Kismet

When I first designed Kismet I had a very ambitious idea when making the design. I wanted to create a channel design that had a lot of extra parts. These extra parts were to add an adjustable spacer system and also a pin shield system. Spacers are straight forward but the pin system was to make it easier to replace pins when it came time. The only problem with adding these extra pieces was it destroyed the idea of a channel design. Channel designs were meant to be simple with not having to take apart much. The ideas I was trying was solved through the other styles of design. Chanwich and sandwich. It still didn’t stop me at first but I definitely learned the tough way. I got to learn how expensive making a new part could really get. When making any new piece on a balisong you first have to make the fixture, set the cam, and a ton of adjustments to make work. Most times the first try will never be perfect. Something will be off. Cam being slightly off so it cut weirdly on a certain section, thickness on the blade wasn’t wide enough so it was impossible to sharpen, accounting for the space in the channel to have room for the blade and spacers, and what not. You get the general idea. So during this process I learned how long machining can really take. If you don’t have the proper machine it can take years and that’s not a good thing. These machines use a lot of energy so having it run a few days in a row non stop cost a ridiculous amount. When I made my prototype a lot of people noticed I had changed the design on the handles a lot. The reason was so it would cut down on machining time so I could have a flippable balisong so I could adjust balance if needed. An example would be the thin slots could take all day while a big single slot would only take 20 minutes. It saved a lot of time for trial and error when having to make a bunch. Overall during this process of prototyping I got to fail a lot and it was a little painful price wise but honestly it’s worth it in the long run. Being able to make a knife and call it my own is just an amazing experience.