Alright, my merry waddlers. How’s your Christmas going? Spending some quality time with the family, or maybe having yourself a little R&R? Well, here’s how I’m spending mine: By shitposting about knives on the internet, as usual. Because that’s just the kind of no-social-life-having predictable son of a bitch that I am.

It occurs to me that I haven’t wasted pages and pages blathering about a balisong knife lately. Lest we think these days I do nothing but handle bottom notch quality Chinese bargain subbasement meme knives anymore, here’s the Revo Nexus.

Revo is another one of those up and coming startup knife companies that I’ve been studiously ignoring until these went on some kind of hyper-sale several months ago. This fetching two tone green variant currently lists for the thick end of $350 if Revo’s website is to be believed, but you could score these a little while back from all the usual online suspects for around $175. If I were on top of things I could have alerted you all to that fact at the time, but I wasn’t. So here we are.

The Nexus tickled my fancy because while it’s made by Revo Knives in Colorado, it’s purported to be designed by BRS. This explains why it’s got a name riffing off of a certain Harrison Ford flick, in case that didn’t tip you off. Yes, that’d be the same BRS behind the perennially sought after yet unobtainable Replicant and Alpha Beast balisong models… Or rather they would be if they ever felt like actually manufacturing anything for once, rather than apparently being proud to display an entire website consisting solely of sad little “sold out” tags and nothing else.

So while the true BRS models are suffering from a terminal case of nonexistence at the moment, these Revos have the advantage of being as thick on the ground as Christmas morning’s snow.

The Nexus is a product of its time, i.e. right now at this very exact second, and is thus a hyper-modern offering that encapsulates every single shred of what’s in fashion with the balisong-slinging youngsters these days. So that means it’s both latchless and earless and it’s got a sleek cyberpunk silhouette, with full length machined aluminum handles, kickerless Zen pins, and it’s even packing ceramic ball bearing pivots. And noodles.

Basically, it’s 90% of a BRS Alpha Beast or Barebones, but minus the latch and half the price. And while it may be slightly Vaporwave, it manages to actually exist so it isn’t vaporware. A sterling stand-in, then, for anybody who may have missed the boat on the former two.

So, pretty much everyone.

The Nexus is a sandwich design rather than channel milled, so each half of its handles is a separate machining and they’re mounted up with these spacers which are, I believe, titanium. Fancy.

Note also the distinct lack of a latch. I knew this this full well going into it, but I still did so with some trepidation since I have to say the latchless thing isn’t my usual cup of tea. Despite owning thirty six balisong knives and quite a number of otherwise balisong shaped non-knife objects, I actually only had two* latchless knives before picking up this one.

The primary one being this channel milled “BRS” “Replicant” with a Squiddy-esque pattern machined into the handles which is, I’m very sorry to report, fake as a snake. It’s a Chinese knockoff but it’s a decent one, and it’s not like you can buy a real Replicant right now for love nor money anyway so I’m not too broken up about it. It’s of pretty similar proportions to the Nexus, and that’s probably no accident.

In the middle there is the larger of the two Böker Tacticals, the 06EX229, my current most oft carried balisong, just for comparison purposes. (Identifiable here by my screaming neon printed handle scales, because I’m just such a dweeb.)

The Nexus is 10-1/8" long open by my measure, and basically exactly 6" long closed. The blade is 4-1/2" long precisely and has just under 4" of usable edge, and it’s made of 154CM.

The blade has a weehawk-ish profile and is stone tumbled. I do like a good stone tumbled finish, and I like the looks of this one a lot too, but if you stare at it closely enough you can just barely see some of the machine marks left in it.

The Nexus is allegedly Revo’s first knife to be made in the US. They’re not going to let you forget about it, either, not only with this massive etching but also that entire deal on the front of the box. That’s fair enough, as it goes — It’s entirely too easy to buy a cynical Chinese knockoff knife for not much money these days, but depressingly difficult to buy one that’s made in America without having to take out a second mortgage.

Because it’s very fancy, it’s got flush fitting, or at least nearly flush fitting, screws with driverless heads on one side.

The other side accepts a T-10 Torx bit and while Revo imply that the thing is designed to be disassembled via this video embedded in their website, I found all of the screws in mine to be permanently threadlockered. And since today’s my day off, I concluded I can’t be bothered to crack this thing open right now. Revo have kindly allowed me to outsource that entire endeavor, so if you want to see how it all goes together you can just watch their video instead.

Besides, you all have seen the insides of butterfly knives a couple of times before. You’ll live.

The other reason I’m disinclined to mess with it is because I like it just like it is. Mine appears to have been pre-tuned at the factory to be just about perfect. The pivot action is flawless, the bearing assembly means there’s no blade tap and vanishingly little wiggle in the handles, and manipulating the Nexus just feels nice. If you need a flipper for confidently showing off, this is it.

Except for some reason the Nexus is quite possibly the loudest knife I’ve ever had the occasion to wave around. Verily it clangs, it rings, and it jingles. Anyone else in the room with you would be forgiven for thinking you’ve got spurs on while you’re messing with this thing.

It’s not especially unpleasant or resonant or anything, but it is just exceptionally noisy. If you are a ninja, the Nexus is absolutely not the knife for you.

I have no idea if this is down to the shape of the machined aluminum handles, or the position of those concealed Zen pins, or what.

Otherwise I can’t find much else not to recommend the Nexus over, but you have to be into the kind of thing that it inherently is. Thanks to the complete and utter lack of both a latch and a clip, you’re on your own for figuring out how you’d want to carry it, for a start. The Nexus comes bundled in custom wrapping paper inside its box, but that’s it — There’s no sheath or pouch provided, not even a perfunctory ratty low-denier Nylon and Velcro one. Likewise, there’s absolutely no differentiation between the handles whatsoever so there’s no tactile indication which side’s the bitey one and which side’s not. Revo didn’t even see fit to provide a 2¢ silicone band or something to stick over the bite handle to mark it, so either provide your own or git gud in a hurry, noob.

You probably should, too. Because the Nexus does indeed come out of its box very sharp from the factory. The edge grind is perfectly passable, however…

For a $350 list price you don’t even get a true edge from the factory.

I’m starting to think I might be the only person on Earth who actually notices this sort of thing. Guys, am I the asshole here?

The Inevitable Conclusion

There are probably any amount of hobbies more financially responsible than being into balisongs. Like, maybe methamphetamines.

The thing about the Revo Nexus is that it’s a very niche object, which will appeal squarely to a few extremely specific people and practically nobody else. Nobody in their right mind would suggest this as a work knife, or an EDC knife, or a camp knife, or for any purpose other than A) collecting, because you are a nerd, or B) showing off, because you are also a nerd. A distant third option is because none of the people who watch too much Youtube will take you seriously if you haven’t got yourself a trendy and highly collectible big name knife.

Here’s the thing. Because of all of that, the balisong sphere — at least most entries in it that aren’t explicitly junk, anyway — is inherently comprised basically entirely of limited edition stuff. With the best will in the world, no balisong model you can actually name will ever be a volume seller. Just like the latest Nexus 6 replicant, this stuff all has a built in artificial lifespan. And so, if you can’t handle a perpetual fear of missing out then this is probably not the type of knife you want to develop the affliction of having an affinity for.

At the moment, the Nexus is obtainable. Not only is it slick and stylish and fully compliant with all of the latest fads, but it’s also here. That probably counts for a lot, because so many of its contemporaries aren’t.

All those models, all those knives, lost in time. Like tears. In the rain.

Dang.