Effects of interlayer and the combination of different coating methods on the mechanical and corrosion behaviors of TiN and CrN coated on 420 stainless steel have been studied. STS 420 specimen were tempered at $300^{circ}C$ for 1 hr in vacuum furnace. The TiN and CrN thin film with 2 ${mu}m$ thickness were coated by arc ion plating and DC magnetron sputtering following the formation of interlayer for pure titanium and chromium with 0.2 ${mu}m$ thickness. The microstructure and surface analysis of the specimen were conducted by using SEM, XRD and roughness tester. Mechanical properties such as hardness and adhesion also were examined. XRD patterns of TiN thin films showed that preferred TiN (111) orientation was observed. The peaks of CrN (111) and $Cr_2N$ (300) were only observed in CrN thin films deposited by arc ion plating. Both TiN and CrN deposited by arc ion plating had the higher adhesion and hardness compared to those formed by magnetron sputtering. The specimen of TiN and CrN on which interlayer deposited by magnetron sputtering and thin film deposited by arc ion plating had the highest adhesion with 22.2 N and 19.2 N. respectively. TiN and CrN samples shown the most noble corrosion potentials when the interlayers were deposited by using magnetron sputtering and the metal nitrides were deposited by using arc ion plating. The most noble corrosion potentials of TiN and CrN were found to be approximately -170 and -70 mV， respectively.