BT-2 Coating
- Benchmade proprietary BT-2 Teflon coating looks very nice (for those happy times before you start using the blade) & as the manufacturer claims it exceeds by 4000% the standard corrosion resistance requirement for stainless steel knives, also Teflon as one of the most slippery substances, thus the coating should add some to the knife's cutting ability. Having 2 Nimravi, stripped and BT2 coated, I have to say I can't tell any advantage of the BT2 in terms of cutting. Sometimes I feel that non coated blade would've been better to clean, especially when it is polished. Anyways, the coating tends to wear off & very easy to scratch. As of this moment Benchmade doesn't offer refinishing, but they may provide this option in the future. However this is less likely with the introduction of the new coatings and the demand for the BT2 refurbishing doesn't seem to be all that overwhelming :) Rather the opposite, folks are asking to forget about it. You can check Benchmade FAQ for more info. Other than that, all I can say is that after first use BT2 will look like hell :) Theoretically Teflon penetrates the pores in metal, thus still protecting the blade even when worn from the surface. Beat up look is fine with me on the worker knife, but in general I'd really love to have more durable coating. Click here to see my trusty 710 after 1.5 years of use. Actually the coating looks worse than on the pic, just the net of small scratches doesn't show on the pic well, but more or less you get the idea.
Boron Carbide coating
- In 2001 Benchmade included a new coating in their assortment - Boron Carbide(BC) by BodyCote, for the reference BodyCote also offers additional Hard Chrome(HC) layer under BC to improve corrosion resistance. The first blade to receive the new coating in BM lineup was Osborne 770. Overall everyone's very positive about Boron Carbide. Here's a link to the reference thread on the bladeforums. Ideally we'd get 710 and AXIS AFCK with BC coating instead of BT2 :)I've decided that it would've taken too long to just sit and wait for the ideals, and did it myself. Speaking precisely, I've sent my 710 blade along with the other 2 (Ares HSSR and one more Nimravus, mirror polished) to BodyCote. Got them back in couple weeks, for the curious minds - here's the picture. 710 has BC+HC over bead blast finish, 770 that had it's blade replaced by BM has BC over satin finish, and finally Ares and Nimravus have BC+HC over mirror polished finish. You can see the difference in appearance. Overall BC over bead blast is darker, non reflective, but harder to clean. As of durability, I don't have much data yet, but will post it here as soon as I have something. For more info on BodyCote and BC coating check Nimravus review and the Knife Modifications section. However, later bodycote stopped taking orders from individual customers. So, that's not an option anymore. There's another problem with the coating process, or may be there was. In short, I strongly suspect that 58.3HRC hardness that my BC coated M2 blade showed in 2009 was related or caused by the application of Boron Carbide coating. Especially that another M2 blade was 60HRC. May be I am wrong, but the evidence and facts indicate otherwise.
Last updated - 05/19/19