Alantic Salt

C

Cliff Stamp

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This is basically a Spyderco Rescue with a H1 blade, a stainless steel which is actually stainless meaning it doesn't simply resist corrosion it is immune to it even in extreme conditions, extended salt water or food acid soaks do nothing to the blade.

What you get is a very large grip ergonomically contoured, a large opening hole and a large blade with a very aggressive serration pattern which is still fluid enough to cut a piece of hemp rope with the same amount of force as as a properly sharpened Opinel.

The back lock is solid and secure, no issues even after extended use. The only real concern is that white knucking type releases can happen in some grips if the lock release is accidently compressed so work with it to determine what grip positions are so sensitive.

In terms of general utility this is a fairly focused pattern with no point and a fully serrated edge and thus does not lend itself well to a lot of tasks such as various types of food work, wood carving, or precision point cutting. The blade does however offer a very aggressive slicing profile with a very high level of edge retention, especially attractive in abrasive and/or dirty materials.

I gave it to my brother who carried it for several months while working in construction, it was the only folder I have seen him carry which stayed sharp and would not fail to soon cut anything. Even with high end steels, cutting dirty material blunts them fast, however the Salt kept going and would only be sharpened very infrequently, essentially ever couple of weeks to a month when I inspected it.

The serrations also proved to be fairly durable, some of them rolled a little but as noted they frequently cut very hard and/or used material, and there were no large problems with breaks and the knife is still doing strong and has developed on issues with the lock. The large grip gets frequent praise for the ability to work with gloves and the ease of opening of the hole for similar reasons.

I was never one to look for serrations and for a pure daily carry EDC I would generally prefer a straight edge, however the ability of this knife to keep functioning in a very rough enviroment and the added strength of the tip might make it attractive outside of its promoted role as a "rescue" style knife, which it would also do quite well.

Ref :

http://www.physics.mun.ca/~sstamp/knives/alantic_salt.html

-Cliff
 
Yes, it is an interesting knife, I always thought of it as more of a niche market, but after seeing it used by my brother, and doing much more work with the various Spyderco serration patterns over the last few months my opinion on them has been changed.

-Cliff
 
Great review, Cliff. Great mention on the edge-retention, too. Made me realize why it took ambidextrous pocket clips to move me into the world of high-end knives.

My Atlantic Salt SE's gone through cutting wires that rolled the edge of my Howling Rat and chipped the edge of my Merlin and Yojimbo with just a little denting. It's also cut roots still in the ground and pried them free from rocks and mud. Pretty much what any other stainless-bladed FRN-handled folder can do, but most everyone fears to do with 'higher-end' folders.

To read that it survived your brother, though, makes me realize that I haven't yet become to use my Atlantic Salt. Hopefully, the knife and I will live through the challenge.
 
thombrogan said:
...but most everyone fears to do with 'higher-end' folders.
Click to expand...

There is that, I don't understand pay more = do less. Help a friend put on his winter tires a few days back, the 4-way wasn't long enough so he hooked it over the end of a socket wrench and basically had a three foot bar on the socket. I asked him, are you sure you want to do that. Damn straight, I spent enough on it.

TBFH, no worries about offending me, I thought it was funny as did Pat.

-Cliff
 
The success of the Atlantic over the Paramilitary in the staple encounters inspired me to give my Salt 1 (plain edge) a harsher test. The plain edge is supposed to be softer, but I went for it anyway.

I briefly looked around for a knife destroyer, and found a Magnesium block firestarter with a flint running down one edge.

First I scraped little magnesium chips off, taking a layer off of the whole edge of the block. Then I used the edge of the blade on the flint, rather than the spine as is recommended by the firestarter instructions.

I did this with both the Salt one and my Paramilitary. Both survived without permanent damage. No chips on either.

The affect on the edges was not surprising. The Salt 1 wore down more, while the Paramilitary bent over. Both were well blunted in their respective ways and would take some work to bring back.

I should have counted strokes, but it didn't actually take too long. The Salt 1 sharpened up again in a few minutes, returning to its smooth razor sharp edge. The Paramilitary seemed like it was sharpening faster at first, but that illusion went away quickly when I realized it only got mostly restored, and that familiar and annoying tiny little burr wouldn't go away. I guess the edge bent back into shape some, but after an equal amount of time it was clear that the Paramilitary was going to require a lot more time to get rid of that last little burr. It's very small, but persistant.

I am going to try push cuts on some wire next, but it will be a while because right now I don't feel like sharpening the Paramilitary until it is back to equivalent burr-free sharpness. The Salt did well enough, but this was an abrassive test so it should have lost out severely. Pushing through a staple or wire involves virtually no rubbing, while a flint and metal scraping has plenty of it.

Edit:
I just re-read this, and I didn't note that I used the flint multiple times (about 10 on each), not just once to light the magnesium.
 
That is the main problem with high wear resistance but low strength, little wear but lots of deformation, end result no real gain. Yes you might lose less metal, and yes you can straighten the edge, but that deformed metal is really weak now and will bend again much weaker and repeated bendings will induce fracture from fatigue. A stand out on low hardness and high wear being functional I have seen in slicing cardboard, it is soft enough so that it won't directly act to roll the edge (in a gross sense), but abraisve enough so that it can induce enough wear to readily tell apart VG-10 vs S30V for example. This however is only for slicing sharpness, if you look at push cutting performance they are again the same as it seems to be stronger correlated to hardness.

-Cliff
 
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