Black Coated Blades

Wolverine666

Wolverine666

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Dec 7, 2009
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How does the black blade coating on Spyderco blades stand up to wear and scratches ? I have heard that the BK1 coating on Benchmade blades comes off easy and scratches even more easily. Just curious how the Spyderco coating compares.
 
They hold up very well. I have a user DLC Digicam Military whose blade I didn't mind transplanting into the M390's CF handle because it still looks new. The Digicam G10 is a little beat up.
 
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I have a dlc para 2 and after a solid year of moderate use there is no scratches on it. Theres only slightly noticable wear close to the edge where the matte finish looks a little more shiny and polished than the rest. DLC coating is used for extremely high wear applications such as heavy duty bearing and bushings as it is extremely hard and has certain lubriscity properties i believe. Don't quote me though but, that would make it good for such applications and naturally it found its way on a knife i guess.
 
The DLC on the Para2 is stout and will take a beating. I have found that most of the "marks" or "scratches" I get on it are actually not *in* the DLC but *on* the DLC. By this I mean, they are marks on top of the DLC and (with effort) can be removed without damaging the DLC itself. That's not to say that it's impervious to marking and/or scratching... it's not (be careful when sharpening a DLC coated blade as it's easy to mark up accidentally with sharpening stones), but it is pretty darn tough.

As nice as it looks "new"... I do have to say though that a good well used DLC blade showing its battle scars is very cool looking I think. As much as I love a pristine knife the look of a well used one is equally as cool (in a different way). :D

Before
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After
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jon1all , that before and after pic set is great. It really does look like new condition after you cleaned it. What does it take to get results like that ?
 
My experience is that it holds up better to scratches than the steel itself does. I cut mostly cardboard, and I don't open soup cans or stab car doors, so that may be a big factor to some. The only scratches I've found on my DLC knives are from pocket change being in the same pocket as the knife.
 
As everyone has said, they hold up very nicely. Had a digi cam/black blade PM2 that I ran through a good bit of cardboard and it still looked brand new.
 
Evil, those scratches are most likely the coin rubbing off on the DLC, I had a dime leave silver and copper streaks on a blade, cleaned up with bore cleaner.
 
Law of Thirds said:
Evil, those scratches are most likely the coin rubbing off on the DLC, I had a dime leave silver and copper streaks on a blade, cleaned up with bore cleaner.
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That does make sense, you're probably right. I've had change leave a silvery residue on black G10 before too that wipes off.
 
I back up jon1all
I've cut up a handful soda cans before to test the edge and it looked all scratched up and nasty, it was just the aluminum rubbing off on the coating, its a matte finish so its not 100% smooth, its maybe a little smoother than a new chalkbard, so naturally things will rub off on it but it will just clean right off. I use a scotchbrite pad and some dish soap most of the time. Alcohol and a scruffy pad works great for sticky things too.
 
rmbonham said:
I have never met a blade coating that hasn't scratched after continual hard use, even dlc.
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I have to pretty much agree with what this Brother has just stated>> I've had several of Spyderco's black bladed or black coated knives but I have actually used only a few of them over the years. Most of the ones I had were what I still consider as collector pieces>> particularly the Temperance 1 model that I had with the black blade>> try finding one of them now a days :rolleyes::D

There is one in my user rotation that I have used quite a bit collectively over the years. I'm speaking of the black bladed version of the C-46 Spyderco Lum tanto folder. The coating that they used on that model seemed to be about as rugged as any of the coated blades I ever used. But let's not fool ourselves any type of a coating is going to have certain limitations. To prevent scratching the coating or the blade itself might not even be possible unless you just simply don't use it at all.

I do admit that I like the looks of many of Spyderco's models with the black coating. I really don't know what if anything a guy could do to prevent it from being marred unless you simply just didn't use the blade at all or you only used it in a very limited capacity,.
 
Wolverine666 said:
jon1all , that before and after pic set is great. It really does look like new condition after you cleaned it. What does it take to get results like that ?
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Believe it or not, just some soap & water followed by a light coat of mineral oil on the blade after drying it off.
 
Can anyone relate whether Spyderco DLC is tougher than Kershaws? I had lots of scuffing and marking on Kershaw's DLC.
 
Depends what you cut most often. The DLC'd Military blade I have was used to cut up cardboard, open boxes, envelopes...light use. I have a ZT550BLK whose DLC is worn down to where it's shiny, but I've used it to trim wood, break down packing boxes (lots of them), cut and strip wire, zip ties, bags of potting soil and wood chips, concrete, lots of dirty stuff. Coincidentally, the finish on my Spec Bump is also worn past the 550's condition, and my ZT0400 had also started to show a good sign of wear around the recurve.

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