We've been having a good old time with this over on the Pocket Knife community, but I figure there's probably a lot of crossover with this crowd as well.
I'm sure you've seen various clever little one piece utility knife blade holders on Thingiverse and so forth, and while they're quite functional I don't think they're nearly as overwrought or silly enough, nor require quite enough components.
Rather than repeat my entire post from there over here, I'll leave you with these:
Two pins go through the notches in it. It's not going anywhere.
That green one is my initial prototype and I've been pretty much continuously fidgeting with it at my desk since I printed it maybe two weeks ago. I have flipped it open and shut probably a couple of thousand times by now -- no exaggeration -- and the blade hasn't budged.
Is there like a lip or ridge on the top too that prevents the blade from flying backwards while flipping? I see it on the bottom of the blade, but can't tell if the top is also secured that way
From what it looks like you can slide it in and lock it with these two pins on top. Not sure how safe that is but considering we're talking about a makeshift balisong, safety can't be your main concern
Holy shit I cannot be the only one to think flipping one with a razorblade is a bad idea. Like, I've cut myself with my balisong and I keep it pretty sharp, I can't imagine how badly I'd cut myself with a balisong that's literally razor sharp.
Actually, just flipping around with this it's pretty tough to cut yourself. Obviously the safe side won't cut you, but the blade holder makes a signifigant length of the bite side blunt as well. The edge is only exposed for the last inch and some change, and you mess up the blunt heel section will just bonk harmlessly against your finger. You have to be really choked up on the handle for it to get you.
I think this is actually safer than a traditional balisong (being a DIY contraption made out of whatever bullshit we have lying around notwithstanding) which would have the entire length of one side sharpened.
14 year old me can confirm. Backseat playing with it on the way to red lobster and when the interior car lights turned on my hands were red lol. I thought it was sweat lol
Very cool! Though also seems like it might cause 3d printers to be more heavily regulated in some places. People can be irrationally afraid of things like this.