ZT's BlackWashing

AdioSS

AdioSS

Joined
Jul 13, 2012
Messages
337
Does anybody have any ideas of what they are using to do this? That DLC stuff is pretty strong, so I'd imagine they are using some very hard media to tumble the blades in. I'm interested in doing this with some of my other ZTs :)
 
You can get that finish by placing the blade in a vibrating tumbler with triangular ceramic media. Both of which are available at harbor freight tools. I think I can say that since its not a knife or knife related tools. DLC in my experience isnt horribly resistant to scratching. I would think a good 1/2 hour or hour in a tumbler with that sharp ceramic would give a good stonewash over the DLC. Just remember though that that finish is not as corrosion resistant as a straight DLC.
 
I don't think DLC is that tough. My friend was playing with another friend's DLC coated Blur and cut through a cola can for fun and it scuffed up the finish pretty bad. He felt bad as he should've. Aluminum is soft!
 
oharal said:
I don't think DLC is that tough. My friend was playing with another friend's DLC coated Blur and cut through a cola can for fun and it scuffed up the finish pretty bad. He felt bad as he should've. Aluminum is soft!
Click to expand...

I'll bet you $10 that it'll come off. DLC is tougher than aluminum. The scratches is actually the coke can getting rubbed off on the DLC, not the other way around.
 
oharal said:
I don't think DLC is that tough. My friend was playing with another friend's DLC coated Blur and cut through a cola can for fun and it scuffed up the finish pretty bad. He felt bad as he should've. Aluminum is soft!
Click to expand...
I would have to agree with you. The hardness of the actual material is usually used as a tasty data point in which to appeal to consumers. "Its hard as a DIAMOND!" well yeah the actual particles are very hard. But the bonding is where it gets tricky. If there is contaminants or just other factors that inhibit the bond then it really wont matter how hard the particles are. I can glue diamonds to my car with elmers. But that doesnt mean that I cant take them off with a shamwow just because the diamonds are harder than my piece of cloth. The bond is everything.





TotalDbag said:
I'll bet you $10 that it'll come off. DLC is tougher than aluminum. The scratches is actually the coke can getting rubbed off on the DLC, not the other way around.
Click to expand...

Well thats half true. The material used (DLC) is very hard. But even though the material itself is hard it sometimes doesnt stick as well as people would hope so it can be scratched off due to the bonding process not always being nominal. So even though the aluminum didnt actually scratch the dlc, it could have removed it if the bonding was poor. Ive had numerous knives with DLC that scratch in very short order. There is this myth in the world that softer materials cant damage materials that are harder than they are. This just isnt the case. It just takes more effort for them to do so.
 
Last edited:
PURPLEDC said:
Well thats half true. The material used (DLC) is very hard. But even though the material itself is hard it sometimes doesnt stick as well as people would hope so it can be scratched off due to the bonding process not always being nominal. So even though the aluminum didnt actually scratch the dlc, it could have removed it if the bonding was poor. Ive had numerous knives with DLC that scratch in very short order. There is this myth in the world that softer materials cant damage materials that are harder than they are. This just isnt the case. It just takes more effort for them to do so.
Click to expand...

I'll still take the bet.
 
TotalDbag said:
I'll bet you $10 that it'll come off. DLC is tougher than aluminum. The scratches is actually the coke can getting rubbed off on the DLC, not the other way around.
Click to expand...

Hum. I hadn't considered that. We gave it a good hand rub but the stuff didn't come off. *shrug*
 
My guess? They do it the same way Boker did the Anso Haddock DLC, it has a very similar finish. What they did was stonewash the blade first, than apply a very thin DLC coating so that the stonewashing was still visible, but blackened.
 
oharal said:
Hum. I hadn't considered that. We gave it a good hand rub but the stuff didn't come off. *shrug*
Click to expand...

I think someone in another thread said wd40 would do the trick. Though I'm not completely sure.
But anyway, if the DLC is still on the blade, it'll probably come off with use. Because I did the same thing with my blur. It wouldn't come off with a hand rub, but after a weeks use, the scratches disappeared.
 
oharal said:
Hum. I hadn't considered that. We gave it a good hand rub but the stuff didn't come off. *shrug*
Click to expand...

It's aluminum on the DLC, the DLC didn't scratch. I've done this a dozen or more times. My 1596 is still partially silver from last weekend. It comes off.
 
I'm confused now. So softer materials can damage and scratch harder materials? So then aluminum anodization (Type II and III) being a different process than DLC filming is really basically the same. :confused:
Wow...
 
RevDevil said:
I'm confused now. So softer materials can damage and scratch harder materials? So then aluminum anodization (Type II and III) being a different process than DLC filming is really basically the same. :confused:
Wow...
Click to expand...

Yea, that confused me too. Usually science is pretty accurate.
 
With that theory, I'm going to go scratch a diamond with some talc.(softest mineral on earth)
 
Well something to think about in my industry its not uncommon to have rubber completely rub thru steel so yes in some circumstances a softer material can do damage to a harder material. That being said I agree the dlc is probably stained with aluminum and will clean up fine .
 
nwmetalbug said:
Well something to think about in my industry its not uncommon to have rubber completely rub thru steel so yes in some circumstances a softer material can do damage to a harder material. That being said I agree the dlc is probably stained with aluminum and will clean up fine .
Click to expand...

I thought we were talking about scratching?? :confused:
 
It's true, I recently had scratches left in an M390 blade after cutting a banana.

On a serious note, there is some merit to softer materials causing wear, scratches or erosion to harder materials, it does usually take considerably more time and repetition for this to occur.

A couple of examples - a few months ago I dug out a 7' yukka from my garden, I left a titanium watch on thinking it would be fine.
After wrestling the yukka out of the ground I noticed that the edges of the yukka leaves scratched up my watch pretty good.

A knife related example. Kydex sheaths scratching blades.
It also happened with a zytel sheath and my Fallkniven A1.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top