The Benchmade 46DM Bali-Song is the first Bali-Song of Benchmade's new
Gold Class, knives for Connoisseurs.

The handles are stainless steel and feature Titanium-colored G10 inserts with
Mother-of-Pearl sub-inserts.

G10 is a fiberglass material that's commonly used for knife handles.  It's durable
and gives a good grip surface.  The final appearance of G10 depends greatly on 
how its finished.  G10 can be bead-blasted to give a coarse surface.  Or, it can be
polished as it is on the BM46DM to give a very elegant  surface.
  
G10 is a woven fiberglass fabric which is encapsulated within an epoxy base.  
For "titanium-colored" G10, some of the black threads are replaced by 
bright white threads to give a sort of speckled effect. The result is quite beautiful.



The G10 inserts are "picture framed" within the stainless steel handles which
requires an exact fit.  But, as if that's not enough, the craftsmen at Benchmade have
then done a sub-insert within the G10 of Mother of Pearl.  

Mother of Pear is a natural material that is the inside of the shell of certain shell fish.
It's basically the same material that pearls are made of except a pearl is formed around
a bit of sand that gets into the shell and irritates the mollusk inside causing it to form
a secretion which hardens around and encapsulates the grain of sand.  Mother of Pearl
is the same secretion, but is laid down in thin layers on the inside of the shell.  It's this
layering of translucent material that gives Mother of Pearl its depth, color and 
beautiful iridescence.  Being a natural material, each piece is absolutely unique.

Mother of Pearl is a very brittle material and very difficult to work with.  Cutting and
inserting the thin strips of it on the BM46DM is masterful.

Picture-frame inserts where the insert is entirely enclosed within the handle material
are very beautiful.  But, some material simply can't be done this way because the
material will expand and contract with changes in temperature and humidity.
Fortunately, G10 and Mother of Pearl are both dimensionally-stable.

Even so, getting the G10 to exactly fit into the stainless steel handle is a challenge
and then getting the Mother of Pearl sub-inserts to exactly fit into the G10 just
raises the challenge to the second power.