Hey all!  I'm pretty new to this, so I hope this isn't a dumb question.

I have a guy at work that wants me to make him a knife.  Not sure why (like I said, I'm pretty new to this!)  Anyway, he wants some Rambo/Crocodile Dundee enormous bowie knife.  I found some cool blanks at texas knife supply that will work for him, but he wants the blade to be black on the flat parts with the bevel the shiny steel.  I hope I'm making sense.  I thought about bluing the blade, but I'm not sure if this will make it super black.  Do any of you more experienced bladesmiths do this, and if so, how?  I think he's going for the Rambo III knife look, if you know what I mean.  Any help would be appreciated!

Joe

I believe that is called a black oxide coating. No idea how they do it.

Hey Joe   I'm sure not a pro but I have used birchwood casey cold blue on a muzzleloader and it turned out black should work on carbon steel.Just thinkin! that generaly gits Me in trouble! C-Ya Bob

Prairieboy,

Where do you get that stuff?  Is it fairly easy to apply?

Is the knife blank high carbon steel or stainless?  If it's not stainless there are a number of treatments that will get close to black.  Browning it would probably give the best result, provided you put the blade in boiling water between coats.
Some info:
http://tradgang.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=110;t=001253;p=2

If it's stainless steel, well, someone else will have to help there.