With the ATR and no doubt eventually other titanium-handled knives down the road, I thought that I would mention a couple of ways to protect this soft metal from cosmetic damage.
Ventura, a watch company in Switzerland, uses Nitrogen surface hardening on its titanium-cased watches, bringing the surface hardness to 1300 HV (Vicker's scale). I know of a few people with these watches and all have yet to report a single scratch.
But even better (possibly) is the Keronite surface hardening method for Ti, Al, and Mg. "KERONITE is a process of refractory ceramic oxide layers formation by oxidation of substrate material caused by high-current electro-chemical reactions in electrolyte." Gobbeldygook aside, it results in a ceramic layer on the metal with a hardness of 1300 to 2000 HV. As a final step, it may give Almite, Tufram, etc. a run for their money.
Here is their webaddress so you can look them up yourself:
http://www.isle-coat.com/
http://www.microncoatings.it/keronite.html
BTW, the Keronite coating also works with MMC!
Surface hardening for Titanium and Aluminum.
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