Introduction: House Key Balisong (Actual Instructable)

About: Computing Scientist. Creator. Designer. Imaginator.


This is finally the actual how-to Instructable on how to make my house key balisong. This is also the first Instructable that I have ever made so go easy on me.


Alright first off:
 - I broke my printer during a recent project because the card stock got jammed. (I'm gonna have to make everything by hand now) So be careful with you printer when using the card stock, it may cause a paper jam and then possibly break it. Please check if your printer is able to handle card stock by checking the g/m². (i think, if not let me know)

- I am not responsible for any damage you cause to your house key or yourself, but I'm pretty sure nothing will happen because you are dealing with paper and glue.

- Make sure you have a good amount of time to do this project. I think few good days of quality work should be good enough. (its a bad idea to be rushing through stuff)

- Go through all the images in each step because I put notes on them. Also maybe take a look through the whole Instructable first before you start.


In steps 1-16: you'll be designing / gathering all the information you need to create this.
-The actual build doesn't start until steps 17- Finish. 


Step 1: Materials


Things you'll need:

- Card stock (I used 110lb heavyweight from Staples)
- Standard printer paper
- Hobby knife
- Pencil
- Drawing compass
- Printer with copy feature (saves time to make the pieces)
- Ruler
- House key
- Tape
- Super glue
- Bottle of all purpose white glue
- Glue stick
- Tooth picks
- Hole puncher (one hole puncher is highly recommended)
- Chain part of a keychain
- 4 small magnets (try to find ones that are the same thickness as your house key)

Step 2: Tracing


- Put a piece of tape on the back of you house key and place it on a piece of regular printer paper.

- Take your house key and trace it onto the printer paper.

- Be sure to trace your house key accurately and carefully, and trace everything.

Step 3: Getting Started


- With a ruler mark 2 points that are in the middle of your traced house key.

- Use the 2 points you made to draw a vertical line down the middle of your traced house key.

Step 4: Pivot Points Pt.1


- Take your hole puncher and make 6 circles. 

- Take 2 circles and glue them together (use your glue stick for this).

- Repeat this again with the other 2 circles you have left so that you now have a pair.

Step 5: Pivot Points Pt.2


- Take the finished circles you made in step 4 and glue them on to your traced house key, by using 2 reference points.

- 2 reference points: what I mean by this is that you need to find 2 points where the edges of the circle touches 2 points on the the house key. By doing this it will help position the circle on both sides with precision (see the notes in the picture to get a better understanding of what i mean).

- see if the circles are level with each other by using the vertical line you drew down the house key and a protractor.

Step 6: Designing the Handles Pt.1


- Mark the middle with a little dot on both circles.

- Now draw a horizontal line that intersects the two dots that you made.

Step 7: Designing the Handles Pt.2


- Using your drawing compass make a half circle.

- Use the dot that you made on the pivot point.

- Go from the vertical/horizontal line intersection to the other side and stop.

- Repeat what you did to the right side.

Step 8: Designing the Handles Pt.3


- Draw a line that is equal to the diameter of the circle.

- Do this again to the right side.

- Now draw lines connecting everything together.

Step 9: Designing the Spacers Pt.1


- Draw a line that is about 1/8 of an inch away from the tip of the house key.

Step 10: Designing the Spacers Pt.2


- Make a test handle for the left or right side. (it doesn't really matter because it is symmetrical)

Step 11: Designing the Spacers Pt.3


- With the test handle rotate it 180 degrees so that it looks like the first image below

- Take you pencil and put a mark on the test handle where the top of the house key is. This is a very important part so mark it accurately. This is part of the open stop system.

Step 12: Designing the Spacers Pt.4


- Now rotate the test handle back to its closed position like in the image below.

- Make another mark next to the mark you made on the test handle like in the second image. This is still part of the open stop system.

Step 13: Designing the Spacers Pt.5


- Repeat steps 11-12 on the opposite side that you just did.

Step 14: Finish Designing the Spacers


- Make similar spacers to what you see in the first image.

- Using the markings you made in steps 11-12 make lines that arm at 90 degrees. This will act as the Open Stop System.

Step 15: Designing the Closed Stop System Pt.1


- Draw a circle around the middle of the house key.

- Take the last paper circle you made in step 4 and glue it right on top of the drawn circle.

Step 16: Designing the Closed Stop System Pt.2


- Take you hole puncher and make a half circle on the test arm where you placed the paper circle.

- Cut a little piece on top of where you made the half circle on the test arm.

Step 17: Design Stage Is Now Over


- If you made it this far without much of a problem, good job. The steps you previously did was made to give you the information you need to create the actual arms, and spacers. It also gave you your own measurements.

- But now the real thing begins. It should be easy if you understood the previous steps.

Step 18: Building the Handles Pt.1


- With all the information you have gathered from previous steps, you can now start making the actual Handles.

- Draw out the Handles using the exact measurements you used in the design stage.

- It should look similar to the image below.

Step 19: Building the Handles Pt.2


- Now that you have drawn out the handles you have two options:

1. Make 8 more handles by hand on card stock.

2. Make 8 copies of the handles by running card stock through the printer using the copy feature on your printer.

- Its your choice.

Step 20: Building the Handles Pt.3


- If you made your choice you should now have 8 handles on card stock.

- You need to cut the handles the way it is in the first image below.

