H1 serrations

J

Johnny brown

Joined
Jun 3, 2017
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I was recently watching some YouTube videos and Eric Glasser said that serrated H1 cuts longer than anything they've ever tested due to its work hardening properties. That's crazy to think, not saying he's lying but wow over ANYTHING! just wanna make sure he didn't mis speak or anything. Just wanna make sure this is true if anyone knows. If so damn. Also anyone who owns the autonomy how do you like it and does the orange one not have a lock because in the pictures on Blade HQ they do but in the video review the orange one doesn't have a lock are there two versions of the orange or what?
 
I don't doubt it, but for practical reasons I have to question what was being cut and the quality of those cuts.
 
jpm2 said:
I don't doubt it, but for practical reasons I have to question what was being cut and the quality of those cuts.
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I believe those are the results of their in-house CATRA testing. Also, if I recall correctly, it was the original Jumpmaster that scored that high. Though CATRA testing provides some great information, it is far from the "be all, end all" when testing for real world edge performance.

I'm not in any way suggesting that se H1 is not an excellent performer in real world use, because it is. I'm just saying that CATRA results are one thing and performance in the wild quite another.
 
That statement has been going around a lot lately(as far as I can tell), and it's probably true to a point. I just can't imagine such a thing. I mean look at maxamet or even M390 and M4.

By design serrations will stay sharp longer, what I'm curious about is if you'd put the same serrations on a M4 blade and put it through the same tests as H1, would H1 still beat it? A serrated H1 could take on a straight edged M4 I'd bet, but I don't know if I can believe it'd out rank M4 if they were both serrated.

That's my thoughts at least, and I'm just an enthusiast so take it as it is, an opinion.
 
I would bet m4 se would beat h1 se in catra testing, but there's things to me that make h1 more practical in se.

SE's seem more job specific relating to what is being cut, certain materials, rescue, etc.
SE's seem popular around water/salt water environments. SE's for emergency use might sit for weeks or more between uses. H1 guarantees you the same sharp edge no matter how long it sits, corrosive environment or not.
H1 is undoubtably tougher than m4, probably at any hardness. This makes fracture/breakage failure less likely with rough use.

All the above would influence my preference in rescue and emergency use.
As much as I prefer m4 99% of the time, SE H1 is probably more practical at times.
 
jpm2 said:
I would bet m4 se would beat h1 se in catra testing, but there's things to me that make h1 more practical in se.

SE's seem more job specific relating to what is being cut, certain materials, rescue, etc.
SE's seem popular around water/salt water environments. SE's for emergency use might sit for weeks or more between uses. H1 guarantees you the same sharp edge no matter how long it sits, corrosive environment or not.
H1 is undoubtably tougher than m4, probably at any hardness. This makes fracture/breakage failure less likely with rough use.

All the above would influence my preference in rescue and emergency use.
As much as I prefer m4 99% of the time, SE H1 is probably more practical at times.
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I agree that they both have their own purpose for sure, I mean I wouldn't use M4 as a dive knife, haha.

Apologies OP if I went a bit off track.
 
I think that the jury is in on two of the aspects that make serrations perform good or not so good. Surprisingly one of the first things they discovered was that the highly touted ZDP-189 blade steel turned out to have less than desirable results with serrated blades. It is so incredibly hard that it had brittleness properties which didn't bode well for SE.

On the other side of the equation there are other steels that make for really good Spyderedges that aren't known to be very good in comparison to some of your newer supersteels.

It's been my own experience that steels with good toughness properties tend to be good for Spyderedges. Take 440V ( S60V) for example>> you never heard a lot of bragging about it being an very good plain edged blade steel but I'm here to tell you from experience and hard use that 440V is a great steel for Spyderedges along with ATS-55, AUS-8 and even the older GIN-1.

There is one of the newer, premium blade steels that I really believe would be great for Spyderedges. I do believe that CTS-XHP would work well in Spyderedge. But I've yet to get to try XHP with teeth but I sure would like to. I'm also very curious as to whether or not LC200N would be good for Spyderedges being it is a nitrogen based steel like H-1 is.

One steel I've found to be good for plain edges and Spyderedges both is good ol' reliable VG-10. I've had great luck with it in both edge types. There aren't many blade steels that I've found to be great for both edge types but VG-10 is just outright dependable on both edge types.
 
