H1 steel, what's the catch?

My experience is with a jumpmaster serrated I modded to plain edge, an aqua salt that I did the same to, and a Schempp Rock. I found H1 steel very tough when I tested the toughness of an Aqua Salt, alongside 8Cr13MoV, 1095, and SR101. All four of these were tested by batoning through a nail. As I recall (this was over a year ago) the only one that did not cut the nail in half was the 8Cr13MoV (byrd rescue), which received the most damage, a nice big roll. 1095 (pakistani blank) and SR101 (Ratmandu) cut the nail in half, and had minor damage, with noticeable light reflecting from the blade. They sharpened out easily enough. H1 cut the nail in half, and had such minor damage that it was at first not visible to me, and I had to use the finger nail test to find it. Very impressive.

Otherwise, I agree, it cannot rust, it scratches very easily, it takes an amazingly sharp edge easily, loses it quickly, but gains it back even more quickly.
 
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I agree based on my experience with a PE ARK. H1 doed not rust, even after salt water immersion. The blade is pretty scratch, but it lives in the sheath with salt water and sand so I expect scratches. With the sharpmaker rods I can get a great edge, but I also loose that edge quickly. I would not want H1 to be my only steel, but I am glad it exists to fill an important role.
 
David Mary said:
My experience is with a jumpmaster serrated I modded to plain edge, an aqua salt that I did the same to, and a Schempp Rock.
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Have you posted pictures of these mods anywhere? Or was there a thread about your testing? H1 is an interesting steel to me and I'd love to read about what you tested and found out.

Main reason I posted is I've been trying to track down a PE Atlantic Salt and have considered getting a serrated one and modding it to PE so was curious how it went for you.
 
spoonrobot spoonrobot I wasn't very active on the forum at the time, and did not make a thread. The post above is just about all I can tell you.
 
Man, now I guess I need to get a serrated Pacific Salt or something. Maybe a hawkbill model.

It’s time to offload some dead weight anyway.
 
Comeuppance said:
Man, now I guess I need to get a serrated Pacific Salt or something. Maybe a hawkbill model.

It’s time to offload some dead weight anyway.
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They make lots of different options. I like the Pacific salt fully serrated. It gets carried a lot.
 
NetshadeX said:
That's good to know, thanks for that. About your comment on edge retention. I read somewhere that H1 plain edges apparantly start out with questionable edge retention but supposedly get better at it over time with the "steel" becoming increasingly harder after use. The factory grinding on the serrated edges apparantly "pre-work hardens" the edge giving it better retention than it's plain edge siblings.

Just theory though, I lack real world experience with it. I just got mine yesterday. Time will tell if this is true.
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A plain edged H1 knife does not appreciably work harden from sharpening. And there are some valid questions to be asked as to how much the work hardening actually effects the hardness of the serrations. Cutting and grinding operations normally don't work harden more than a very thin layer of steel under the work area.
 
I have a Pacific Salt in H1, fully serrated. It's okay.

As far as I can tell, the only significant benefit to H1 is that, within the scope of usage a knife could reasonably see, the steel can't rust. It's supposedly fairly tough too, though I'm not in the best position to speak to that.

Otherwise, it's got poor edge holding in plain edged form, and benefits from having serrations to get good edge holding ability. I don't like serrations as I find they make cutting most things I normally cut more difficult, and I don't believe most of the work hardening/magical property claims regarding H1. I think there are plenty of steels out there that would hold a great edge when in serrated form as well.
 
marrenmiller said:
I have a Pacific Salt in H1, fully serrated. It's okay.

As far as I can tell, the only significant benefit to H1 is that, within the scope of usage a knife could reasonably see, the steel can't rust. It's supposedly fairly tough too, though I'm not in the best position to speak to that.

Otherwise, it's got poor edge holding in plain edged form, and benefits from having serrations to get good edge holding ability. I don't like serrations as I find they make cutting most things I normally cut more difficult, and I don't believe most of the work hardening/magical property claims regarding H1. I think there are plenty of steels out there that would hold a great edge when in serrated form as well.
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