writer's block is no longer kicking my ass for real this time, finishing up old drafts that were rotting for the longest time and i'm gonna be talking about the kraken soon
There's no sugarcoating the fact that balisong flipping is an expensive hobby, with most knives making up the staples of flipping being over $200 USD. I was originally gonna write an article about what the current budget market looks like, but not one knife has the budget market in as much of a chokehold quite like the Orion from LDY. It's not just me—well-established names in the community like DJEyelessPyro and CamaroEE share similar sentiments on the Orion, and neither of them were paid to promote the knife.
Why is this? Why does the Orion fill such a crucial role in the market today, and what gives it an edge over its competitors?
To understand the importance of the Orion, the history of the budget market as a whole needs to be gone over for the purposes of providing context.
Before the birth of Squid Industries, the budget market was non-existent in the most literal sense—outside of the Bradley Kimura, clones and generic gas station knives were all you could get your hands on under $200 USD. The advent of the first Squidtrainers (pictured above) marked the first step in the budget market as one of, if not the first ever balisong to use aluminum handles, which is more inexpensive than titanium handles and much more bearable to flip than steel handles. But the first balisong from a relevant maker retailing for under $100 didn't come until the release of the original Squiddy in the end of 2017:
The Squiddy was also important for being the first plastic balisong, but it still has its drawbacks. It was comically handle heavy, and while fans are technically possible, they were nigh on unbearable and wasn't fixed until Squid came with more balisongs under the Squiddy family. But more importantly, with it being a plastic balisong, it couldn't properly simulate the weight of a metal balisong, with the jarring transition between the two earning the nickname "Squiddy Syndrome".
A metal bushing balisong under $100 USD didn't come along until 2022 with Nabalis releasing the Morse, and later the Vulp:
Other makers like Svix (with the Terra) and Glidr (with the Arctic) made the first steps towards more affordable bushing balisongs, but the Morse and Vulp marked the first time a non-clone maker offered them for under $100 USD. Even still, problems still persisted among them, namely that they both had weird quirks with flipping—both of them were noticeably slippery, and the Morse had weird blockiness in its handles while the Vulp struggled with Chaplins.
Enter LDY. Joining Maxace and Nabalis as one of the big Chinese makers that didn't make clones, they were already gaining considerable traction with designs like the Cygnus and Sirius, but in the beginning of 2023, they announced the future release of the Orion:
More durable 7075 aluminum handles instead of the 6061 aluminum seen in its competitors, coming as a live blade on bushings with a spare trainer blade to put on. Unlike everything else, there wasn't much that it struggled with. The only complaint some people had with it is that it was a tiny bit ass-weighted (but not enough to impact its performance on things like fans), and even then, you had a group of flippers who liked that, myself included.
The kicker? Its retail price of $99 USD.
Its only objective drawback was that drops were (and still are to an extent) rarer than other budget options, along with the fact that it could only be bought through Instagram DMs since LDY didn't have a website at the time.
This is my personal Orion V1, with the red cerakote handles. It's the second balisong I've ever purchased, and to this day, even after buying and flipping much more expensive options, it sits at the very top as one of my favorite flippers of all time—in terms of personal preference, the Nemesis V3 and V1.5 Orion are the only knives that come close (I'm still mad at myself for losing the latter). When I bought it, I wasn't sure if I liked flipping as a hobby. The Nabalis Morse I had was certainly a passable flipper, but it had its fair share of things I just didn't like. I don't think I would have continued flipping had I not bought it. And with the people I've met in this community and the memories I've made with them, I kinda have it to thank for that.
Almost 2 years later, I decided to put the live blade back on it after flipping the trainer for so long. I'm currently in the process of looking for a spare set of handles so I can flip both the live blade and trainer at the same time, but with the V1s having been discontinued for almost a year and a half, It's been tougher than I was hoping for.
I wish I bought another V1 while I still had a chance. I wish I didn't lose my V1.5 like a fucking idiot. This is a knife that I cannot recommend enough to people, for whichever version you're able to get your hands on. Seriously, you won't regret it.
A few weeks ago, I did what some people in the balisong community consider a cardinal sin: I purchased a clone. More specifically, I bought a Benchmade Necron clone made by Baliplus. I bought it for a few reasons, but one of which is for me to get more perspectives.
For those unfamiliar, a clone in the balisong hobby refers to a balisong made by an overseas company copying the design of an already existing balisong to sell for far cheaper. Many in the community have at least an unfavorable position on clones—the r/balisong subreddit, for example, has banned any and all discussions, mentions, or pictures of clones, forcing Reddit users to turn to r/BalisongClones. Some community spaces are more lenient on clones, with places like the Will Hirsch and Balisong Community Discord servers allowing their discussion and depiction, but drawing the line at posting links leading to sites where they can be bought.
Why are clones one of the most touchy and polarizing subjects in the balisong community?