McFeeli said:
By design serrations will stay sharp longer, what I'm curious about is if you'd put the same serrations on a M4 blade and put it through the same tests as H1, would H1 still beat it? A serrated H1 could take on a straight edged M4 I'd bet, but I don't know if I can believe it'd out rank M4 if they were both serrated.
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I don't know the answer to this question but it's far from inconceivable that H1 might outperform a steel like m4 (or especially something like m390 or s90v) in serrated form. Remember that on Spyderco's serrations the tips of those teeth take most of the force of a cut and the inclusive edge angle of the tips of the teeth is well under 20 degrees. That's a small contact area of steel that is ground VERY thin and some of the characteristics that make the high wear resistance steels perform well in pe might handicap them in serrated form. I'm just speculating but as JD pointed out, we do have some evidence of a high hardness/low toughness steel not working so well in serrated form.

**All that said, I would actually think that a steel like m4 would have pretty good properties for a serrated edge given the right HT.
 
Surfingringo said:
I don't know the answer to this question but it's far from inconceivable that H1 might outperform a steel like m4 (or especially something like m390 or s90v) in serrated form. Remember that on Spyderco's serrations the tips of those teeth take most of the force of a cut and the inclusive edge angle of the tips of the teeth is well under 20 degrees. That's a small contact area of steel that is ground VERY thin and some of the characteristics that make the high wear resistance steels perform well in pe might handicap them in serrated form. I'm just speculating but as JD pointed out, we do have some evidence of a high hardness/low toughness steel not working so well in serrated form.

**All that said, I would actually think that a steel like m4 would have pretty good properties for a serrated edge given the right HT.
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That's true I can see how that would make a difference. Nonetheless take something like Elmax that has the toughness and wear resistence and put it up against serrated H1. I just can't understand how it could beat it.

I'm no metallurgist so I could be way off base, but in my limited experience I wouldn't expect H1 to stand a chance against some of these steels, even while serrated. This is just from what I'd expect from certain steels.

Without legitimate testing it's not sensible to delve deeper into it because I can't say for fact. I'm not trying to take any merit out of what the folks at Spyderco found out, hell they ran their tests so I can't argue with the outcome.
 
I have owned both a m390 blade and maximent. Both are great and I think the m390 is slightly better. Never had a serrated version so its not a true comparison.

That said out of the many years I have carried a knife and used them, sometimes very hard use. Nothing has stood up to my cutting tasks like the serrated h1.
I think the salt dragonfly spyderco is the best actual use EDC knife you can get. THe serrations are smaller and the blade is thin so it slices pretty well. Comparing that to the Salt 2 or pacific's they have a deeper serration which is not as nice of a slicer.
Most of the stuff I actually use knives for serrations are fine. Sometimes I cut food with them and its never been a problem. I can slice a tomato with a salt 2 and it doesnt look like I ripped it apart with my hand. Sure cutting stuff like cheese wont be as nice as a FFG. Like most knife people I would have a few knives on me. Ideally a serrated knife for cutting most everything and another blade that's FFG for food like a SAK or endura as a example. That said the h1 serrated knives I cant speak highly enough of. If you know how to sharpen them they are a dream and IMO not any harder to sharpen then a standard blade (speaking of a spydie edge serration only) . Things like zip ties, hard corrugated plastic, Electrical conduit, double layered cardboard. All those things I find a serrated edge excels at. Sure they don't slice as neatly but, Rather have a knife on me that can take care of the difficult stuff that I am more likely to cut daily. Everyone's different. But in my personal experience h1 rules and in my real world out lasts both m390 and maximent.

The longer you have your h1, the better it gets. Use it, sharpen it and it just gets better and better.
 
This thread desperately needed some serrated pics

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I dont know if the below will ad some value but I hope it does.

Sal Glesser said:
Hi Mora,

H1 is not heat treated in the traditional way. The steel is work hardened in the manufacturing and processing of blades. Edge retention in the plain edge config would be about the steels that you listed. It does sharpen easily, and gets very sharp. In the serrated config, it will stay sharper longer than anything we've tested to date.

sal
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Paraphrasing here because since the Spyderco forum changed some info has been lost:

TazKristi wrote:H1 is a precipitation-hardened alloy. And yes, it is also work-hardened. Meaning that anything that you do that causes heat through friction will harden the steel further; it’s also important to note that tests have shown that it does not become brittle. The work-hardened properties of H1 have been proven by analysis independently performed by Crucible Specialty Metals. It is this that explains why an H1 blade with a SpyderEdge has better edge retention than it's PlainEdge counterpart. In the end, the analysis from Crucible found the Rc at the spine was 58, however at the edge it had increased in both the PlainEdge (to 65 Rc) and the SpyderEdge (to 68 Rc).

