matters more than it would in a softer steel, because D2 does not forgive a hurried job. We finish these at 58-60 HRC, and that number is the whole reason a stone takes its time here. Steel that resists your abrasive is steel that resists the cardboard. It is a stubborn steel to sharpen and a very long lasting one once you have it right, and those two facts are the same fact.

Specification for this D2 tanto balisong

• Blade: D2 tool steel
• Hardness: 58-60 HRC
• Handle: brass with rose wood
• Overall length: 24cm open
• Blade length: 12cm
• Weight: 200g
• Sharpened or as an unsharpened trainer

Why it is the dearest in the line

The BF-95 dagger is the BF-96 hunting blade is and this one is on the same steel, the same length and the same 200g. We price by the hours a shape takes and by what the handle blanks cost us that month, and we would rather say that plainly than pretend there is some deeper hierarchy of quality across three knives that come off the same bench.

So do not read the price as a ranking. Read it as three blade shapes. If you want a tip you can lean on, this is the one.

Trainer, sheath and getting this D2 butterfly knife to you

Every knife we make can be ordered unsharpened at the same price, and the option is above Add to Cart. On a tanto that is a genuinely sensible first purchase, because the reinforced tip that makes it durable also makes it a blunt spike, and blunt spikes hurt. Learn the roll on the trainer version and you will not be picking up a habit of catching the tip on your thumb.

It arrives with a fitted leather sheath. US shipping is free and worldwide is a flat $49. If you are new to the pattern, our guide to what a balisong actually is is a better ten minutes than most of what a search will hand you, and the care guide covers pivots.