The non-HI coastal-zone holy grail knife...

[mtngunr]

These have been out a while but still new to many.

Basically an excellent work and everyday folder.

And being from the coast, one thing you learn offshore is that there is no such thing as rust and corrosion proof if made of steel...and applies equally well to effects of blood or hot salty meat juices on many decent steels.

Well, that is no longer true. These steel knives are totally rustproof in any environment in which you can survive without a space suit. Chlorinated pool water included, but not the chlorine bucket, please....absolutely zero maintenance required aside from rinsing hinge to keep free of grit.

Flat and light enough even the larger rides forgotten in front trousers pocket....total weight of BOTH is 4.4oz and i carry the 1.8oz smaller one in shirt pocket....

Edge holding on par with AUS8A while one of the tougher stainless steels on market, as you can see from bend test and outside of bend just starting to rupture, very stout main body, literally near a straight razor out of box, and a tough edge which would rather dent than break, and 57Rc, to boot....

For a coastal guy, the dream and impossible knife, including huge folder carried effortlessly and unnoticed....Spyderco Salt series....H1 nitrogen, rather than oxygen, based steel.












As an FYI, the smaller with silver blade dropped from production in favor of black blade, so on-hand stock of a dealer is all there might be....i think they all might go that route or some heavier "improved" form in future, just food for thought if interested...yellow handles still available in silver blade if you like plastic banana/bic banana yellow or need for hi-viz....absolutely will not rust, even in salt water, not any part of it.....(removed) pocket clip and barrel bolt are titanium....

The reason for the endangered species talk is that in their run of the mill lines, they have gone to metal liners under the plastic...weights also went up and also size and thickness.....these Salt series knives are about the last of the old-style knives they made right after they went from integral plastic clip to removable metal clip....new ones are covered with screws holding everything together and attaching clip....i like the simple old light knives....after trying the older style and newer, found the older the ones i would actually daily carry....the newer heavy enough and bulky enough they stayed home....

 

[Bawanna]

Must be kind of tough to fold back up with the blade bent like that huh?

I always liked the overall shape of those knives since they came out long long ago, never did get one.

 

[mtngunr]

All i do is bend the handle to match, and presto change-o...

From a reliable non-fake vendor (and there are many of those even Spyderco has trouble differentiating without a Rockwell of cheaper steel) these two run between $60-$70.....not cheap but not expensive.....these have a higher and larger opening hole for gloved diver hands....for such a flat knife, very secure and ergonomic grip....the new knives also have a more aggressive texture which works well but i like the old texture better....

Last ones i had were the original with plastic clip....clips snag in close quarters and snatch knife and or pocket from body, at 75 ft up not a good thing to happen for balance....and too fat for what it was in the pocket....this is Goldilocks just right for me with clip off and incredibly flat light knife in pocket....every big folder until now ended up in sock drawer....whether my Puma Game Warden from '73 or my Benchmade AFCK Spyderco licensed copy from 10-15 yrs ago....but these go places as in every place not forbidden by federal law...

 

[SingleGrind]

Do love a good Spydie. I'm EDCing my Para2 right now, with the Micro Bowie of course, while the Emersons are getting worked on (they're due back tomorrow, stay tuned).

I've been eyeing a Salt series for a while but always hesitated due to FRN handle with no liner. I personally just prefer G-10 or Micarta with a liner, on non-HI blades. Also not a backlock fan. The compression-lock on the Para2 is nifty though, but not as easy with winter gloves on.

If the G-10 Delica Wave came in an H-1 steel, I'd scoop one in a heartbeat. Other than that, I'm a window shopper right now.

 

[mtngunr]

The back locks are still the king of strength of common lock designs, and quite easy to close with one hand and gravity.....never been a problem to me yet where speed of closing with one hand was an issue so long as it could be done with one hand and timing myself with liner vs backlock, i see no difference....the only time have seen zytel fail was on gun frames or when frozen to -25F and beat on with a hammer.....but i guess things happen....but i cannot do it push or pull cutting through anything i have any business trying with a pocket knife and not a chisel....

