DLC coated Busse blades (Jaxx, others?)

Bigfattyt said:
Where does one send their knife to have it coated?

I googled it but could not find any place that advertised doing it in that application.
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You have to call IonBond and request to set up an account. This costs nothing. Once your account is set up and the order is placed, it goes to IonBond in Greensboro, N.C. without the handle slabs attached or included. They don't remove or replace the handles. Their in-house gunsmith does the DLC process on custom orders. If you need more info, drop me an email. I have the phone number and the names of who you need to talk to. :thumbup:
 
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OldPhysics said:
:rolleyes:Ah, yes. Nice and dark. As are almost all DLC. I won't bore you with the reason for that.
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I'm sure at least a few of us would not be bored with knowing why DLC is dark in color. Please, if you are so inclined, let us in on the knitty gritty techincal details. BTW, I think it looks awesome!
 
Soulrack223 said:
That is super cool! Though I can see how you'd let it go considering you have the coolest one-off Busse ever--the hammered active duty!!!
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Well, it was pretty much sold on the condition that I would get the DLC treatment done. He did his homework, and found the DLC he wanted, and what company to call. I tried to get him to let Busse coat it but he was persistent about this coating being exactly what he wanted, so I handled the details and learned quite a bit in the process. Although I needed the cash, I was kinda hoping that he'd back out once I saw how cool it looked! The pix really don't do it justice. The indoor shot does better resemble the effect of the DLC on the knife, but the handle colors didn't pop like they do in outside pix. I'd bet that this Diamond Black would look smokin' on a Nuclear Meltdown model Busse! :thumbup:

Yep, I do love that Drunken Duty, thanks! Amazing how many offers were received on that one, and some were painful to turn down :eek:, but that one will stay here for a good long time... Might even get to be a user! :)
 
Looks like good stuff! Does the finish reflect the surface condition..ie: polished blade = glossy black & DC = Matte Black?
 
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Smitty22 said:
I'm sure at least a few of us would not be bored with knowing why DLC is dark in color. Please, if you are so inclined, let us in on the knitty gritty techincal details. BTW, I think it looks awesome!
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I had a long, lovely description for you ... and BladeForums ate it.:mad:

Sigh.

Diamond is no more than a class of crystalline forms of carbon -- it typically comes in a cubic crystal, but can be found in a hexagonal crystal in meteors (called lonsdaleite). It can also be created in a rhombohedral form. Like all forms of solid carbon, diamond exhibits polymorphism -- it can exist in many subtly different crystalline forms within the general categories above. It also exhibits 'polytypism' -- a special case of polymorphism where different one dimensional structures are supported which form subtly different three dimensional structures when they are stacked together in two dimensions. I won't bore you with the many polytypic forms of diamond, which we scientist types describe using Ramsdell notation.

Solid carbon in the diamond form is optically isotropic (exhibits the same optical properties in all directions within its crystalline structure) but mechanically anisotropic (which is what keeps diamond cutters in business). If the diamond has a very low concentration of impurities and dislocations, it tends to be transparent in the visible.

Diamond films are even more interesting to scientists than solid diamond, since the film format (thin and close to a substrate) removes some important constraints on the physical characteristics of the material. Diamond films have even been prepared with both p-type and n-type character; scientists have therefore been able to create diamond-based semiconductor devices (see Koiuchi in Science 292, I believe around pg 1899 -- about 2001).
 
DLC were first grown accidentally, by scientists trying to grow diamond films. We soon learned that by relaxing the constraints required to grow diamond films, we could produce "DLC" films with properties close to those of diamond (electronic, mechanical, and optical) more easily than we could create diamond films. It became even more interesting when we realized we could create amorphous or crystalline DLC films ... suddenly we had even more "levers" we could pull to dial in different properties.

