Good coatings, Bad coatings

Z

zignal_zero

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Apr 16, 2008
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what coatings have y'all found to be the best and the worst? this isn't about ANY other characteristic of the knife because i've had GREAT knives with HORRIBLE coatings. i just want to know what your experiences have been with various coatings. i'll go first, but please remember - this is just about the coating. just because i like the coating on a knife doesn't mean i think it's a good knife and just because i think a coating is garbage doesn't mean i don't (otherwise) think the knife is great.

Benchmade - look at it too long and it comes off
Ontario SP42 - flakes off in big pieces with minimal use, but there seems to be another coating (or it's parkerized) underneath the one that comes off quick
SRKW Rodent - wonderful. the 'pebble finish' smooths out, but i have not worn through the coating and this piece gets USED.
Carbon V Recon Tanto - amazing! if it wasn't for the edge, i'd start to wonder if it's not actually a coating and Carbon V is just black all the way through.
ESEE - too early to really tell, but the BM and SP finishes would've already been gone, from what i've used this knife for. so, i think it's going to be on par with CS and SRKW.
 
The "satin" finish on a emerson is actually a ceramic coating, wears ugly but is very tough.
 
there is no such thing as a blade coating that won't wear off.

eventually. some last longer than others.
 
sambo. said:
there is no such thing as a blade coating that won't wear off.

eventually. some last longer than others.
Click to expand...

i agree, but when "longer" is the literally the difference between years of use or being drawn a few times (from kydex) it's pretty significant.
 
Fällkniven coatings are disastrous. They wear off immediately. On the other hand, the SOG coatings last long if used only on wood.
 
Chris Reeves has used a tough coating on their A2 one piece knives. Not sure what it was.
 
My benchmade coatings fade with every single cut through cardboard. It's pathetic.
My G10 Offset is almost as bad. It uses that weird silvery DLC.

My MUDD and Avalanche coatings are very tough. Cardboard leaves streaks, but I can rub them off and they look like new.

My best, by far, was my old CRKT M16. The kind of coating was listed as TiNi. It was like the actual steel was just polished black. It never streaked, was perfectly smooth, and looked way better than the DLC junk they force on me now. This should be the exclusive black coating. Everything else is junk compared to it. The DLC on the avalanche and MUDD are adequate though.

CRKTM16-13FD.jpg


That's not actually my old M16, but same coating by the looks of it.
 
The tungsten DLC coating used by ZT seems to hold up very well.
The wrinkle finish on my RTAKII and Ranger knives seems to be wearing well too.
 
Benchmade has 3 different coatings they use and my EDC for the last couple years has what I think is the worst one (BK1) yet still looks fairly good. It shows some rub marks and there are a couple small places where the coating is gone from sharpening and cutting some harder materials. I use it a couple times every day and have cut a bunch of aluminum cans and cardboard. The cardboard probably puts the most wear on the coating. I don't really whittle wood with it but I would imagine that would be pretty rough on it. But for the most part the coating still looks good and is still intact so in my experience its not that bad.

However with that said I have never liked blade coatings. The only reason I use a knife with it is because it is a limited edition knife that is my favorite design and has M4 blade steel. If I have a choice I buy a knife that doesn't have a coating because they will all wear off or at least get scratched when cutting certain materials.
 
What ever coating Buck uses on their Bass Pro Shop CPM-154 is probably the most resistant coating of anything I have encountered, it is like it is part of the steal itself. Benchmades coatings are the worst. The scuff at the sight of cardboard.
 
The black teflon based coating that BM used was a disaster imo. The DLC, Diamond Like Carbon coatings have a very high rockwell C rating, higher than the blade they cover. Boron Carbide (BC)coatings are also very tough.
 
No coating is the best coating, imho.

Although tungsten DLC seems to be able to take a whole lot of punishment.
 
I'm not a fan coatings... period.

Fallknivens CeraCoat 8H is useless.

I've been fairly impressed with the durability of the coating on RAT/ESEE knives.

Kevin
 
I don't know which is best, but ontario is by far the worst. Just some light use and all of the coating just flaked off.

On my Benchmades the coating holds up great.
 
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