Hey y’all. Just wanted to pick your brain on parkarizing on 1095 and other high carbon steel.
Making knives for field dressing and gutting.
Does parkarizing really make a difference and should I go with zinc or maganese parkarizing.


Also wanted to post and update picture of my most recent knife. I’ve been making stead progress from a knife I posted maybe 6 months ago!

Parkerizing doesn't perform well on a knife in my experience.

What’s the blade coating used on my 1970’s KaBar and the 1940’s USN combat knife (KaBar)? That WW2 knife blade looks parkerized.

What is the point in parkerizing? Why do it?

In theory parkarizing would help keep a blade like 1095 or 1080 from rusting. A way to turn less expensive metal into a better preforming steel. I see good videos on YouTube. But I was curious if anyone here in the forum had experience with it and if it really did what it in theory could.

You will have to sand or bead blast every part of it for it to work. Then tanks, chemicals, propane and you are left with a less than durable finish. There are better and less PITA finished these days such as Cerakote, Gun-Kote PVD and DLC. I just leave them in the white. A hunter who takes care of their gear will make sure the knife doesn't corrode.

It appears that some WW2 KaBars did have parkerized blades. My search turned up other info. I didn’t know that the Marines had gone away from the KaBar to a similar knife (OKC 3S) that serves two purposes - combat knife and bayonet. Looks pretty much like the old KaBar.

Reminds me of a funny story. We were doing bayonet training, guy down the line from me went to slash and it snapped the lug off his rifle. Bayonet came flying back and hit him in the face. Needed a few stitches.