The Salt Series knives are being made and promoted to a market where corrosion resistance is important.

So, is H1 possibly just another flavor-of-the-month? Possibly, but hype can only go so far.

Kristi

Sal Glesser said:
Hi Me2,

Partially correct. The rolling process of binging the steel to the thicknesses that we require does in fact work harden the steel. Depending on the thickness required, it will generally be about Rc54+-. Then each grinding process adds to the work hardening process. Dick Barber at Crucible did a series of tests when we first began working with H1. As we, they too had many questions. After micro hardness testing from the edge to the spine, his conclusion was that each grinding process added to the hardness. That would be surface grinding, bevel grinding and sharpening, with the serrated edge bein harder at the edge than the plain edge by 3-5 Rc points. Hardness at the very edge was in many cases in the high 60's. We believe that accounts for the very high CATRA test results on serrated H1.

sal
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Sal Glesser said:
Hi HLite,

Tips are thin and will either break or bend why used for prying. Not a recommended activity for knives. For you to expect a tip to hold up to tough prying is, in my opinion unrealistic. I think if you were going to use one of our H1 knives for light prying, and you didn't want to eait for our fixed blades (still months away) I would suggest the Atlantic Salt. It is a sheepfoot which was designed to be full thickness almost to the tip and had demonstrated that it will handle light prying more effectively.

Other than the testing that we have done at Spyderco (lab testing), there are no other tests, that we know of, other than the tests Crucible did (mentioned below).

Boats,

Thanx for the kind words and support. When we did our testing, the PE model CATRA tested (edge retention) about the same as AUS8, but the serrated version's testing results were much higher. Normally, serrated edges will run about twice the plain edge of same steel and geometry, but the H1 was running about 4 times, up there with powdered metals. A puzzlement.

Hi Mete,

When the foundry rolls the H1, they roll to two different hardness, we end up with 58 for the blade material and considerably lower spec for the lock material. Not meaning to be disrespectful, but the two hardnesses are controlled by the rolling process.

Dick Barber, metallurgist for Crucible steels was curious as to why the H1 steel was testing so well and wanted to do metallurgical testing on the material. We sent them samples and they did their tests. In their micro hardness testing, they found the H1 was differentially hardening. Their explanation was as I described.

The were getting over 60 (64/65 as I remembber the report) at the edge of the blade, 58 at the spine and various hardness in between as they went from the spine to the edge.

The serrted edge version was higher (68 as I remember) which Mr. Barber attributed to the extra "work" (heat) required to serrate the edge over just sharpening as on the plain edge.

If you would like I can fax you, or mail you a copy of the report. Email me your address.

sal
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So in serrated H-1 you have a low alloy steel at low angle with high hardness performing similar to that of higher alloyed steels in SE format from what I gather from the above posts. I think it is because the lower angles start to limit the performance of higher alloyed steels.

Either way, I have a Atlantic salt in H-1 that has performed great, no real complaints, I have long past the whole "trying to figure everything out stage" and went to just using and enjoying what I have in life so take my comments as just my 2 cents.
 
When they reintroduced the Spyderhawk model in H-1 the performance truly was noticeably better with the serrated H-1 blade.

Another aspect of Spyderco's great serrated blades are the newer K-04 and K-05 models. They used a more wavy, low profile serration rather than the Spikey serrations that are on most of the Japan made models.

There has always been a distinct difference between the serrations on the Japan made models and the Golden, CO USA Earth models./
 
The serrations do tend to hold up well though I did try my dragonfly on some nylon ties and slightly bent a tooth. It straighten out pretty quickly but I learned that nylon ties can still kill an edge.

I believe the hardness can get to mid to high 60's of the serrated H1 from what I think I recall from one of Erik Glesser's videos.

For some color variation.
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more today! The best serration patterns for ease of sharpening and tolerance to abuse: Spyderco and Victorinox

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