black coating a blade and anodizind

[s1267712]

I am wondering how you get the black coating on a blade that a lot of pro companies do, I think it looks really cool. Also, does anyone know of an easy, cheap way to anodize metal?

Thanx
Evan manaresi

 

[richard rosvall]

Evan- it would be helpful to know what type of steel you want to coat and what kind of metals you are thinking of anodizing.

 

[s1267712]

umm, it was kind of a general question, but prolly gonna anodize aluminum and blacken steel, maybe 440c, why does it make a difference? different process for each metal?

 

[Keith Montgomery]

The answer to your question is that different metals are anodized in different ways. Anodizing produces an oxide. With titanium the color of the oxide will change as you increase the voltage.

Aluminum anodizing will not produce color, The oxide is almost the same color as aluminum. Aluminum oxide is very porous and dyes easily. This is done by putting the piece of anodized aluminum in a dye solution which may then have to be heated to be effective. After you dye the oxide you have to seal the pores by putting the part in boiling water for approximately 20 minutes. If you do not do this the color will come off very quickly.

I do not know if different blade coatings work better on some steels than others. I will leave that explanation to someone that knows more about these coating. All I can say is that I find Boron Carbide to be my favorite coating. This is because it is very hard, will not scratch easily and it does not hide the look of the steel. Some coatings look like black paint to me and I can not stand them.

 

[s1267712]

ok, i know a little bit now, so how do I get alluminum to annodize so that I can die it, and what kind of die do you use? Also, i still want to know about how to black coat a blade, the process and what to use.

Thanx
Evan Manaresi

 

[Keith Montgomery]

There is no way that I could instruct you on how to anodize aluminum without it being far to long a post for anyone to want to read. Here is a link to a site that will give you everything you need to know about anodizing aluminum.

http://asuwlink.uwyo.edu/~metal/anodizing.html

Have fun. It is a big read.

 

[richard rosvall]

Evan- here's a link to a discussion about boron carbide coatings-
http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/showthread.php?s=&threadid=171848&highlight=boron+carbide
To blacken simple carbon steels, I've used Birchwood Casey Super Blue, a cold-bluing solution. It's simple to use and you can get colors ranging from a light gray to black to deep blue.