This is a good comparative lock strength test, several systems and common materials, and not to give anything away, but if you have an inferiority complex about your trusty old Buck 110 or Spyderco lock bar knife, you can quit worrying.....the last couple of minutes show where and how they all failed up close.....but i can tell you any bent piece of metal will just keep on bending under stress and should be no surprise to anyone....
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KmHfbG7z7g


Just an added PS in that the back lock is really a mid-lock on these and is what makes it easy to close with one hand....a lock at the tail is another story and what most any common lockback was until Spyderco came along....they made it work and my hat off to them for that and also first successful one-hand opener and with no protrusion on blade interfering with deep cuts....they may not have invented anything but they sure whomped up a system in total which still is hard to beat....

The lack of liner on these salt water dive knives is for a reason, as no way to remove salt water from between scales and liners....i can tell you their new design with liners on standard knives holds about every drop of oil ever applied to any pivot as i found when i disassembled one....great fluid storage device...i am super glad i could still get a linerless knife from them and have squirreled away a few extra and also have personalized yellow ones for sis and her daughter for their camp and kayak gear on way....even the plain edge goes through webbing and rope as if made of hot cheese and air...they are getting the smaller one as stabbing self with it is near impossible even on emergency fast as i already checked....and both quite safe if you slap your chest with inverted knife and then commence cutting....

 

[mtngunr]

Worth an answer to my own posts as an addendum is a truly interesting quirk of the steel is that it is extruded and hot rolled once (a work and age hardening steel) and that steel used for lock bar, then rolled again to get blade material of 57-58Rc range nailed perfectly....

The company does their own testing of edge retention via the CARTA methodolgy, and they also know what percentage of extra cuts they get out of same knife in all respects except serrations added. So they were baffled when their tests showed their serrated versions cutting 10-20% longer than expected....then owners started reporting much better edge holding than same serrated knives in assumed better (and chip prone) steels....

A metallurgist for Crucible liked his knives of the brand and was curious, and did micro-Rockwell testing of several knives. Imagine his suprise when the plain edge knives tested exactly 57-58 Rc on the edges, while the serrated tested 62-65 Rc....while teeth showed no tendency to chip or break.

Best anyone, including maker, can figure out, is that the serrated start as a normal plain edge and then are ground a second time to add the serrations, and that somehow the extra beating the surface takes from the abrasives of the extra grinding step or the heat, somehow induces a further hardening of the surface of the edge, effecting an edge/case hardening such as HI fans are familiar with from long ago.

Apocryphally, perhaps, but truth in that the SEALS received some serrated fixed blades which they had instructors use, and edge retention initially was reported as "ok" but that instructors generally reported much better edge holding after several resharpenings.....personally, i would doubt this latter possible unless done on a powered grinder....and possible if resharpening done by Spyderco, as they will do for anybody.

But the steel remains a bit of an enigma.....it is 1% nitrogen instead of the 1% carbon of high-carbon steel, but does have enough carbon (0.125%) to at least qualify as a low-carbon steel.....steel is defined as iron with carbon, and had it less or zero carbon, would not be "steel" at all.....at first i wondered whether it even WAS a steel and was baffled by what to call it if not steel?....nitrogen enriched iron?...Niron?....brand name of H1?.....

But some strange stuff, plus totally rustproof, AND a decent stainless steel performing blade on its own merits, i just HAD to git me some....

To illustrate what a brainiac i am and with no formal training in reason or metallurgy, i will hazard a guess that heat is what effects the skin surface hardening of the metal, based only on one guy's science experiment gone awry, but not as bad as it could have done......he went swimming in his pool and then threw his wet knife into his chlorine tablet bucket and sealed the lid....for something like 16 hrs.....

the chlorine and chlorine gas did not blow the bucket apart, luckily.....but did eat the bejabbers out of the blade.....least damage done was on serrated edge and in area of the laser applied "H1" logo with almost no etching of those places...only other areas faring better appear to be where blade cut into something greasy (or pooled oily area inside handle above lock bar) and also what would be oily area of ricasso/handle interior in a folded knife.....and that is my ONLY evidence that it is heat which effects the surface transformation.... remember, boys and girls....rust proof but not vandalism proof....





Meanwhile, you CAN leave the knives submerged in the bilge of your cabin cruiser in Key West or tied to the side of your jet ski on the California coast (and people have done both) and have zero problem except red algae growing all over it as it does any wet metal....but no rust...

