Does ATS-34 take a gun blue finish?

B

B.V.

Joined
Dec 27, 2007
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194
I am making a fixed blade out of ATS-34 and was considering a blued finish? Anyone ever give that a whirl?
 
If its the gun blue used for like gun barrels and carbon steel it will have no affect on the ATS34 but they can be blued. I am not sure how its done to be honest but I have one of the A.G.Russell SeaMaster folders and the blade on it is ATS34 and its blued finish looks just like what I get using a gun blue on a 1095 blade only its much more resistant to scratching and seems quite hard.

In his add for this folder he mentions this about the marlin spike and the blade coated this way.

"This new design, the A. G. Russell SeaMaster™, has a flat ground 3-1/4" blade of ATS-34 stainless steel at 59-61 Rc. The folding 2-3/4" marlinspike is stainless steel. Both are coated with a special material composed of both Titanium and Aluminum, a very tough coating with a hardness of 80 Rc. and great rust resistance."
Maybe A.G. could tell you how that was applied I'm not sure. I have a hunch it is some kind of baked on finish though. It sure is tough I'll say that.

STR
 
Ion Bond offers a Tungsten DLC coating that can look similar to a blue'd finish. It gives the knife a super high RC surface hardness which keeps it from getting scratched up, adds to its corrosion resistance a bit, and looks cool. As far as I know you cant blue a stainless steel.
 
Brownells.com has a system using OXYNATE NO. 84 to blue stainless steels. Some gunshops may have this stuff. it would cost a couple of hundred bucks to set up, hardly worth it for a few knives. he salts alone are about $90 and you still need tanks, heat source, etc. for my part time gunsmithing, I have equipment to do hot rust blues on carbon steels, but have had only one request for stainless bluing in 8 years.
Chip Kunkle
 
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