Is the black coating on most blades ceramic? Like in Laser marking of tools...
Thanks Jdee

There are as many coatings as there are steels.

Kershaw uses alot of Tungsten DLC (Diamond Like Coating) in black . Similar coatings to a Tungsten DLC, is Crystalline Diamond, Titankote C10, Balzers Balinit Diamond, Titankote DLC, etc

Benchmade uses a proprietary coating called BT2 on some items

Some blades like 1095 are just powder coated, or coated with a phosphate black or black oxide

Kershaw has used a rainbow Titanium Oxide coating similiar to the rainbow Titanium coating found on Sig Sauer's P238 Rainbow.

Overall, my gut feeling is that you will see coatings similar to, or different flavors of a TiN coating which is Titanium Nitride. By adding or removing different properties for hardness, lubricity, and aesthetics you can be all over the place.

Also some manufacturers are Cerakoting, and Duracoating blades, which is basically a hard paint with epoxies and ceramics in them.

Here is a good resource for aesthetics and wear resistance (due to surface hardness after plating).

www.ionbond.com/mm/LQ_Ionbond_Brochure_DecoSport_EN.pdf

You can then look at the colors available and see alot of similarities to household items that have these basic coatings.

When you see Kershaw using a Tungsten DLC, that is a very high end coating, and the ones in the pdf above are the lower end coatings.

Thanks, they are getting fancy with these coatings:lol:
I just did a quick test on a beat up SOG shop knife.
The cermark seems to work fine.
Now I just need some Pearl White cermark to play with:)
Jdee