Cerakote increases friction

b-crow

b-crow

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In a Brooks Review titled : Benchmade Bugout, Believe the Hype, the reviewer says of Cerakote: "it adds a lot of friction with certain materials".

Do you find it true that a Cerakote coating increases friction and reduces cutting performance?

I did a search of BF and couldn't find any post with this complaint of Cerakote.
 
A lot depends on the cerakote coating itself. They don't always have the same finish, even from a single manufacturer, like Benchmade. I have over a dozen cerakoted knives. I have the the OD green Mini Adamas with the FDE cerakote. That coating is very smooth and fairly slick. I have the same coating on a SMKW exclusive Bugout. I also have the grey/black Mini Adamas and the burgundy micarta Shot Show version. Both of those have a rougher, more textured finish by design, and you do notice more drag when cutting. But I have found that even the rougher cerakote finishes tend to smooth out as you use them and have less drag over time. Either way it's not a problem for me when cutting. The drag doesn't amount to much. Yes, a nice satin blade with that almost oily finish will glide through material easier, but cerakote doesn't cause me any problems.
 
To paint in the broadest of brush strokes, my experience has lead me to "Yes" and "No"

my observations are based simply on regular use of knives over the decades, so the following hypothetical situation is purely that..Hypothetical.

The Benchmade Dacian comes to mind readily as an example. It is sold in a coated and a non-coated version. I'm pretty sure if I brought my knife home, immediately re-profiled the blade to 12 DPS, sharpened and stropped it to 22K grit, and set about double hair splitting, cutting tissue, cardboard testing, etc. A difference could be noticed between coated and non-coated blades. Though a coating can be smoothed out and blended with sharpening and use, it would still be there, and "draggier" than the uncoated blade.

Now, talking real world use, which is where I think most folks are...opening mail, cutting up some lunch at work, cutting a frayed boot lace, etc. Typical EDC stuff. I believe it would be impossible to note a difference.

Using it in the outdoors to cut up fishing bait, clean a small fish, process medicinal plants, cut a fuzz stick, or a tent stake..I think the difference in cutting efficiency is undetectable. At the end of the day, some steels, environments, and uses benefit from coating more than others. whatever factors influence one's decision in the matter, I wouldn't make cutting effiency one of them. My stated opinion is relevant pretty much only to Cerakote and Benchmade. The rough texture historically used by other manufacturers is a bit of different matter in my considered opinion.
 
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Bit of a necrothread, but the only real advantage to cerakote is that it comes in a lot of colors and it's slightly more durable than spray paint. They do make different levels of thickness and "finish" for cerakote so some probably increase friction more than others. The more "matte" finishes if used will wear smoother over time. I doubt it causes too much issue in most cutting. In the gun world you will almost never see friction parts that are cerakoted, when it first started becoming popular companies were doing bolts on rifles with it, and people learned very quickly it made for a very sticky bolt. It's thickness and softness can also cause issues in high tolerance fit parts etc. Cerakote actually tends to get a bit sticky when wet, so I could say say if you wanted a thin filet knife to glide through fish or a meat boning knife you could probably tell more difference than just the everyday pocket knife tasks.

Normally the biggest issue I see with Cerakote is it simply is a very thick and soft coating, that doesn't tend to wear very well and at least in the versions used on knives/guns does not reduce friction.

Now of course like most coatings there's lots of variations and speciality versions of cerakote, there are options that are designed specifically to go on thin and reduce friction with additives like Micro Slick, high temp versions etc.

The biggest reason it's used by gun/knife companies is it's simply much cheaper than doing a premium coating that actually provides a real advantage like DLC etc. and it performs worse in about every respect to such coatings from what I've seen over the decades. Of course if you read their webpage it's superior to all other coatings in every possible aspect :)
 
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I just read that review, and he mentions "friction in certain materials" but he neglects to say what those materials were. The reviewer does mention it slices cardboard well, which is what I assume would give him the most trouble. The only example he gives is trying to slice an apple and the slice stuck to the blade, which he blamed on the coating. And I guess my Opinel No8 must have an invisible coating because apple slices stick to that as well.

I can't think of a single time where I noticed more drag caused by a blade coating. Even the rougher ones used by Cold Steel on some of their older fixed blades. Seems to me an issue invented by Youtube yahoos so they'd have something to blather on about.
 
I think it's more accurate to think of it as, "texture causes friction." Some blade coatings are extremely thin and smooth, some are basically truck bed liners, and everything in between. More texture, more friction. But thick or thin, any additional texture will add some friction to an otherwise polished piece of steel. How much does this actually matter in everyday EDC usage? If the coating is well done (i.e. thin and smooth), then not much, in my experience. I have a Bugout CF-Elite that has a coated blade, and it's still slicey AF, for anything I'd realistically use that knife for. Some other knives I have, the drag created by the blade coating is more noticeable.
 
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Coatings become smoother with use :)

i-QvBDpFJ-X3.jpg


(without friction, the coating wouldn’t wear)

And if you don’t like them, easy to get rid of them:

i-vVWJhMz-X3.jpg


(Right one is stripped)
 
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