The Balisong Gallery

What to do with a broken Bali-Song? That's the question that the owner of this piece faced when one of the Zamak handles on his Benchmade 259 broke irreparably. You can't weld on Zamak and there's no glue that would hold well for this application. So, this balisong enthusiast's answer was to make himself new handles from solid brass.

Notice that the owner choose to assemble this balisong with a Manila-style latch.

It's really hard to believe that this is the owner's first attempt at using a milling machine. There are a few minor imperfections, sure. The latch is a bit to long and the latch pin is just slightly imperfectly finished on one side. But I'm not going to dwell on them.

What I will say is that I was just super impressed with the workmanship and quality of this balisong. It moves well and manipulating it was smooth and easy.

Bells are often made of brass. Sometimes, balisongs with brass handles seem to ring as you manipulate them. This one certainly does, and it rings a very pleasant note.

It weighs in at a very comforable 8.5 ounces (exactly twice the heft of a BM42). Brass is a very heavy metal. Balisongs with solid brass handles are quite heavy. But, thanks to the large skeleton slots, this balisong retains a very good weight very similar to the old Benchmade 45.

The handles are nicely rounded at the corners, but flat on the sides.

The finish is just excellent. That was done by a professional jeweler who is also a balisong enthusiast, Michael Scott. Both the blade and the handles are polished to prefection. Polished brass has a wonderful, rich glow which this piece exemplifies. Between the two of them, they've taken an otherwise scrap blade and created a wonderful balisong.

You can read the owner's own story about this knife by clicking on the icon below:

Those of you on the tour, Please follow me to Gallery B