How do you rate coatings like DLC, PVD, etc?

Not sure but I think it's a DLC coated Spyderco serrated police. I've carried it daily as a work/construction knife for 30 years or better and it still has about 60 percent of its coating on it but has lost some. I've pretty much used it to cut anything that I needed it to in a pinch. I see one for sale every once in a while, but they are 3 or 4 times what I originally paid back then. I'm retired now so I still carry it but more lovingly these days. It's a great coating whatever Spyderco used back then and wouldn't mind having a new one.
 
Back when I first got into the hobby I couldn’t stand coated knives. Now I find myself gravitating towards them to some degree. I love the fact that they pick up and show wear easily. Hinderer’s battle black is 🍆
 
tiguy7 said:
I love coated blades; the harder the better. The hardest is TiAlN (Titanium Aluminum Nitride) at 92 HRC. This is a Charcoal colored coat, not too pretty but wear resistant. The next hardest TiCN (Titanium CarboNitride) at 88HRC. It is dull Purple in color. Then comes ZrN (Zirconium Nitride) at 85HRC. It is Champagne colored. After that we have TiN (Titanium Nitride) at 82HRC. It has a bright Gold color. TDLC (Tungsten Diamond Like Carbon) or DLC is a Tungsten Carbide coating at 72HRC. It has a shiny black color. All of the aforementioned coatings are applied by (PVD) Physical Vapor Deposition in a vacuum chamber. They are ceramic coatings that are used to increase the wear resistance of tooling and knives.
BuckCote blades utilize some of these coating and are chisel sharpened so that the micro edge is ceramic.
I use these coated blades as finishing steels to touch up my micro edges.
Cerakote is paint with added ceramic particles. The bond is not strong compared to PVD coatings. Parkerize coating is a Phosphate dip that slows red corrosion. Not much abrasion resistance.
The tool coatings can be applied in layers to take advantage of varying physical properties such as lubricity, heat resistance, wear resistance,
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Awesome info. Thanks so much.
 
Completely depends on the knife and manufacturer. Some of the coatings can be extremely tough - Hinderer’s black stonewashed and ZTs black stonewashed, for instance. Some coatings make my skin crawl though, like Kershaw‘s grey stuff on their cheap knives and most straight flat black without a stonewash.
 
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