Picturs of my steels rusting test: H1, m390, ZDP-189, N690Co, CTS-XHP

F

Folding

Joined
Feb 9, 2015
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New steel rusting shootout: how to make even H1 blade to rust.

KNIFE (steel)
Spyderco Dragonfly (H1)
Spyderco Dragonfly (ZDP-189)
Spyderco Pingo (N690Co)
Spyderco Techno (CTS-XHP)
New Bechmade 485 Valet (m390)
Victorinox (stainless)

THE TEST
1% solution of table salt in water
Clean blades with alcohol.
Put several drops on each blade & wait for 3 hours until liquid dries.

Take two pictures of each blade:
LEFT: after hot water washing
RIGHT: after subsequently removing as much rust as possible by rubbing with a dry finger

VERDICT:
ZDP-189 => very prone to corrosion.
CTS-XHP => much better, but salt left permanent corrosion marks.
N690Co (aka VG-10), m390 and H1 => outstanding.
remark 1: even H1 corrodes a little, and m390 is doing just as well as H1.
remark 2: Victorinox steel held as well as H1, probably because the surface was glossy, so
this one had an advantage.

THE RANK OF CORROSION RESISTANCE:
ZDP-189 << CTS-XHP < N690Co/VG-10 < M390 ~ H1 ~ Victorinox

THE PICTURES
http://postimg.org/image/xltukszrx/
xltukszrx
 
Last edited:
Using firearms and knives for many years I have found that you must do some preventative maintenance to avoid corrosion on steel. I have used Breakfree CLP, a synthetic product, since Vietnam (the mil-spec version on M16's) and can not recall an instance where I had any problems with corrosion. Electrolysis is another problem that will cause degradation of metal. But that is another issue.

Here is a good video testing common corrosion protection products that might of some value.

http://www.thegunzone.com/rust.html
 
Folding, thanks for sharing your experiment with us. The pictures give a great idea of the relative rust resistance of each blade. Would be awesome to see Spyderco's S30V and Cruwear subjected to the exact same procedure... but I guess the point has been made. Everything will eventually rust unless it's cared for.

On all of my blades, I use food-safe mineral oil.
 
Thanks for the test.
I don't know about those H1 results though. Are you certain the dragonfly is genuine? There are some pretty good fakes going around.

If it's real, there may have been some residue from the machining process that was stained in your test. Try scrubbing at it a bit.

Thing is, H1 effectively can not rust.
Maybe it's possible in some extreme conditions, but regular salt water sure isn't going to do it.
 
spketch said:
Thanks for the test.
I don't know about those H1 results though. Are you certain the dragonfly is genuine? There are some pretty good fakes going around.

If it's real, there may have been some residue from the machining process that was stained in your test. Try scrubbing at it a bit.

Thing is, H1 effectively can not rust.
Maybe it's possible in some extreme conditions, but regular salt water sure isn't going to do it.
Click to expand...

Yep, H1 and all other knives I have are absolutely genuine, bought new from one of the main
Spyderco vendors (probably shouldn't give the link to not violate forum rules).
I too thought H1 does not rust. It never developed a spot after two years of normal use.

But it looks like salt water plus oxygen (diffusing though a thin layer of liquid in the drop) is corrosive enough
to leave marks. These marks can be easily removed if one touches them, so if you were to
clean the blade from salt, you could accidentally remove the rust. But if you only use a stream
of running hot water, the stains are there and can't be just washed off with water.

Who knew. Not a big deal, but it was unexpected.
 
That the stains can be removed by rubbing with a finger suggests that it's a foreign substance on the blade rusting, and not the blade itself.

There has been plenty of testing on this with stronger salt solutions and much longer exposure times. No rust. I'm positive you did not cause H1 to rust in this experiment.
 
"it's a foreign substance"

...ZDP-189 clearly-rust-stains could be removed in this way


I understand that there is a history of talks about H1 not rusting, which creates not a small bias in our thinking.
But
1) we all know that iron rusts and that H1 contains plenty of iron in it
2) salt is soluble in water and does not have a color
Given the 1 &2, it is up to you how to interpret the photographs.
I made my own conclusions... :)
 
Your conclusion on H1 is dead wrong. I'm not trying to convince you or get into an argument, just wanted to point it out in case a newbie stumbles upon this thread and trusts your results.

