Forging, blacksmithing
Another finish that I know people like, which also looks great on polished and smooth finished metals that might look very nice on your knives would be rust bluing.
There is an expedited version of this old method, that does not take as long as the oxidation process of real rust bluing and is done in a very similar fashion to parkerizing.
Rust bluing-
Parkerizing -
You can get bluing and parkerizing solutions online and do it all at home. Its all just a phosphorus acid etch process followed by a sealing process that involves boiling water. Anodizing aluminum is very similar, with the use of sulfuric acid water mix. You can even use food coloring to dye it, even partially in fades like an easter egg before boil sealing it. I'd imagine that the same could be done with parkerizing and rust bluing. You have to degrease and clean the parts well, so you could technically mask the coating from places, if you wanted to, or do multiple layers, with some masked, so some of it shows up darker/ lighter for patterns or logos, etc.
Another finish that I know people like, which also looks great on polished and smooth finished metals that might look very nice on your knives would be rust bluing.
There is an expedited version of this old method, that does not take as long as the oxidation process of real rust bluing and is done in a very similar fashion to parkerizing.
Rust bluing-
Parkerizing -
You can get bluing and parkerizing solutions online and do it all at home. Its all just a phosphorus acid etch process followed by a sealing process that involves boiling water. Anodizing aluminum is very similar, with the use of sulfuric acid water mix. You can even use food coloring to dye it, even partially in fades like an easter egg before boil sealing it. I'd imagine that the same could be done with parkerizing and rust bluing. You have to degrease and clean the parts well, so you could technically mask the coating from places, if you wanted to, or do multiple layers, with some masked, so some of it shows up darker/ lighter for patterns or logos, etc.
