Handa Handmade Balisong Kitchen Chef Knife | High Polished High Carbon Steel | Buffalo Horn Handle with Leather Sheath BF-163

The BF-163 is a 12 inch chef knife built on a balisong frame, high carbon steel taken to a mirror, buffalo horn handle. Before you buy it, we would rather you understand what a mirror polish actually is, because most shops sell it as a performance feature and it is not one.

What a mirror polish does in a kitchen

Nothing useful. A polished flat does not release food better than a satin one, and anyone who tells you otherwise has not cut a potato. What actually causes food to release is blade geometry and how thin the grind is behind the edge, and this knife is ground thin because of that, not because of the shine.

The polish is aesthetic. That is a perfectly good reason to buy something. We just prefer to say so out loud rather than invent a benefit.

What a mirror polish costs you

Maintenance, and rather a lot of it. Every stage of the polish removes the scratches from the stage before, which means the surface is a mirror only until something touches it. Onion acid will haze it. A citrus board will haze it. A dishwasher will do worse than haze it.

Wipe it dry after every use. If you want the finish kept, that is the whole discipline, and it takes about eight seconds.

Then there is the carbon steel underneath

Plain high carbon, no meaningful chromium, hardened to 58-60 HRC. It takes a keener edge than stainless and it gives that edge back to you faster on a stone. It also rusts if you let it sit wet, and in a kitchen there is water everywhere.

A patina will form. On a satin blade a grey patina looks like character. On a mirror it looks like damage, even though it is chemically the same thing and it is actually protecting the steel underneath. If that would bother you, buy the stone washed D2 instead and be happier.

Buffalo horn on a kitchen handle

Horn is keratin. It is warm to hold, it stays grippy when your hands are wet, and it will not conduct heat from a pan into your palm the way steel or brass does.

It also dislikes two things: standing water and long spells of dry heat. Do not leave it in a sink and do not store it above a radiator. A trace of mineral oil on the panels once a year is the entire care routine, and if the knife gets used weekly you can skip even that.

The balisong frame in a working kitchen

Two handles, one pivot each, folding around the blade. It is a genuinely odd thing to hand a cook and we are not going to pretend it is faster than a fixed handle. What it is, is compact, and it protects its own edge without a block or a guard.

Open it deliberately, cut, close it deliberately. Do not flip a sharpened 18 cm chef blade to look impressive. That is how people learn anatomy.

Specifications for this high carbon balisong chef knife

Ordering the BF-163

It arrives sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, in a fitted leather sheath cut for this frame, with a gift box. Store it out of the sheath rather than in it, because leather holds moisture and this steel has opinions about moisture.

Laser engraving is $29, chosen on this page, placed on the blade or the handle depending on which suits the piece. Shipping is free inside the United States and a flat $49 everywhere else, whatever the order size.

A mirror polish needs a wipe after every use to stay bright, and our guide on how to sharpen a balisong butterfly knife covers the stone work that keeps a plain high carbon edge like this one working well in a kitchen. The Handa is part of our balisong kitchen knives range. For the same high carbon steel and blade length with a forge finish instead of a mirror, the Apoy trades the polish for scale.