HANDMADE D2 Steel Balisong Knife with Tanto Blade & Rosewood Handle with Brass Bolsters | Premium Butterfly Knife with Leather Sheath BF-132

The BF-132 is the tanto in the rosewood and brass line. A tanto point is not a style choice pretending to be a feature. It is a real trade, and it is worth understanding before you buy one.

What a tanto actually trades

A conventional point curves down to a fine tip. It slips into things easily, which is useful, and it is the first part of the knife to bend or snap, which is not. A tanto stops the curve and meets the edge at an angle, so the tip is backed by much more steel than a fine point ever is.

You give up delicacy. You gain a tip that survives being dropped, levered or used carelessly. On a balisong, which spends its life being flipped and occasionally landing on a hard floor, that is not a small thing.

• Fine point: better for precise piercing and detail work. Fragile.
• Tanto: better for anything with force behind it. Poor at delicate tip work.
• Both: cut identically along the main edge. The difference is the last two centimetres.

The second edge nobody mentions

A tanto has two straight edges meeting at an angle, and those two sections sharpen separately. The main belly is straightforward. The short front edge needs its own attention and its own angle, and most people forget it exists until it is visibly duller than the rest of the blade.

It takes an extra thirty seconds on a stone. Do not skip it. A tanto with a sharp belly and a blunt front section is a knife that has been half sharpened, and it will feel wrong in ways you cannot immediately name.

D2 at 58-60 HRC, and what that gives a balisong

D2 holds an edge stubbornly. That is the whole reason it is used in tooling. On a tanto it is a good pairing, because the strong tip and the wear-resistant steel are aimed at the same kind of owner: somebody who would rather the knife survived than that it be delicate.

It is not stainless. There is enough chromium in it to shrug off humidity, not enough to ignore salt water or a wet pocket. Wipe it, oil it occasionally, and it will outlive the interest of whoever owns it.

Rosewood, brass, and a dark blade

Rosewood between brass bolsters is the most conservative combination on this list, and it works. Dark wood, warm metal, grey steel. It photographs badly and looks excellent in the hand, which is the correct way around.

Who should skip this one

If you want a knife for fine tip work, skip it and take the drop point in this line instead. If you flip hard, drop things, and want a knife that forgives you, this is the one to take.

Specifications for this D2 tanto balisong

What ships with this D2 butterfly knife

Every knife leaves here sharpened, tuned and flipped by somebody before it goes in the box, with a leather sheath cut to this frame and a gift box around the lot.

Pick Trainer above Add to Cart and you get this same knife unsharpened: same size, same weight, same price. It is the sensible way to learn anything new.

Optional engraving runs $19 for initials or short text and $29 for a custom logo, selected on this page before checkout. United States shipping is free. Elsewhere is a flat $49.