Maganacut uncoated corrosion resistance?

D

dcycleman

Joined
Feb 16, 2009
Messages
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Does anyone know how the recent salt magnacut offerings are fairing in a maritime environment?
 
I've scaled and cleaned some fish with my Manix 2 and only rinsed it off with tap water. Shook it dry and put it back in my pocket. No problems. I also have a custom made Magnacut kitchen knife that I use every day. It's washed and stored wet and no corrosion.

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Yeah I have lots of salt knives. I’m an avid sea kayaker and diver. Basically spend all my free time in , near, or around the ocean. My first salts, (h1) would get rust streaks by the h1 logo and near the hardware locations . But never really effected the use. The lc200n ones have been pretty good, except I started leaving a native salt in lc200 in my pfd all the time, only getting a rinse when my whole pfd gets dunked after an ocean paddle. It has gotten rusty by the choil/guard area.
I just bought a manix 2 lw in magnacut, but I don’t know if it’s up to getting left salty all the time like h1.
 
dcycleman said:
and near the hardware locations
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I've been hearing about this lately, kind of a bummer if true to have a rust proof H1 blade but then the hardware gets all corroded. Gives me less confidence to try to take my beloved Pacific Salt swimming in the ocean this summer. It's hardware is non coated, do we have any info of what materials the pivot and screws are made from?
 
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I carry my pm2 salt hiking weekly. Not in the ocean but soaked in sweat all day and no rust yet.
 
stillshot2 said:
I've been hearing about this lately, kind of a bummer if true to have a rust proof H1 blade but then the hardware gets all corroded. Gives me less confidence to try to take my beloved Pacific Salt swimming in the ocean this summer. It's hardware is non coated, do we have any info of what materials the pivot and screws are made from?
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It's easier to make the hardware more stainless that it is to make a good blade steel that won't rust.

 
Its pretty good but H1/H2 is the clear winner for corrosion resistance and LC200N is a better option as well, but Magnacut has much better edge retention. either way its pretty darn resistant, its in the Salt series for a reason
 
yablanowitz said:
So which ocean is comprised of bleach, vinegar, water and saturation levels of salt? I think I want to stay well clear of that one.

Thank you for reminding me why I don't watch Youtube knife videos.
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He said he's trying to make the most "bad liquid to put a knife in".
 
In other words, it has nothing to do with the real world, he just wanted to prove it would corrode. For those concerned with how it is doing in a maritime environment, it means nothing.
 
Any steel will rust if you put it in the correct environment. That includes 316 austenitic steel, as well. The fact that you can make a steel corrode is meaningless. When we need zero corrosion we use Inconel.

I would hazard a guess that H1 is more corrosion resistant than Magnacut. But H1 is known to be lacking in abrasion resistance. So you look at what your needs are and you choose your alloy. Like every other design choice, it's a compromise. Nothing gets you 100% of every property.
 
Larrin gave Magnacut a rating of 9.5 out of 10 for corrosion resistance, so it must be pretty good. I'll probably buy a Native Chief in Magnacut, although yellow is not my favorite handle color. ☹️;)
 
knarfeng said:
Any steel will rust if you put it in the correct environment.
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+1 And many "stainless" steels are very sensitive to chlorides (like the sodium chloride -- table salt -- in seawater and sweat)...chlorides will pit many stainless steels in a hurry. (And no, you don't need to use water with "saturated" levels of salt...once seawater dries on a knife blade, it becomes hundreds of times as salty as a saturated solution...it's basically "wet salt" since salt has an affinity for water and never truly "dries" outside of a furnace.)

I do a lot of offshore fishing (tuna, billfish, etc) off Virginia and I'm not sure I've seen any "good" steel that really stands up to seawater for long...haven't messed with Magnacut yet, though.
My Buck knives take it, and they're fine for what they are, but I wouldn't consider them particularly "good" steels...If I'm out chunking for tuna with butterfish (lots of bait cutting involved) I'll just use whatever cheapo knife is around. I sure as heck wouldn't take any of my expensive knives out in that mess.