DLC films are usually grown in one of three ways: 1) deposition of carbon atoms using ion beams, 2) PVD or physical vapor deposition, and 3) PACVD or plasma assisted chemical vapor deposition. The last is most familiar to me. By this point, DLC films have been grown on many, many different substrates. You will be amused to hear that such films have been grown recently using tequila as a precursor (pulsed liquid-injection chemical vapor deposition -- we physicists love new jargon).

One of the biggest problems with DLC was the incorporation of large stresses into the deposited films; this made it hard for the films to adhere properly to the substrate. This has fairly recently been solved by growing intermediate thin film layers on the substrate before the DLC, permitting gradual build-up of allowable stresses in each film and greatly improving adhesion. For metal substrates, I believe the preferred recipe is something like: Ti, TiN, TiCN, TiC, and then the DLC. Some Ti is often "doped" into the DLC to improve its mechanical properties.

The process described above is probably the most basic version of the IonBond process used by Jaxx so recently. The materials and many thin films involved promote optical absorption by the finished coating, thus creating the attractive black film we see. It is so glossy because the coating process allows great control of the surface roughness/smoothness.

Frankly, it is much easier to grow diamond and DLC films that are opaque than it is to grow transparent ones. There are indeed ways to create transparent films of these sorts, but the processes are difficult and folks are understandably reluctant to share their methods.

Hope this has shed a little bit of light without boring folks too much.
 
I wonder why they do not call it graphite like carbon, I guess people like pencils less for some reason.
 
iamtoast said:
I wonder why they do not call it graphite like carbon, I guess people like pencils less for some reason.
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It is all about the structure. DLCs have a structure much closer to diamond than to graphite. This is a good thing, because graphite's properties are not as desirable (for a coating) as are diamond's.

A chunk of graphite is basically composed of many very thin, slippery two dimensional sheets. It is trivially easy to separate these sheets ... graphite is not very hard nor very tough.

I love my graphite-based pencils. They leave a nice trail. A diamond-based pencil would just be a scribe.:D
 
Evolute said:
Was that the one that explained it in terms of quantum electrodynamics? :)
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I'll only admit to a brief discussion of band gaps and the calculation of electron energy levels via 5th order approximations. I shall go no further!:cool:
 
OP great info as always! I can often learn more here in a few minutes than in hours of poking around elsewhere. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. :D

Any idea on how it wears and how it would stand up to the hard core abuse Bussekin wielders can dish out. I'm gonna guess it may just be better than anything else out there, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

From the looks of it, combining one of our favorite steels with DLC results in something really special. :thumbup:
 
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Lycosa said:
OP--- I enjoyed your class today! ;)
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Yes, it took me back a few years to the college days.

I felt like I should be taking notes on the difference between isotropic and anisotropic and prepare for an exam.

I also realized I need to study more now. I was one of those weirdies that liked school and miss it these days.:D
 
Smitty22 said:
OP great info as always! I can often learn more here in a few minutes than in hours of poking around elsewhere. Thanks for sharing your knowledge. :D

Any idea on how it wears and how it would stand up to the hard core abuse Bussekin wielders can dish out. I'm gonna guess it may just be better than anything else out there, but I have no way of knowing for sure.

From the looks of it, combining one of our favorite steels with DLC results in something really special. :thumbup:
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If the coating is done well and adheres to the steel, it should greatly improve surface wear on the knife ... and perhaps make it a little easier to chop with (reduce friction as it enters the medium). However, repeated heavy chopping could cause chipping of the coating. Personally, I'd just call that a "battle scar" and consider it an improvement.:D

I do like the look.
 
OldPhysics said:
It is all about the structure. DLCs have a structure much closer to diamond than to graphite. This is a good thing, because graphite's properties are not as desirable (for a coating) as are diamond's.

A chunk of graphite is basically composed of many very thin, slippery two dimensional sheets. It is trivially easy to separate these sheets ... graphite is not very hard nor very tough.

I love my graphite-based pencils. They leave a nice trail. A diamond-based pencil would just be a scribe.:D
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Yeah, it didn't work on The Wife when I asked her to marry me either.
 
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