coating on RC knives

I

ipm

Joined
Feb 26, 2009
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576
I am new to RAT knives so bear with me if my questions are naive.

i am slowly convincing my self that an RC3 could be the one to buy as a first RAT. some questions remain.

i know that they are coated for protecting the blades.

what is the coating made of?

it looks like a powder-coat of some kind. i have not handled one yet. i have only seen them via the web.

does the coating wear off quickly under 'hard use' or does it seem to stay on?

i know some manufactueres like fallkniven make a coating that wears off fairly easily. its more like a paint than a long-tem protecting device. i did not get my F1 coated for that reason. there would be no point.

is this the case for RAT? how long does the coating typically last?

the web is full of images but i would say most of the knives i have seen are brand new and not long-term users.
 
The finish is a thick textured powder coat. I cut down 10 cottonwood trees one evening on a mountainside for firewood for 30 people, all with my RC5. It still looks factory new. It is a tough finish for a tough use knife. They do wear though, I have seen pictures of knives that have been much used and sharpened and it does start to wear from the edge on back.
 
The coating is hard wearing, tougher than what is on the fallknivens. As to how long it will last depends on what you do. Cutting - it will last forever, batoning tends to gouge the coating in certain spots pretty fast. My izula and RC-4 became scored up pretty quickly after a lot of batoning activity.

Yeah, the coating is there as a corrosion protectant. When it wears out you just need to keep it dry, don't leave it in the sheath overnight wet. Give it a coat of oil now and again. If you get a little rust fuzz here and there just scrub it off with a green scrubby and commet or use flitz metal polish. Good as new.
 
I've had my Izula for a few months, the coating is slightly scuffed but almost totally intact; it has only worn back a tiny bit at the tip. It is holding up much better than the ones on my Ka-Bar and Becker knives which showed noticable wear after the first day.

The last pic i posted of my Izula someone responded 'get out and dirty that knife up,' lol I'm trying!
 
when it wears off you can either patina it, by soaking it in mustard or vinegar, or give it a dusting with krylon spraypaint and it will coat the blade to the point where it will keep the rust off.
 
You can also just remove the coating pretty easily. I did it in about a half hour with sandpaper.
 
The hardest thing on the coating is batoning through very tough wood. I don't really worry about it. Here is my RC-5 before batoning:

RC-5003.jpg


After:

RC-5040.jpg
 
mines a little scuffed fom battoning but whatever. These knives arent meant to look pristine imo
 
You can treat the powder-coating on your RAT the same way as you would on a gun: the places where it wears off will continually be polished rust-free from use. What could be simpler?

Teflon is slightly better, aesthetically. Tungsten DLC (assuming the same thickness) is slightly better, for wear-resistance. Ultimately, the differences are trivial. You won't regret buying the RC3.
 
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