Once you start messing with seawater, there's also the issue of galvanic corrosion (dissimilar metals in an electrolyte -- which is where the fasteners can become problematic) and crevice corrosion (the crevices in SS act like little batteries, with dissimilar components of steel alloys like Fe, Cr, Ni, etc undergoing galvanic corrosion at a microscopic level due to seawater electrolyte in the crevices...and don't forget, seawater effectively contains everything) ... seawater is harsh stuff and destroys metals far faster than most people would believe. And you can get induced currents in all kinds of places where you would never expect...try trolling with wire line and spoons for kings, you might grab the reel and think you got a fistful of hot 440VAC...those stray currents -- which are always present in this kind of corrosion -- only accelerate the whole process. It almost becomes a dumpster fire feedback loop

TL;DR -- I guess what I'm saying, as a longtime saltwater fisherman, is that I don't think anything is really going to hold up. But you don't need uber steels out there. Leave the good knives at home to cut up the tuna and wahoo when you get back to the barn. And use whatever ya got at sea...and most importantly, after you get back to the barn, be sure to soak your knives, your shoes, and your wallet, in plenty of freshwater! Salt has an affinity for water, but water has just as much affinity for salt!
 
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Spyderco has worked hard on updating the corrosion resistance, including galvanic corrosion, of the hardware on Salt models including coating already resistant materials. New ones have the improved hardware, but not much help if you have the older models.
 
I had a custom fixed blade made by @gja while back and I work around water far, far saltier than sea water. It's only shown 1 spot of rust since I started carrying it ages ago and all I needed to clean that spot was some wd40 and some elbow grease. Even that spot took two weeks to form after I had to call out sick and forgot it in it's sheath without wiping it off. Magnacut is the bees knees for hostile environments. Thanks Larrin Larrin
 
Cementite said:
+1 And many "stainless" steels are very sensitive to chlorides (like the sodium chloride -- table salt -- in seawater and sweat)...chlorides will pit many stainless steels in a hurry. (And no, you don't need to use water with "saturated" levels of salt...once seawater dries on a knife blade, it becomes hundreds of times as salty as a saturated solution...it's basically "wet salt" since salt has an affinity for water and never truly "dries" outside of a furnace.)

I do a lot of offshore fishing (tuna, billfish, etc) off Virginia and I'm not sure I've seen any "good" steel that really stands up to seawater for long...haven't messed with Magnacut yet, though.
My Buck knives take it, and they're fine for what they are, but I wouldn't consider them particularly "good" steels...If I'm out chunking for tuna with butterfish (lots of bait cutting involved) I'll just use whatever cheapo knife is around. I sure as heck wouldn't take any of my expensive knives out in that mess.

Once you start messing with seawater, there's also the issue of galvanic corrosion (dissimilar metals in an electrolyte -- which is where the fasteners can become problematic) and crevice corrosion (the crevices in SS act like little batteries, with dissimilar components of steel alloys like Fe, Cr, Ni, etc undergoing galvanic corrosion at a microscopic level due to seawater electrolyte in the crevices...and don't forget, seawater effectively contains everything) ... seawater is harsh stuff and destroys metals far faster than most people would believe. And you can get induced currents in all kinds of places where you would never expect...try trolling with wire line and spoons for kings, you might grab the reel and think you got a fistful of hot 440VAC...those stray currents -- which are always present in this kind of corrosion -- only accelerate the whole process. It almost becomes a dumpster fire feedback loop

TL;DR -- I guess what I'm saying, as a longtime saltwater fisherman, is that I don't think anything is really going to hold up. But you don't need uber steels out there. Leave the good knives at home to cut up the tuna and wahoo when you get back to the barn. And use whatever ya got at sea...and most importantly, after you get back to the barn, be sure to soak your knives, your shoes, and your wallet, in plenty of freshwater! Salt has an affinity for water, but water has just as much affinity for salt!
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Thanks for this. This is one of the more interesting posts I've read in a long time. It goes to show that there are a lot of chemical processes going on all at once, and no steel is completely immune to corrosion/rust. Living in Colorado, there's not a lot of worries for me there.

Interestingly enough, the only knife I had that seriously rusted on my stored in it's leather sheath was a Cold Steel Long Hunter that was in my garage. It was made out of 4116, go figure. The rust was prevalent on the rough grinding marks on the sides of the blade, so evidently, the level of finish plays a role here as well.
 
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