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- May 11, 2008
- Messages
- 35
How tough is H1 steel?
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H1 toughness?
- Thread starter russell mc dougall
- Start date
- Joined
- May 1, 2004
- Messages
- 1,240
Very tough. There are some pictures posted by Tazkristi of a Pacific Salt blade that was bent around 90 degrees without snapping during testing. I spent a few years beating on a Pacific and Atlantic Salt and during all the use (which included prying and some stabbing :foot
I never had any issues with breakage or significant damage.
In my use I noticed that it doesn't chip, even with very acute (@20 inclusive) edge bevels and seems to favor rolling instead. Best performance (in plain edge) seems to come from acute edge angles and a slightly coarse edge profile. "Medium" diamond stones gave me the best edge that lasted the longest.
I never had any issues with breakage or significant damage.In my use I noticed that it doesn't chip, even with very acute (@20 inclusive) edge bevels and seems to favor rolling instead. Best performance (in plain edge) seems to come from acute edge angles and a slightly coarse edge profile. "Medium" diamond stones gave me the best edge that lasted the longest.
Yup, tough stuff.
Given that it bends so well at full hardness (last report was 58-59Rc) I would expect it to be virtually impossible to chip out.
However, beware of catastrophic bending. One user reported a very large edge roll while batoning. Not that you'd ever do anything like that with a folder, but I suspect H-1 bends a little easier than normal steel breaks.
The upside is that given the work hardened nature of H-1, if it does bend, bending it back should only make it harder. (To a point. If it bends too much it will get too hard, and break.)
Given that it bends so well at full hardness (last report was 58-59Rc) I would expect it to be virtually impossible to chip out.
However, beware of catastrophic bending. One user reported a very large edge roll while batoning. Not that you'd ever do anything like that with a folder, but I suspect H-1 bends a little easier than normal steel breaks.
The upside is that given the work hardened nature of H-1, if it does bend, bending it back should only make it harder. (To a point. If it bends too much it will get too hard, and break.)