can indi knife makers use/work with H1?

[pirate04life]

forgive my ignorance, i have used knives my whole life but have just recently started learning about them in detail. i fell in love with the design/usage of the spyderco rock salt but lost my chance at owning one due to it being discontinued. i was wondering if it was possible to get a custom knife made using H1 with similar specs to the rock salt. really just looking at my options to make an educated decision. all info is appreciated =)

 

[butcher_block]

to my knowing makers can not buy H1 as of yet
i would like to get some to play with but so far no go

 

[Jon Walker]

N680 is similar to h1 and just as rust resistant. It is available from alpha knife supply. WWW.alphaknifesupply.com I made a knife out of it. Benchmade is using it instead of h1. It is great stuff!

 

[Chris Meyer]

Those steels are similar in that they contain Nitrogen, but there are differences.

H1 is reportedly precipitation hardening, so no heat treating is needed after you grind a blade out of it.

According to A.G. Russell's site;

H1 Steel

H1 steel is a stainless steel that is precipitation-hardened and contains nitrogen instead of carbon, which cannot rust.

Carbon-0.15%, Chromium-14.00-16.00%, Manganese-2.00%, Molybdenum-0.50-1.50%, Nickel-6.00-8.00%, Nitrogen-0.10%, Phosphorus-0.04%, Silicon-3.00-4.50%, Sulfur-0.03% ​

The N680 on Chuck's site may be as rust resistant at H1, but according to the Alpha site, it does need to be heat treated.