H1 Steel - How it Works

Larrin

Larrin

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An article about the highly corrosion resistant H1 steel. It's very different than most other knife steels for several reasons, including that the steel is not heat treated by the knife manufacturer. In fact, the steel isn't quenched and tempered like typical knife steel. Learn about how it works instead here: https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/06/24/h1-steel-how-it-works/
 
Nice article.

I'd love to see a follow-up from Spyderco on their H-1 reportedly work hardening from serrations, and if their cutting tests where H-1 outperformed all other steels tested actually included testing serrated edges with other high wear resistance steels. I'm not sure why serrated H-1 would outperform serrated ZDP-189 or other super steels.

Some machining operations are known to work harden workpieces, but I don't know if I believe that they would harden anything other than a very thin layer directly underneath the grinding wheels.
 
I was wondering if you would consider practical articles on heat treating steels like 5160 or 80crv2... for more simple folk such as myself
 
I'm now curious if the austenite-to-martensite cold working transformation could be capitalized on with European-style tensioned/peened scythe blades. They're typically made out of a steel like 1080 and tempered down to ~45RC with the body of the blade drawn out in hot forging to about 1-1.5mm thickness then tensioned by cold peening the span of the blade, giving the blade its required rigidity. The blades are then beveled through cold peening, drawing out a thin edge that's then honed with a stone. By comparison, American, English, and Nordic blades are typically heat treated around 55+ RC in similar steel and beveled by grinding, with the body having been given one or more corrugations for rigidity, and the span of the blade usually being a bit thicker than Euro blades. The difference in edge-holding ability between the two camps is huge in my experience, and it makes me wonder if the Euro type could compensate for its otherwise soft heat treatment by exploiting that sort of transformation?
 
it's a good idea, but won't really work on 1080... to get some work hardening you need a lot of silicon and maybe a bit of nickel, then it's a valid possibility : )
solid-solution-strengthening2.jpg
 
dirc said:
it's a good idea, but won't really work on 1080... to get some work hardening you need a lot of silicon and maybe a bit of nickel, then it's a valid possibility : )
solid-solution-strengthening2.jpg
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I didn't mean using 1080. I meant choosing a totally different steel that would optimize the dynamic.
 
Any metal work hardens, it doesn't need special alloying.

My biggest concern for using austenitic steel would be making sure the final retained austenite content isn't too high. Austenite greatly reduces the "yield strength" relative to the hardness.
 
Mo2 said:
Does the affect of ln2 or dry ice do anything to the steel?
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It may be possible to transform some RA with colder temperatures by going below Ms. However in practice a lot of times retained austenite is highly stable either because of its size/shape or because of carbon diffusion to the martensite-austenite interface. It's hard to say if there would be any transformation without trying it. You would expect only the most stable retained austenite to be left after significant work hardening (the least stable goes first of course).
 
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