What are your preferred blade finishes ?

Wolverine666

Wolverine666

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There's so many blade finishes these days it seems.

Stone washed , bead blasted , coated (DLC , TiNi , etc) , Satin finish etc. And I'm sure there are quite a bit more I'm not even aware of yet.

Anyway , which are your favorite finishes ? And on which knives ?
 
Depends on the knife. Mainly black Cerakote but Mirror Polish or even stuff like BlackWash and Fallout/Apocalyptic.
 
Stonewash on pretty much everything crk, bm, bradfords, zt. Only coating I find myself attracted to these days is the DLC on Rocksteads.

I stray from bms bk coating after abusing one. Also dont mind coatings on HC steels/steels that have low chromium for the added protection. But then again Id prefer a nice patina. I wouldn't mind giving a powder coat a try.
 
Wolverine666 said:
Is there any benefit to mirror polishing ? Or is it strictly for looks ?
Click to expand...

Totally! A mirror polished surface has less resistance/friction, but geometry matters more so. A mirror finish also has less surface area and is said to be more corrosion resistant than stonewashed or other rough finishes.

My preferred finishes are hand-rubbed satin, polished DLC, or standard polish.
 
Satin finish for me if it's an available option.Stonewashed will do as well.I just like the natural look of steel.Every stainless has it's limitations to rust resistance but bead blast and coatings I've seen surface rust easier (regardless of chromium content) due to the unsealed pores in the steel.Satin does a pretty good job at shielding away surface rust...I guess some don't because it doesn't look 'tactical'.
 
Stonewashed is my favorite. It's not really a rough finish but more a type of polish. Bead blast on the other hand is rough and provides many nucleation points for rust to start and get a foothold. This is probably my least favorite as even very stain resistant steel will begin to rust eventually.

I'm not real big on coatings because they almost all eventually look bad on a user knife, though I don't have experience with them all. DLC holds up pretty well and most marks are actually material you've cut that got on the blade and a can be scrubbed off. And unless something has changed with the coating, it's not a rust preventative. I had a knife with DLC and pulled it out one day and it has patches of rust on the blade. It was like the rust grew right thru the molecular gaps of the coating. The rust cleaned off and the coating was still intact but it seems like if it happened enough and the steel began to micro pit, that there would be no structural support for the coating and it would flake away. But this was back when DLC coatings on knives was fairly new and I haven't heard this happening in a long time so maybe they changed something with it. I would want DLC if I had to have a coating but would prefer nothing. Maybe someone else knows if some of other coatings are even more durable and provide more protection.
 
I'm not very knowledgeable about blade coatings. But here's a sub-question for this thread :

Cerakote vs DLC ...which is superior ?
 
My preferred would be: hand finished/rubbed satin, beadblasted, stonewashed, DLC

not in any specific order btw.

I like some brand specific finishes too like Hinderer's "working finish," Busse's "competition finish," and Andy Roy's "spalted" to name a few.

I really do not like the heavily painted finishes. One example is TOPS.
 
What would you want a coating for? Hard to say which is superior unless we know what your main criteria is. Something that doesn't show wear? Reducing friction? Protection from rust? Light suppression? I find that last one humorous but apparently some want a coating to help conceal a blade so it doesn't glint or reflect light. Guess you need to be one of those high speed, low drag special forces operator that the government will deny knowledge of if captured?? Or play lots of Halo? :D
 
I hate scratches on blades. Not saying that it's normal, but that's the way it is.
I'll take stonewash, as it seems to hide scratches better than anything else that I have found.
 
I love the Blackwash on Kershaw/ZTs. Hides scratches quite well, and looks nifty too...

Or petina'd carbon steels. Mirror polish looks nice for like 2 minutes after you buy it, but the scratches show like crazy (and I'm not exactly easy on my knives)
 
Mirror finish, but that's a no go for a conscript like me. So the mirror finished blades stay at home and a satin finished one follows me to my training.
 
Fun Fact: I was a U.S. Soldier in the 1980's. Most of the personal knives outside of Ontario and Kabar were satin finished. Running a lighter under the blade coated it with a thin layer of soot. We called it "carbonizing" the blade for anyone that wanted a temporary black blade.
 
I like stonewash the best. I think it's functional (hides scratches) and is aesthetically pleasing in the way it catches the light.

I like the DLC coating on my CS Hold out 2 LE with the brown g10. It's shiny and smooth, reminds me of a really nice charcoal bluing.
 
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