Cruwear PM2 in coastal Florida as EDC?

Pcexbird said:
Small amount of freshwater the Cruwear must be able to put up with... I do tons of camping and my knives get WET. I work as a park ranger so I'm always outside. Not by saltwater but out in the elements. Does the Cruwear fit the bill?
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I have a cruwear custom that I used a lot in the past. I'm in Ontario, Canada and camping season gets pretty wet and damp. That knife got dunked in the water more than several times, and I never babied it, just wiped off the water and called it a day. It's really impressive how "stain resistant" properly heat treated cruwear can be. That being said, heat treat plays a massive part in the performance of "tool steels" like 3v, cruwear and m4. I can't say for certain how well Spyderco cruwear will hold up to wet conditions because I know nothing about the heat treat they use. In general, a well heat treated cruwear blade will use several lower temperature temper and cryo cycles after initially heating it up to austenizing temps. This prevents the formation of secondary carbides precipitating out and taking away from the chromium "in solution" that makes cruwear and 3v so stainless.

Unfortunately production knife makers often use a high temperature temper cycle, because they like coating the blades with DLC coatings which are applied at a higher temperature. This would potentially ruin the temper of a cruwear knife that's been tempered at a lower temp and make the whole steel soft. The downsides to this are a pretty big loss in toughness and a loss of corrosion resistance. This is the same reason why the delta 3v that CPK knives make is so highly sought after, as it uses the same low temperature temper cycle. I have a PM2 in cruwear and I've mostly used it in drier conditions, so I haven't tested out the stain resistance of Spyderco's heat treat. But I can say that it sharpens like a dream, deburrs quickly and holds a very stable edge. I lent it to a friend once and it fell into a lake, he blow dried it afterwards and gave it to me a week later. I opened it up expecting to find some pitting but didn't find any signs of corrosion at all. Whatever heat treat they use seems to work ok at a minimum for corrosion resistance.
 
I live in South Florida. I keep a beater knife for when I'll be outside sweating a lot, or near the beach. I keep my nicer knives for dry days (days I'm not outside sweating a ton or working hard).

My sweat will cause Aus 8 to rust, so I definitely don't carry my carbon folders on "wet" days.
 
I just went on a little splurge (first time in a while), bought a CruCarta PM2, then the purple sprint came out and I got that also. Gonna keep the micarta clean and I look forward to trying out some CruWear :) win win, especially if it’s similar to S3XV and S45vn, only a little tougher and easier to sharpen! Not too worried about corrosion, I’ll keep the blade clean
 
Tampa Bay Area, never ever had any issues with my PM2 Cruwear, nor with my Gail Bradley 1 M4 or Rat 1 in D2.
‘I do not put any oil on the blades regardless using it or storing it. I regularly use my PM2 because I like it a lot, if I cut something I would clean the blade at home. No patina. I can’t stand patina anyway so if I see any patina looking like stains I use just Flitz to clean the blade. It will probably happen twice a year…

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