How To Maintain and Lubricate Your Balisong Knife
If you use your Balisong often, it’s probably getting a little grimy from all the flipping, cutting, dropping and usage by now. So, every once in a while, you should give your Balisong a nice cleaning and a fresh coat of lubricant to make sure it runs smoothly and at the best it can be.
If you want to get your Balisong nice and clean while running smoother than stock, you’ve come to the right place!
Here is my step-by-step guide on how to clean and lubricate your Balisong as quickly and easily as possible.
Step 1: Supplies
The tools you will need in order to take to do this are:
-A Torx bit of the right size for all the screws on your Balisong. I recommend getting a decent torx kit as it lowers the risk of stripping screws.
-Cotton buds or tissue to help clean everything up.
-Isopropyl Alcohol (90%+) to get rid of dirt and grease.
-Loctite 243 Blue or a threadlocker of your choice (do NOT use a permanent one)
-Lubricant, I recommend you choose a knife oil such as FBO, as they’re formulated for use with knife mechanisms.
-A tray/bowl/container to hold screws and other hardware.
Step 2: Taking It Apart
Take your correctly sized Torx screwdriver bit and carefully unscrew the pivot screws of your Balisong.
If you’re having trouble taking your Balisong apart, this guide by Squid Industries has you covered.
If it has any body screws or Zen Pin screws, remove those too and carefully set the screws aside in your container of choice.
Step 3: Separate The Parts
Next, take out your blade, washers and handles (as well as any other pivot hardware such as bushings or bearings) such as in the picture.
Step 4: Clean The Parts
Using Q-Tips or Kitchen Paper, clean out any gunk or debris from the blade’s pivot holes and around the holes.
After that, clean out the handles properly, I recommend Q-Tips for channel Balisongs and Kitchen Paper for any sandwich Balisongs. This helps get rid of dust buildup as you’d be surprised at how much dust can be collected there
Step 5: Putting It Back Together
Carefully align the washers and bushings into the Balisong and put the pivots in, like shown in the picture above.
As a tip, if you’re struggling to guide the pivot through to the other side of your blade and handles, you can use your screwdriver to act as a pivot needle to guide it through.
This is the point where you should add your threadlocker onto your screws. The most common example of this is Loctite, a guide for which can be found here. This is easiest for beginners as it is a quick apply, wait and use product.
After this, put your Balisong back together and tune it to your liking, then let the Balisong set to allow the threadlocker to dry. Loctite takes 24 hours to dry and cure fully, so if you can, wait for the time to ensure that your Bali will be safely secured.
Step 5: Aftercare
This is the stage where you should do the oiling of your blade, as well as applying lubricant. Oiling the blade is useful to prevent rust, as well as give your blade a new shine.
Lubricating your Balisong is very important as it keeps wear and tear to a minimum while using your Balisong regularly. To lubricate properly, put one or two drops of lubricant on each pivot and then move the handles back and forth to evenly apply the lubricant.
As for which lubricant to use, I recommend using something thicker like FBO Thick Lube for most Balis as in my opinion it is the best choice to keep your Balisongs running at the best they can. If your Balisong is a lighter Bali such as a Squiddy or runs on bearings, I recommend a thinner oil such as NRB’s Knife Juice.
Conclusion
So, in conclusion, cleaning your Balisong is a very important procedure that you should do regularly to keep your Balisong running as well as possible. It's easier than it may seem and you'll be back up and running with your Balisong in no time!
Credit to Squid Industries Co for the two video guides referenced in this video.
