Titanium lockside coatings

[mitchnola]

Can ti locksides be coated and if so anyone have any recommendations on who can do it?

 

[Ilikesharpstuff]

I don't see why not. I think you'd want to mask the lock face/ball/insert so you don't change the geometry between it and the blade but other than that it should be fine. Way of Knife does great work.

 

[mitchnola]

That’s what I was thinking, thanks for the recommendation!

 

[toker]

Is there a particular reason you're looking to coat it? I've had titanium framelocks Cerakoted in the past and wish I stay with the raw titanium. Cerakote looks like crap when it starts to wear.

 

[mitchnola]

Is there a particular reason you're looking to coat it? I've had titanium framelocks Cerakoted in the past and wish I stay with the raw titanium. Cerakote looks like crap when it starts to wear.

Purely aesthetics, I got a knife with a fde coated blade and I’m getting digi camo to replace the smooth ti on the show side and thought it would be cool to match the lockside to one of the colors in the digi camo. I did find a company that would try to match it and dlc coat it for $120.

Was thinking the coating would hold up well or at least better than it does on blades. Would the dlc coating hold up better than the cerakote? I agree I don’t want something that’s going to wear off relatively easy.

 

[STR]

About the most durable finish on Ti is hard anodizing with heat. Some have developed it to an art using a torch which is a lot more wear resistant than doing it via D.C current (voltage). When you coat it with voltage it covers the surface and it is very easily scratched up. Using a torch however, as they often do for titanium lock contacts anodizes deeper more like from the inside out so the layering of near ceramic hardness is deeper into the material. The problem is that an inexperience hand can make a true messy look to the outside of the knife. Durable, but dawg ugly. Dave Curtis used to get some seriously good looking knives done using heat anodizing via a torch and they were very neat and durable uniform finishes all one color. These wore better than voltage anodizing by a long shot better I must say. I owned a couple. Don't get me wrong you can and likely will still be able to scratch up whatever you use to cover it with titanium.
Even hard anodzing of aluminum as durable and hard to remove as it can be is still scratched up over time. Nothing I ever got on a ti slab was a long lasting as the aluminum anodizing no matter which way you did it to get that finish on Ti so I don't mean to get your hopes up. Unless some have developed some sort of other outer coating since I retired from it, I know of no other ways to really cover it without possibly affecting the lock up if it's a frame or liner lock you carry. I remember being very frustrated by titanium finishes regarding something durable at times. Even with my Sig Sauer that I sent to Watler Birdsong when he was still alive, although steel his "Black T'' finish was said to be quite good. I had it scratched up in no time and overall was unimpressed. Finishes on something like a hand tool pulled in and out of a pocket, or sheath over and over, rubbed by the hand, used hard are bound to eventually need redone if a neat clean finish is important to you. Just sayin'.

 

[mitchnola]

About the most durable finish on Ti is hard anodizing with heat. Some have developed it to an art using a torch which is a lot more wear resistant than doing it via D.C current (voltage). When you coat it with voltage it covers the surface and it is very easily scratched up. Using a torch however, as they often do for titanium lock contacts anodizes deeper more like from the inside out so the layering of near ceramic hardness is deeper into the material. The problem is that an inexperience hand can make a true messy look to the outside of the knife. Durable, but dawg ugly. Dave Curtis used to get some seriously good looking knives done using heat anodizing via a torch and they were very neat and durable uniform finishes all one color. These wore better than voltage anodizing by a long shot better I must say. I owned a couple. Don't get me wrong you can and likely will still be able to scratch up whatever you use to cover it with titanium.
Even hard anodzing of aluminum as durable and hard to remove as it can be is still scratched up over time. Nothing I ever got on a ti slab was a long lasting as the aluminum anodizing no matter which way you did it to get that finish on Ti so I don't mean to get your hopes up. Unless some have developed some sort of other outer coating since I retired from it, I know of no other ways to really cover it without possibly affecting the lock up if it's a frame or liner lock you carry. I remember being very frustrated by titanium finishes regarding something durable at times. Even with my Sig Sauer that I sent to Watler Birdsong when he was still alive, although steel his "Black T'' finish was said to be quite good. I had it scratched up in no time and overall was unimpressed. Finishes on something like a hand tool pulled in and out of a pocket, or sheath over and over, rubbed by the hand, used hard are bound to eventually need redone if a neat clean finish is important to you. Just sayin'.

Thanks for all of the info. So far I’ve found a company that could dlc coat with some color options. I’m waiting to get the show side scale and the.ln will figure out what I want to do next.