knife finish

[don1911]

Looking at some 1095 carbon ESEE knives - one of the finishes is stonewash? What is this? Is it a blade with no coating? or something similar to sandblast or chemical etching?

I hear it looks like galvanized metal and hides scratches due to a unique pattern. Galvanized look would likely be ugly on a knife.

Thanks.

 

[G. Scott H.]

Stone washing involves tumbling the item in abrasive media, which leaves it with lots of scratches going in random directions over the whole surface. It can be very obvious or very subtle. I'm not sure which is the case with ESEE. It does do a great job of hiding many of the scratches that a blade will acquire during use. Stone washing is done on non-coated blades, but other treatments can be applied once it's done, such as acid washing, to make the blade darker, etc. Since DLC coatings show whatever finish is under them, I'd assume you could also have a DLC'd stone washed blade, though I don't recall having seen one.

edit: A couple pics of different stone wash finishes:

Basic:

Acid wash:

A guy getting ready to stone wash:

 

[don1911]

Thanks G. Scott H.