BLOOD SWEAT & TEARS
(but mostly blood)

Patient Zero Balisong, a name that is known for cool products projects ranging from my very first mod, the Kershaw Lucha re-handle, to my most recent Titanium BRS Replicant Slabs. 

August 4th, 2020— I spent half the day cleaning out my garage in preparation for what was about to come, after a while I spot a semi-trailer navigating its way down my road before skillfully backing into my tight driveway, barely missing my front door's overhang. The driver steps out and begins walking toward me. I try to disguise my excitement, doing my best to play it cool.

He greets me as he opens the back of his truck. I’m relieved to see it has a liftgate; I assume most of his stops involve forklifts.
Inside, the bed holds only a wooden crate and a pallet with boxes wrapped in plastic. It seemed overkill to send this big-ass truck to a small town just for me…

The driver grabs the pallet jack while I steady the crate—though, in all honesty, I’m probably making his job harder rather than actually helping. But standing there doing nothing felt too awkward.

Despite having only two skids to unload, it takes a while. Dragging a pallet jack across a stone driveway and into my garage was no easy task. Once all was unloaded inside my garage i begin to take inventory to make sure everything is accounted for. I’d read online that missing items could be a nightmare to have re-delivered. But first—how the hell do I open a wooden crate? I’ve never done it before.

I grab a hammer and start bashing away, letting my Neanderthal instincts take over as the driver watches. Later in the day after the driver left i looked up how to open a crate and its remarkable how easy it should have been and to this day, I still get embarrassed thinking about it.

After checking everything off, I let the driver go. Telling him I’m grateful for his patience, he was really cool about it all. Now, I have a moment to take it all in—right in front of me is a Tormach PCNC 440 mill.

Sure, buying a brand-new CNC machine at 28 years old—without knowing a damn thing about machining—probably wasn’t the most responsible decision. I mean, I could barely tell the difference between a caliper and a micrometer.

But I had a dream, to be know in the balisong community.