Handmade Karambit Balisong Butterfly Knife | Black Coated High Carbon Blade | OD Green Micarta Handle with Titanium Ring and Leather Sheath BF-175

The BF-175 is a karambit balisong with OD green micarta panels, a black coated blade and an anodised titanium ring, $245. Three materials here get described badly across the whole knife industry, so we will take them one at a time.

Micarta is linen and resin, and that is all

Layers of woven cloth, usually linen or canvas, soaked in phenolic resin and compressed under heat until they become one solid block. It was invented as an electrical insulator, which tells you roughly how glamorous its origins are.

What makes it excellent on a knife is what happens when it gets wet. The resin is waterproof but the surface still shows the weave, and a slightly damp hand grips micarta better than a dry one does. Almost no other handle material improves under those conditions.

It is also completely stable. It does not swell, crack, shrink away from the pins or care about how dry the room is. If you want a knife you never have to think about, this is the panel to choose.

The black on the blade is a coating, and we will say so

Unlike the forge finished knives in this range, this is applied on top of the steel rather than grown into it. It is a hard surface coating, it does its job, and it will eventually wear at the edges and at any point the blade rubs.

That wear is not a fault. A coated blade that has been carried for three years shows bright steel at the high points, and that is what a used tool looks like. Anyone who tells you their coating is permanent has not carried one.

The functional benefit is real though. High carbon steel with no chromium will rust given the chance, and a coating over the flats removes most of the chance. The edge is bare steel by necessity, so that part still wants wiping dry.

Why the ring is a different colour

It is titanium, and the colour is not paint or plating. Passing current through titanium in an electrolyte grows a transparent oxide layer on the surface, and the thickness of that layer determines which wavelengths of light cancel out. Thicker layer, different colour. The metal underneath is unchanged.

That means it cannot chip off, because there is nothing sitting on top to chip. It can be scratched through, and it will fade if you take an abrasive to it, but ordinary carry does not touch it.

Titanium is also the sensible choice for a ring on its own merits: lighter than steel, and it will not corrode where sweat collects.

Who this one is for

Somebody who wants a karambit balisong to use rather than to display. Nothing on it needs oiling, nothing objects to weather, and nothing on it will look worse for being carried.

Specifications for this micarta karambit balisong

Ordering the BF-175

Sharpened, tuned and checked by hand, with a fitted leather sheath and a gift box.

Or take it as a trainer instead. Identical frame, identical weight, no cutting edge, and the price does not move.

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