Titanium Nitride vs Blued surface?

Blueing only help protect against rust in non stainless steel. Tinite is a very hard surface "covering".

What is the application?
 
Bluing is an artificial rust, usually a Nitrate salt of Iron. TiN (Titanium Nitride) is a coating that goes over the steel rather reacting with it. TiNi is Titanium Nickel. The TiN coating has a hardness of 82 HRC (Rockwell C scale). I don't think that bluing gets that hard.
I regularly touch up my edges on the sides of TiN coated blades. Think finishing steel. I should try touching up on a blued gun barrel to see if it scratches the bluing. Holsters seem to wear the bluing off handguns.
 
Bluing and browning wears off and is not really compatible with anything used for processing/cutting food.
A Titanium nitrate coating bonds with the base metal at the molecular level, in effect becoming part of the base metal. Ti does not come off and is compatible with processing food.

Metal that rusts will still rust if blued or browned (witness firearms, they still rust) Things that have a Ti nitrate coating cannot rust.

Ti also costs a lot more than bluing or browning.
 
Here's an additional question: is there anywhere you can send a knife or other metal object to be coated with TiN? Or is it too expensive? I've been surprised with the durability of Gerber's TiCN coating, as it lasts much longer than the rest of the knife will! (Haha..) I usually blue carbon steel to fight rust but occasionally I want to color stainless purely for looks and regular paint rubs off of knives too quickly. One example of this is my thread searching for a 4in black blade, wood gripped knife, and not being able to find one. I'd love to get a knife I like coated for this reason, and I'd probably get an old shotgun receiver done too if I could.
 
The TiNi will be far more durable than bluing. TiNi is a ceramic that creates a very hard, slick, corrosion resistant coating that can be applied on steel, aluminum, and titanium alloys. As far as I know, bluing can only be applied to steel. As afishhunter stated, bluing is a mild layer of corrosion that protects the base metal, similar to a patina. Like a patina, bluing can wear off with use. TiNi is far less resistant to wear, making it ideal for high friction applications, such as plating drill bits. Normal use should not cause the plating to flake off even if you are cutting through tough materials like wood or cardboard.

FordRanger, a Google search revealed a company call BryCoat that does plasma vapor deposition TiNi coatings. They might be worth a shot. You could also check out a company called Robar and their firearm coatings. They have 2 electroless nickel teflon platings called NP3 and NP3 plus that are somewhat similar to gold TiNi in color as well as epoxy coating available in different colors. I'm not sure if they do knives, but they're an option for that receiver you mentioned.
Crow
 
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