Well, it's kind of a funny story. Just shy of a year ago I was returning
back to the U.S. from Europe on my last (of three) training cruises. This
is something everyone has to participate in where I just recently graduated
school. It's late at night, I'm smoking a cigarette with a couple of
engineering buddies of mine on the stern of the ship. Our topic of
conversation began to move towards machining parts in the machine shop. For
a while now, I had been thinking of making my own balisong and I figured this
would be a great chance to find out what would be involved in making one. I
took out an old Parker balisong that I had in my pocket at the time and asked
them how difficult they thought it would be to machine something like that.
One of them, Jeff, said that it shouldn't be too difficult to do and that the
only hard part would be to get the taper correct on the handles. That got
the wheels to start turning in my head...

When I returned back to school for the Fall '00 semester, I'd sit in class
just drawing different handle and blade designs on paper. I couldn't draw
them fast enough! I'd draw designs that I didn't have the slightest idea how
to make. I still wasn't quite sure what a milling machine even was at this
point. Then I had an idea...

I had a Benchmade model 259 balisong with handles that would swing, but that
was about it. The lock-up, both open and closed, was non-existant. It was a
heavy knife that I liked a lot, but just seemed to have no grace in my
opinion. So I decided that I'd cut the pins off the original handles with a
hacksaw, buy some brass stock and make my own handles for this knife.
Handles that would work...

I began looking through previous drawings that I made to pick out a design,
but I couldn't find anything that I really wanted to do or, for that matter,
thought I could do. I remembered watching a movie years ago where somebody
took out a balisong to open something while sitting around a campfire. It
seemed "boxie" to me and I had always liked "beefie" knives. So I knew that
I was going to make this knife somewhat squared and just round the edges
enough to make it comfortable to hold and use. I took the measurements from
the original handles so that I'd have something to work with when making the
basic design. The next day I asked a friend of mine if he could show me how
to use one of the milling machines in the shop at school. I got the basic
low down on how it worked, which pretty much went like this, "Here's the
switch to turn it on and off. This makes the table go up and down. This
makes it go side to side. And this makes it go back and forth. These are
parallels and this is the vice". And that was how my first lesson went.
>From then on I just learned as I went. I just took on the "Correct and
Adapt" mentality and figured that if I didn't make any big mistakes, I could
just correct any small ones that happen and then adapt my design...

What I eventually decided on was a skeleton handle with a different pattern
than I was used to seeing. I also wanted a manila style latch too. So I
went to work! The machine shop teacher would let me in for about 2-5 hours
(one or two days per week) and I'd just work until he'd kick me out.

While I was reading a post on Bladeforums.com, I noticed that Michael Scott
(Sabo) was in the jewelry and metal polishing business and had actually
polished one of my FHM's previously. Well, after a few e-mails, Michael
offered to put a mirror polish on the handles and fix the scratches that I
had previously put into the blade. Around the same time, Chuck offered to
professionally photograph my knife for me. What luck!!! The generosity and
work performed by both Mike and Chuck was fantastic. They are both skilled
in what they do and I appreciate the efforts made on both of their parts.