Knife steel education ... a wiki ... rust resilience

M

Mud Shrimp Moe

Joined
Nov 6, 2011
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644
Posted after striking out with the search function.

What I'd REALLY like to find is a wiki or fairly comprehensive list of knife stainless steels that specifically addresses rust resilience.

I'm going through a bit of an OCD phase with Spyderco H1 right now, which I think is irrational since I live far inland (North Texas) and have never had any serious issue with rust on any stainless knife blade. After watching a number of salt water exposure tests on YouTube, I'm convinced the rust resilience on VG-10, S30V and even 8Cr13MoV is pretty impressive. You can't leave them out in the weather for a year, obviously, but with anything close to normal maintenance (i.e. wipe them down ... use a Tuf Cloth occasionally), they are acceptable for anything except working around salt water.

But, back to the question, can anybody point me to a good list?
 
I live in Oregon and carry carbon steel knives. Stop worrying about it..

Edit: That came across harsher then I meant. Just saying they're still finding chinese and roman knives that are over a 1000 years old with an edge still on them. Rust prevention is more about aesthetics then preventing damage IMO.
 
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Leafstorm, thanks for the link. That was an informative site. It didn't have all of the info I really wanted on corrosion resistance. But it was about the best I've seen so far anyway. I appreciate it.
 
No problem, I realized afterwards that it's actually a sticky in the Maintenance, Tinkering & Embellishment subforum as well.

Im sure some of the other guys here would be able to point you to more resources.

-leaf
 
You can kinda look at a stainless steel and make a pretty good guess as to how it will be compared to another alloy, though I doubt a chart like you are looking for exists. Higher chromium will give better corrosion resistance. Higher carbon will tend to reduce the corrosion resistance past a certain point. The amount of chromium is somewhat limited due to heat treatment concerns. When carbon gets much above about 0.75%, corrosion resistance can suffer noticably. This is all related to heat treatment and some other factors, such as additional alloying elements and how many stainless steels are specifically made to resist certain types of corrosion.
 
I realize a "chart" would be a compromise, since corrosion resistance is complicated and heavily variable based on types of exposure.

However, there are some decent YouTube videos of different steels in fresh water, or salt water. Like I said in the OP, I was surprised at how resistant most of them were. H1 seems to be the ultimate for rust resistance, to the point of rust "proof." But several others do very well, even with 24 hours in salt water.
 
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