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

[Hale Storm]

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.

I did a similar test last summer (2014). I spent a week down in Pensacola surf fishing with a Spyderco Enuff in H1 strapped to my hip in a kydex sheath of my own design. The blade was submerged in the surf for 4-6 hours per day and sometimes longer. I made many trips in and out of the surf with the knife resting in the water while fishing. In the entire week, I never rinsed the blade in fresh water or cleaned it. After a week, ZERO rust. When I was done, I simply rinsed off the salt deposits, wiped it down, rinsed the salt deposits out of the sheath, and she's ready to go again this year.

Based on that real world use test, I bought two Spyderco Enuffs. One in H1 with the yellow scales and one in VG-10 with the Black scales. I switched the scales and gave the H1 with black scales to my son. I also built a custom kydex sheath to fit his duty rig for his Sig P229 (He is required to carry a rescue type blade when on duty with his boarding team, or doing SAR). He has carried that Enuff on duty for almost a year now and ZERO rust while stationed in Pensacola serving in the Coast Guard.

I have read reports of H1 having rust near the engraved logo. Turns out that the deposits of OTHER steel left there during some of the processes, will indeed rust slightly, which leads some to think that H1 will rust.

My test was not scientific by any means, I was just fishing. A week in the Gulf submerged for hours at a time with ZERO maintenance and ZERO rust. I can't get any more 'real world' than that.