Thursday, September 18, 2008

DLC Debut

These were bead blasted before coating with DLC (Diamond Like Carbon) so they have a matte finish. This is my first try at having any of my stuff coated and I am more than pleased with the results. It is very hard and I am quite impressed. A razor blade skates right off it and leaves no scratch....amazing stuff. I think it's safe to say that we will be seeing a bunch of it coming up. I may do the next pieces over a bright stonewashed surface though so it will not be so matted out. Maybe some patterns... ;)

28 comments:

Auto Nut said...

Any chance of us seeing a black coated tool in the future?
Barry G.

griffey said...

Ooooooooh. My.

After drooling over SOPT's for years, and never getting one, now you throw these in my face. They are gorgeous.

And I want!

Peter Atwood said...

I just sent a couple dozen out yesterday so hopefully will have them back and finished in about three weeks or so.

Anonymous said...

..very nice! Is that like the tenifer on the glock slide?

Anonymous said...

DLC looks good, but I like the original steel. I think you will have to make both.

Rick said...

I just wanted to add that I like the matte non shiny finish on these.

Auto Nut said...

I agree with Rick, the DLC coating over a bead blast finish looks great, I don't like the shiny DLC look.

B Gibson

DB said...

Very cool! I'm excited to see what kind of patterning you can do with this stuff.

Anonymous said...

Peter, Those haven't been sharpened right? or does the coating go all the way to the edge?

One other q, for the DLC over bead-blast, do you have any concerns about the durability of the underlying beadblast? Since many of us have brushed off the bead blast of our users with scotchbrite pads, I'm wondering if that layer of bead blast might be a weak link over time.

Peter Atwood said...

Joel, correct, they have not been sharpened in the pic. I doubt there is any difference at all in the durability between the blasted versus non blasted. If you read up on the DLC process the bonds are incredibly strong with the substrate.

Anonymous said...

Have you given any thought to maybe running for President??? You have my vote!!! Man when the Lord was giving out knife and tool making genes you seem to have gotten about a million doses.. You are the master!!!

ED

Peter Atwood said...

All the money in the world wouldn't be enough for me to have THAT job. :D

Anonymous said...

I am intrigued, but yeah too matted out for my taste. Though I wouldn't turn down the opportunity to own one.

Anonymous said...

I think I have figured it out. We just need to force you to choose between the Oval Office and the run of Solar Arc IIs!!!! :-P

Anonymous said...

I was just drooling over the pics of the original size pry-thing you have over at http://www.atwoodknives.com/home/11970960.php
and I couldn't help but notice the combo texture of rough on the face and back, but smooth on the grinds and sides. You also mentioned how the dlc carries through the finish underlying the coating. Any thoughts of putting this sort of combo texture on future msopt (or anything else for that matter) before dlc'ing them? That could really look awesome.

Peter Atwood said...

No chance I'm afraid. That texture is the texture of the raw bar of steel straight form the mill. It very seldom comes through with a texture like that though.

Rick said...

Is it going to be difficult to sharpen these with the DLC coating applied? Maybe that will be a measure of its toughness?

Cuso said...

The sharpening process should remove the coating on the edge. NO coated blade has a coated edge. Reminds me of INFI steel.

Anonymous said...

I love the look of the DLC coated tools. Could you possibly give me contact info for somewhere I can get some of my previously purchased atwood tools coated with DLC? What does a coating like that cost? Thanks for posting the pics.

Anonymous said...

I love the bright colored cord wrap.

Anonymous said...

Peter.
How much does it cost to have these coated? After seeing this I was thinking my B-Prybar XL would look sliming in Black :)

Did you send it off to the NC place to have the DLC?

Thanks!

Anonymous said...

Hi Peter
Any chance you can leak us some details on this dlc coating?
We've been reading up on dlc while biting our nails waiting for them to show up available. Is this by chance true (full-on engineering craziness) ta-C? or at least nearly ta-C?
I imagine most of the things any of us have familiarity with that we think of as dlc are likely some sort of a-C:H:Me with enough graphite added to reduce the cost for mass production. (For all it's awesome properties, the few blades I've run across that claim dlc seem to view it as a cosmetic option. I'm sure there are exceptions, I just haven't stumbled across them yet.) I know you wouldn't go down that particular road, but I suspect that truely pure ta-C may be cost-prohibitive? If so, what seems to be the best balance for your work? Would love any details you can share (even if they're subject to chance later).

Peter Atwood said...

This is what IonBond calls Tribocoat40. They have another coating that is similar but a little more expensive that honestly did not sound like it would have any significant advantage over this one except it is maybe slightly harder. I could not get anyone there to give me any meaningful argument why this one would not be perfectly sufficient for the purpose at hand. Namely, to increase scratch and corrosion resistance and as a cosmetic finish. I've yet to see a scratch on the DLC MSOPTHing in my pocket and I'm just impressed as hell. I'll have a few keychain test tools coming up with it and I'm curious to see how they fare on the keys for a few weeks.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the info Peter!

As someone who lives on the coast, corrosion resistance is an even bigger plus than than scratch resistance for me. But scratch resistance comes a close second, especially for something that's cosmetically black. :)

I'm curious how it fares in the low friction dept as well. If I only could get my hands on one of these and one of those talonite msopt to do a comparison... ;)

Thanks again for the info Peter. Can't wait to see these when they're ready.

Anonymous said...

For the curious...
TriboBond40
a-C:H:Me
Technology PVD
Hardness (HV) 800-1800
Friction coefficient 0.1-0.2
Thickness (µm) Up to 10
Max. Temp. (C) 400
E Modulus (GPa) 80-200

Anonymous said...

Hello Peter - Do you have an idea on the price of the DLC/SOPT.

Cheers

Peter Atwood said...

$5-10 more, not sure yet. Might do some patterned ones too but they would be more, we'll see what happens.

iconoclast said...

here's another vote in favor of seeing some patterned dlc'd atwoods!
can't wait to see some examples.