My personal testing was to carry a spyderhawk salt to the beach every day for a week, spending hours in the water (about 3.5 times saltier than your solution, and not washing it with fresh water at all. No rust in my case.
Plenty of fishermen and surfers have used their H1 knives for months and years on the ocean, also with no staining or rust, barring the residue common around the "H1" mark.

You can bet that the Spyderco team performed far more extensive testing before making the rather extreme claim that H1 is rust proof.

Your write-up has some of the marks of a science student. You should know that a scientist would never draw a conclusion from this one experiment. Keep it up though, always good to test claims for yourself.
 
Looks to me what you are thinking is rust is probably salt crystals left behind after the water evaporates. Just a guess though. I'm with Spketch, H-1 is not chemically capable of rusting.
 
H1 definitely won't rust given all the reports etc. we receive. Ask Surfingringo if any of his Salt models have rusted...he doesn't clean them thoroughly and accompany him on the ocean daily for months/years. The H1 imprint rusts but it's because it is another substance attached to the blade itself, and not part of the blade itself...the actual H1 itself won't rust.

A steel is called "Stainless" if it contains a minimum of ~10.5% Chromium, though that doesn't mean that it can't or won't rust...H1 is basically alone in that regard, followed closely by LC200N and such steels etc. because of the Nitrogen content replacing the Carbon. I've seen rust spots on VG-10, S30V, 154CM, ZDP-189, etc. but never on H1 itself. The term "Stainless" has no universally defined threshold ...it just means that the steel is much more corrosion resistant than a "Non-stainless" steel. ZDP-189 is one of the least "Stainless", "Stainless" steels that I've yet encountered. It has 20% Chromium which is a lot higher than a lot of other "Stainless" steels, but it has a LOT more Carbon than most "Stainless" steels (3%) and the high Carbon content reduces the corrosion resistance beyond the very high level of Chromium.
 
The only corrosion I've ever seen on H1 not caused by some contamination on the surface was one guy that got it to corrode using swimming pool chlorine "shock" treatment.

The color of the oxidation even looks wrong for steel on the H1 blade. There was something there IMO.

Joe
 
I guess, all of us are free to discard any evidence we don't like and all of us do so
here and there :)

I wonder what you see if you actually did the simple test I did.
I did not swim in the ocean. First, clean the blade with alcohol to get rid of
any fats. Then add a big enough drop of table salt water left until dry.
Then a stream of water for a long enough time to make sure no salt can possibly be left.

Is it now a pristine surface without the spots ?
 
Folding said:
I guess, all of us are free to discard any evidence we don't like and all of us do so
here and there :)
Click to expand...

So why are you discarding very prolific evidence from more rigorous testing than yours that says the opposite?

Also, your pictures are no longer working, please post them in this thread by using imgur.com or a similar image hosting site.
 
I would love to see H1 and m390 in a bucket of sea water for 5 days straight. I know through personal accounts how the H1 would do but am very interested how the m390 would hold up.
 
calc said:
So why are you discarding very prolific evidence from more rigorous testing than yours that says the opposite?

Also, your pictures are no longer working, please post them in this thread by using imgur.com or a similar image hosting site.
Click to expand...

I just checked the link and it works, fast.
 
Folding said:
I just checked the link and it works, fast.
Click to expand...

Hm, not working for me. Still curious as to how this statement is valid here:

Folding said:
I guess, all of us are free to discard any evidence we don't like and all of us do so
here and there :)
Click to expand...

Many, many before you have run more rigorous testing than you with different results. This would imply that your issue is with your testing method rather than the material itself, especially given that your results contradict the material science to some extent.

Additionally, you still have yet to propose a possible explanation for your results, which is just bad science. You can't expect people to take you seriously when you say "Event A happened, then Event B happened, therefore Event A caused Event B" without offering an explanation of possible causation. There could have been other contributing factors, and yet you feel confident in ignoring all of them. Just from memory, there have been examples of:

- The H1 logo rusting.
- Traces of other steel from the factory tools rusting.
- The rust actually just being a mold of some sort that dried off after a few weeks.

None of these are examples of H1 rusting, but instead somebody jumping to conclusions. I agree with spketch that the fact that you have to be so gentle that you don't wash it off makes your claim rather dubious. The lack of experimental control and critical thinking even more so.
 
Your results are interesting, but have a number of plausible explanations beyond the one you seem to be drawing. There are quite a few of us with extensive experience with H1 in saltwater environments that run counter to your results. That doesn't mean your results are nothing, but they certainly aren't definitive and people here are, understandably, skeptical. Best way to deal with that is to repeat the testing several more times and post results.
 
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