rainbow finish?

[Dabbsterinn]

I'm looking for some information on how to get that multicoloured pattern on knives and swords, im thinking about attempting to get that pattern on a decorative sword i recently made and will post picture of it when im done

can anyone tell me how this is done or direct me to some posts showing or explaining how it's done?

[Maillemaker]

That particular finish is called titanium nitride: an extremely hard ceramic material.  Usually, only a very thin layer is applied, but it has to be commercially done.

 

If you are making a decorative sword, why not try using a blowtorch to draw different temper colors across the steel?  Of course, if you hardened the sword, this would cause different hardness depending on the color.

[Dabbsterinn]

i had something like that in mind, i was thinking about just passing it over my forge, seeing how i don't have a blowtorch, i'll do that after i polish the blade, it's currently a bit rusty, i was a careless fool and forgot it outside

[Bentiron1946]

When I worked in a gun shop we sent some gun parts out to have "color case hardening" done, it had that look of oil on water finish, looked pretty good. Would that work on a blade or would it make it too hard?

[Dabbsterinn]

i tried it on an old, dull kitchen knife that was to be thrown away, it came out fairly nice, all that i have left is to put a new handle on it and test the sharpness to see if the edge is affected, but that won't matter with the sword, mostly because it could never be sharper than a butterknife due to the steel i used for it, i think nearly all carbon has been burnt out of it, it's just going to hang on my wall as a decoration

i'll add pictures of the sword when im done polishing the blade to nearly a mirror finish