The idea of buying what is essentially a copy of a genuine product isn't new, and it's damn near a universal phenomenon across all hobbies. But with almost every relevant balisong manufacturer being based in the continental United States, how do clone manufacturers even get away with selling clones in the first place?
The short answer is that while there are some clones that are genuine 1-to-1 copies of the original knife (take Baliplus's Benchmade 42 T-latch clone, for example), most of the clones that can be purchased online today will have ever so slight alterations to them that differentiate them enough from the real product to allow them to be sold—DenDenBMX once compared it to guitar manufacturers producing guitars heavily based on iconic designs like the Gibson Les Paul, but making enough changes to it for it to be a standalone product that can be sold without fear of legal action.
While I understand where he's coming from as someone into both guitars and balisongs like he is, I don't think it's a full apples-to-apples comparison. While it's undeniable that something like the ESP Eclipse bears a really close resemblance to a typical Les Paul to the untrained eye, ESP often adds their own flair with features like a thinner neck profile and active pickups to gear it more towards a certain demographic of musicians instead of a jack-of-all-trades guitar that Les Pauls are often treated as.
As a whole, that isn't the aim behind most balisong clones. Whenever you purchase a clone, whether it be from Slash2Gash, BBKS, or even AliExpress, the descriptions of most clones are completely up front with you, reusing the name of the original knife and sometimes even flat-out telling you that it's a clone—hell, in the case of the Baliplus 42 clone, Baliplus even went as far as to sell the knife to you in a fake Benchmade box with fake receipts that are very convincing, and it could easily fool someone who doesn't know what to look out for when buying secondhand.
All of this is exacerbated by the fact that every relevant balisong maker is run by a small team of people with tried and true machining and engineering expertise at the absolute most. Squid Industries has around 100 or so employees in their factory, but that's as big as it gets. In many cases, makers are composed of individual people who may not even have the resources to machine their knives in-house and have to turn to outsourcing the parts for their balisong designs elsewhere.
This is precisely why clones are often frowned upon as much as they are; when you can put an exact name and face to a balisong you paid for, who is usually more than happy to answer questions about the knife or strike up a casual conversation about the hobby, it can easily be seen as a slap in the face to them to turn to clone companies churning out stolen designs with little care put into them.
Even so, there are still potential merits to buy a clone. What was perhaps the balisong hobby's biggest barrier to entry for most of its existence was cost. Until Lucas started making waves and building what would become Squid Industries, you'd be looking at spending at least $270 USD for a BRS Replicant if you wanted a balisong to start flipping with. If buying a clone was completely out of the picture for you, anything else either needed extensive modding to have a bearable flipping experience (like the old Bradley Kimuras) or would fall apart within months. It's easy to look at the Squidtrainer and think its overall value proposition is questionable given its specs and the competition, but when it came out in 2016 it was revolutionary in that it was the first sub-200 dollar non-clone option flippers had that didn't need much work out of the box.
An advantage of clones when it came to the overall hobby is that they more or less circumvent these high costs. Even nowadays, with sub-100 USD options flipping better than ever, clones still provide a way to get something that's cheap and a good flipper. This is especially true for people getting into the hobby outside the US, as high international shipping rates might lead people to shy away from genuine balisongs even if they're legal where they live (some makers even refuse to ship internationally for their own reasons). Additionally, any clone that's at least close to a 1-to-1 replica is going to flip similar to a genuine example. Take my personal Necron clone—when I talked to people about how it flipped compared to a real Necron, they mentioned that the only noticeable difference was that the scales were a little bit blockier and not as deeply textured as on a real Necron. Otherwise, it was a perfect 1-to-1 replica (provided you get the steel version). I liked the overall design of the Necron in spite of the very strong opinions I have about its specs for its MSRP, and hearing that a 60-dollar clone flipped nearly identical that was all the convincing I needed to buy one (mine specifically flips a bit different since it has titanium liners instead of steel liners, but that's besides the point). Another factor I don't see as much discussion around clones involves clones of discontinued or otherwise hard to find knives. Take any Benchmade 4x clone, for example—sure, a lot more 4x series knives were made than people think, but that doesn't change the fact that they've been discontinued for decades, and most people aren't willing to sink at least 500 USD to get their hands on one secondhand. You could even use buying a clone as a form of boycotting if you want. While I'm not looking to buy another knife anytime soon, I sure as hell am not gonna buy from BRS when they charge a shit ton of money for knives that barely have the slightest semblance of quality control (seriously, who the fuck thinks a knife with machining this bad should retail for over 400 USD?).
With all of this out of the way, you might wonder what my opinions are on clones are, and to be honest, it's not that exciting. I'm more or less indifferent towards clones, and I won't judge you if you buy one. If you're in the market to get started or just have a tight budget, I will try to steer you towards non-clone budget options like what Nabalis and LDY offer, but if you buy a clone for any of the reasons mentioned above I couldn't care less as long as you don't try to pass it off as the real thing.
