Blade coatings,how effective, whats the latest?

K

Kn1

Joined
Apr 22, 2008
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Just enjoyed an manufacturing/engineering exhibition,my interests followed the coating industry, came across TecLube, which starts of with TiAIN base coat,(micro hardness 87rockwell/2700vickers), followed by
a DLC(diamond like carbon) coating (87 rockwell/5000vickers/0.2 coe-friction).
However the stand alone ,TiCN, seems to have the highest hardness at 90rockwell.
Do such coatings mainly offer the best advantages on high rpm/feed machine tool applications when cutting difficult materials, or do they also offer similar advantage with general cutting hand knives?
 
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The coatings used on knives usually covers the sides of the blade and not the cutting edge. This makes it pretty much just a cosmetic enhancement as the cutting edge does not benefit from improved corrosion resistance or hardness.

I suspect that any coating on the cutting edge would rapidly be sharpened away as the knife is used. I have never seen or heard of a using knife with the coating on the cutting edge. (I would like to, as I am always intrigued by new ideas, etc.)
 
I have since talked to the coating company, they stated that companies who make fibreglass insulation,had problems with blades becoming blunt,after a recommended coating of a couple microns, they are now havng long term blade breakage before annoying premature bluntness occurs.
I guess I could get two equal sharp s30v blades, coat one and do cutting endurance tests....might even cryo the blade so the coating holds better.
 
This would be interesting. It would be also interesting to see how much the intitial sharpness/cutting ability would be affected (I assume reduced) by the coating.
 
I use a CNC machine at work to cut steel and all of our carbide cutters are coated with either a TiN, TiCN, or AlTiN (diamond coating is also available, but triples the price of the cutter). The cutter will only dull after the coating is worn off, and this is after cutting thousands of inches of steel at a high rate of speed and heat. I'd imagine TiN or TiCN would work well on a knife edge, but you'd have to be happy with the factory grind because once you sharpened it (you'd have to use diamond stones), you'd obviously be using the steel the knife is made of instead of the coating.
 
I'm pretty sure I've see a knife which had a V grind, but was only sharpened on one side, so that the (DLC, I believe) coating extended all the way to the edge, at least on one side.
 
technically the buck ionofusion?, ionfusion? something like that, had a coating on the very edge of the blade. it was a chisel grind however, and it never really took off, as far as i can tell
 
As with the mentioned Buck (that never really got any traction) the coating on the edge of a knife will not wear off (due to sharpening) if the edge is chisel ground- as you don't sharpen the coated side. I suspect the buck never took off in part because it was chisel ground.
 
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