Serrated H1

[Handwrecker]

I'm getting the itch to pick up a SE Pacific Salt, but have never owned/used any H1. I remember reading that it's a work hardening steel, and the SE models have a significantly higher hardness due to the extra grinding. Here's a thread I found.

http://www.bladeforums.com/forums/s....-VG10-Serrated-vs.-Plain.?highlight=serrated

But how tough is H1? Anyone had any problems with it being brittle or chipping? How does it sharpen up?

Any info/experience with SE H1 is appreciated!

 

[yablanowitz]

I find it holds an edge quite well in SE, and is about as easy to sharpen as AUS-8. I've yet to have one chip doing the same jobs that have cost me a number of teeth off serrated VG-10 blades. Sal once casually mentioned that H-1 has almost twice the tensile strength of VG-10, and Kristi once posted a picture of an H-1 blade (Pacific Salt if I remember right) that had been deliberately bent to 90° without breaking. It sprang back to about 60° when it was released. The only free range H-1 destruction I've heard about was a guy who had his knife blade stuck in the dirt and accidentally ran over the knife with a Bobcat.

 

[anti-torsion]

My experience is on par with yab. It sharpens up well, holds a decent edge and even under rough use it hasn't chipped out on me. The more you sharpen it the better it gets :thumbup:

 

[j3jymann]

I had a spyderhawk in h1 serrated, absolutely loved it. I think it's a great steel with the serrations and honestly it turned me on to SE, I hadn't really appreciated or liked serrations before getting it.

I put some hard use on that knife before losing it, the steel was great, the only time I had problems with it holding an edge was sawing through an anchor rope I found on the beach that was embedded in the sand it made it through about halfway (3.5-4.5 inches of depth into the rope) before becoming near useless and considering that I was basically sawing into a log of sand and vinyl threading I think that's quite impressive edge holding. Never had any problems with chipping but it's not really the kind of knife I would go out and start hacking away at logs with so I didn't really put it to as extreme measures as I did in other respects.