Handmade Balisong Kitchen Chef Knife | Matte Stone Washed D2 Tool Steel | Ram Horn Handle with Leather Sheath BF-164

The BF-164 is a 12 inch balisong chef knife in D2, finished matte stone washed, with ram horn panels and hollows drilled through both the blade and the handle. Two of those features are commonly oversold, so let us deal with them first.

Do the hollows stop food sticking?

Partly, and less than the marketing suggests. The idea is that each hollow traps a pocket of air so a wet slice cannot form a seal against the flat. It works reasonably well on potato and cucumber. It does very little for soft cheese, and nothing at all for anything sticky enough to fill the hollow.

The honest version is that a thin grind does most of the work and the hollows do the rest. Anyone selling you hollows as the reason a knife releases food is selling you the smaller half of the mechanism.

What they definitely do

They take weight out of the blade, and on a butterfly frame that matters more than usual. A folding knife has its mass split across two handles and a pivot at one end, so removing metal from the far end of the blade brings the balance back towards your hand. This knife feels lighter in use than its size suggests, and that is the hollows earning their keep.

D2 and the thing nobody warns you about

D2 is a high chromium tool steel. It holds an edge a long time, it resists corrosion far better than plain carbon, and it is a sensible choice for a kitchen where water is not optional.

The catch arrives when it goes blunt. D2 is loaded with hard chromium carbides, and those carbides are what make it stubborn on a stone. On a basic waterstone you can spend forty minutes and wonder whether you have achieved anything. Use a diamond plate. On this steel the diamond plate is not an upsell, it is the correct tool.

The stone washed finish

The blade is tumbled with abrasive media, which leaves a low sheen and a surface covered in tiny random marks. The point of it is that new scratches have nowhere to stand out. A stone washed knife that has been used hard for two years looks almost identical to one out of the box.

If you have ever felt guilty about the first scratch on a polished blade, this finish is the answer to that feeling.

Ram horn, and why no two are alike

Ram horn is denser and more heavily layered than buffalo horn, and it carries its growth rings as visible banding. The colour ranges through grey, green and amber depending on where in the horn the panel was cut. We do not dye it and we do not sort it for uniformity, so the pair you receive will not match the photograph exactly. That is not a defect, and treating it as one is how a natural material ends up looking like plastic.

Specifications for this D2 balisong chef knife

Ordering the BF-164

Sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, with a fitted leather sheath and a gift box. Rinse and dry it like any knife, but D2 will forgive you a great deal more than carbon steel will.

Laser engraving is $29, chosen on this page. Free shipping inside the United States, flat $49 worldwide.