- Then take your hole puncher and cut the circle in the middle out.

- After that take your scissors and split the arms in two right down the middle.

Step 21: Building the Handles Pt.4


- Now cut the triangle piece in the middle out.

- After that cut the excess card stock out.

Step 22: Building the Handles Pt.5


- Use your hole puncher to take the 2 other circles out.

- And now you're done one set of handles. You should have 7 more to go.

Step 23: Building the Spacers Pt.1


- Draw out the spacers using the exact measurements you used in the design stage.

- You need to make 8 of theses spacers out of card stock by drawing them all out or using your printer.

- It should look similar to the image below.

Step 24: Building the Spacers Pt.2


- Cut the spacers out any way you want.

- Use a hobby knife you cut out the little squares where the magnets will go.

Step 25: Building the Spacers Pt.3


- You now have 1 set of spacers done.

- You should have 7 more to go. (assuming that your house key is the same thickness as my house key, if not you may need a few more spacers)

Step 26: Putting the Handles and Spacers Together Pt.1


- You have eight pairs of handles. Half of them will be for one side of the key and the other half will be for the other side.

- Start gluing the handles together by evenly spreading white glue with a tooth pick on one side of a handle.

- Then take another handle and place it on top of the other handle you put glue on.

- Repeat the above 2 points again until you have one completed handle piece. The handle piece should have 4 layers of card stock glued together when finished.

- immediately after you have glued 4 layers together put it under a heavy book until it drys. This is so that it will be flat when it is dry. 

- When you're done you should have 4 handle pieces in total, each having 4 layers of card stock.

Step 27: Putting the Handles and Spacers Together Pt.2


- Now for the spacers. It is pretty much the same process as putting together the handle pieces.

- Start gluing the spacers together by evenly spreading white glue with a tooth pick on one side of a spacer.

- Then take another spacer and place it on top of the other spacer you put glue on.

- Repeat the above 2 points again until you have one completed spacer. The spacer should have 8 layers of card stock glued together when finished.

- immediately after you have glued 8 layers together put it under a heavy book until it drys. This is so that it will be flat when it is dry.

- When you're done you should have 2 spacers in total, each having 8 layers of card stock. 

Step 28: Putting the Handles and Spacers Together Pt.3


- Once the handles and spacers have fully dried, take one completed handle and one completed spacer, and glue them together using white glue. 

- And then place it under a heavy book to dry.

- Now do the same thing again to make a right side. (or left side, whatever side you did first you need to make an opposite)

Step 29: Putting the Handles and Spacers Together Pt.4


- When it is dry put your magnets into the square cut outs. Do this for both handles and make sure that the magnets will attract to each when it is closed or open.

Step 30: House Key Time Pt.1


- You need to take you hole puncher and make 30 circles.

- Put the circles into 6 groups, each group having 5 circles.

- In each group glue the circles together, so that it becomes 5 layers.

- You should have 6 circles with 5 layers each now.

Step 31: House Key Time Pt.2


- Take the 1 complete circle and super glue it to one corner of your house key using the 2 reference points you used in step 5.

- Take another completed circle and super glue to the opposite corner, also using the 2 reference points .

- Super glue dries pretty fast so make sure the completed circles are in the right position.

Step 32: House Key Time Pt.3


- Now take the half finished handles that have the spacers glued to them and place them onto your house key to see if everything lines up good. 

- If the hole in each handle don't fit the circles you super glued onto your house key, then you need to take your hobby knife and shave the inside of the holes a little so that they fit.

- Once you have done that rotate the handles into the open position and see if the Open Stop System works properly. If the Open Stop System is too long then the arms will not open all the way. If it is to short then the key will wobble side to side. It need to be just right.

- If it is to long then trim it a little bit. If it is to short then you have to figure out a way to make it a little bit longer. Hopefully you won't have to do any of this.

Step 33: House Key Time Pt.4


- If everything is good in step 32, then go ahead and take 2 more completed circles and super glue them on to the other side of your house key using the same 2 reference points you used on step 5 or 31.

Step 34: House Key Time Pt.5


- Take the 2 remaining completed handles without the spacers glued to them and glue them to the other side of the spacers with your key still in the middle.

- Put it under a heavy book and wait for it to fully dry.

- Check every so often to see if the arms still rotate freely around the house key.

- The second image only shows one handle on. Yours should have both on at this time.

Step 35: Closed Stop System


- When everything has dried, you can put in the Closed Stop System.

- Take the last 2 completed circles you made in step 30

- And super glue 1 of them into tear drop looking hole the handles make when it is closed.

- Take the other completed circle and glue it onto the opposite side.

- Position the circles so that the handles don't move side to side, if it moves just a tiny little bit then its still good.

Step 36: Adding the Keychain


- This step is optional, if you want to add a keychain to it.

- Put a little pencil mark between where the 2 magnets are on one handle. Flip the handle over and on the same handle put another pencil mark between the magnets.

- Take your hobby knife and use a drill motion to make a hole. Flip the handle over and do the same thing.

- the hole doesn't have to go all the way through, but it should be deep enough to securely hold the chain in place.

Step 37: Finished


- Hopefully your house key balisong turned out the way you wanted to.

- If it didn't i'm sorry, maybe I missed something in the instructions that I made. So if anything went wrong, give me some feedback and i'll get back to you as soon as possible.