Balisong Line Instructions
Tutorials, Maintenance, Ideas, Refinement & more
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Check out the Funding Milestones for a chronological timeline.
First Prototype
Velvet Balisong
Velvet BB Balisong
Prototyping
A first Balisong prototype was created long before the Velvet Balisong in the 135th CVlog. It was made up of seven printed parts, 12 steel balls and was very complicated to assemble. That's why it was never sold online.
Around one year later another prototype got designed in a live stream. It was called the Velvet Balisong.
Shortly thereafter the first version was presented in the 367th CVlog.
A few days later the second version was presented in the 372th CVlog.
The final version was presented the next day in the 373th CVlog.
Blade Variations
The first blade for the Velvet Balisong was a spearpoint blade. Alongside the second version a Tanto shaped blade was created in the 372th CVlog.
A variation of the spearpoint blade (weighted spearpoint) was presented in the 458th CVlog.
A 3D printed part usually consists of a number of outer shells and a lower density infill. This speeds up the printing process and it is also cost saving. Most slicer programs have around 20% as default value.
The Velvet Balisong has 3 shells and was first designed to work with 25% infill. This resulted in a final weight of around 80g. After proper tolerances were found for a working 100% infill variation around 12g were added to the weight. The final weight is around 91g und to 100g depending on the blade variation. 100% infill increases the durability and structural integrity of the trainer as well.
Alongside this update a new blade shape called "The Serrator" was introduced in the 461st CVlog. The 100% infill milestone was achieved in the 465th CVlog.
Up until this point the pivots were simple brass pins, pressure fitted in the holes of the handle. A very simple solution which worked surprisingly well. But it came with a few drawbacks, one of which includes pins getting loose over time. In other words the area of failure lied within the handle, which is far more expensive to exchange compared to the pins.
The initial ideas revolved around washers, sex bolts, screws and possibly bushings but compared to solutions that involve ball bearings these are inferior options. One thing was for sure though. The brass pins needed to go.
After many weeks of looking for parts the solution was found rather spontaneous one day. Usually knife screws are rather tiny and fragile. Moreover they are hard to get and fairly expensive. More problems that would add up in the long run. So instead of using tiny M2 or M3 sex bolts with washers and bushings the solution was to simplify the approach. Instead of multiple parts the pivot system got reduced to just three parts. A M4 screw, a M4 nut for the other side and a ball bearing. M4 is easy to get, easy to handle and very stable. Stepping up the size also enabled the use of regular encased ball bearings as the actual pivots. The need of washers was solved by redesigning the handle thus reducing cost and parts.
Now the point of failure got shifted to the screw or nut which is easy to replace and maintain. Besides that it now enables the user to easily exchange blades or other parts of the balisong making it more modular. The setup is also kept simple because all that needs to be done is tightening up the screws. There's no pressure sweetspot for handle play so no need to experiment. Just tighten it up a fair amount. There's also virtually no need to worry about stripping the threads because M4 can handle way more than tiny M3 or M2 screws.
This marks the endgoal for the Velvet Balisong. An injection molded batch to significantly reduce the costs thus the price. The plan is to reduce the price from 30€ to 10€ while improving the quality.coming soon
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