 

[SingleGrind]

I'm well aware of the reason for the lack of liners, but there are still better options than a plain Zytel in my opinion. Titanium liners, maybe even H1 liners? Even a linerless G10 or Micarta handle would be stronger due to the layered, fiber-reinforced nature of the materials.

I definitely appreciate the hole opener and clean blade as you mentioned. That is a revolutionary design that plenty have copied but few have gotten right.

As you guys may have figured out by now, I'm really a huge Emerson fan. The wave feature and thumb disc, to me, are an amazing combo for any situation. I've seen people say they don't like the wave for reasons like "can't draw it without opening it" or "can't wave it open for EDC tasks," I call bull on both counts. It takes a little practice, but its easy to grab and draw either closed or waved open, but I almost never draw it closed. If you're taking the knife out to use it, it's gotta be open anyways! If you're not a fan of the thumb disc, you can easily remove it with one screw, or get an Emerson with a hole opener. My next one will be an El Bandito, which has a kind of teardrop shaped hole.

Another note on Emersons and water getting stuck behind scales: it's not a problem when you can fully disassemble your knife for cleaning. Now I'm not saying I'd take my folders on a boat, since the materials aren't right, rather that if someone made an H1 steel knife with Ti liners that could be fully disassembled, I think that would be an even grailier grail knife

Cool info about that corrosion testing and extra-hard serrations too! Another thing people always forget about serrations, is that the peaks do most of the work, leaving valleys sharp. As the peaks wear down, you still have sharper edges to work with. Having said that, I still don't like serrated blades.

 

[mtngunr]

Completely disassembling a knife is a pain, to my way of thinking, and with micro electronic screws (their source) for sure a pain when they roll or fall wherever, with surely nobody disassembling one in a combat environment (as often hyped)... And whatever is screwed together often comes unscrewed at inopportune times....i was not even crazy about the idea that even with these knives, a couple of years back they standardized construction and dropped rivets at blade and lock bar pivot and went to screws.......screws came along only to really save small makers buying rivet machines on their new custom designs as scales had never had much of a problem (except in dive knives maybe) before, and spread to industry only to save tooling and assembly costs, no small diameter rod with grooves cut in it is as strong as same rod minus sharp cornered grooves.....

the scales themselves of these materials are not problem free as they are various cloths glued together and cut edges are cut edges exposing the fiber which frays over time and only a thin spray coat of easily worn paint the only way to seal them....and edges mushroom and spread layers from impacts such as dropping....i work with these materials on aircraft and they are no miracle material on exposure to harsh environments and edges do eventually hold and trap moisture....i have older zytel holding up better than newer G10, on knife scales, and that is a fact.....

and liners themselves very much complicate and ruin what was to be a simple, light, strong, maintenance free knife from the very start...the best direct comparison is the one i have already experienced.....they make the same knife as the new Delica and Endura and they are wrecked for a pocket knife by the addition of liners and screws while any cruise of a board shows the screws cause no end of problems to those who disassemble to point warranty now void if knife disassembled....

also i work with titanium on aircraft and 6AL4V as used in the knife industry (Mission Knives aside), is not very stiff or hard, and used due fact it can be bent and formed, and pretty much splits the difference between aluminum and steel in both weight and strength, both which also would wreck an always/everywhere knife.

In short, they got it right....especially for a dive knife....and for an invisible daily driver of either size, but especially the larger.

No, if anyone actually NEEDS the small gains a thin sheetmetal liner adds to strength (which mainly are theoretical) and stiffness with zero flex (the main help they add), then, by all means get the liners....no doubt......but i do not need them and so why mess with everything else just to add something not needed?.....to me they are akin to adding an 8" barrel to a snubbie....it might come in handy, but when?....and meanwhile?....

 

[mtngunr]

Serrations mainly work by adding folded length to actual edge....but not ideally as wear to points shows on harder materials, and points break/chip easier......but if needed, again, have at it.

To me they needlessly complicate resharpening and must be sent back if one wants a job anywhere as pretty as original, meanwhile they wreck a knife for finer cuts and shaves as i need available....

Gotta love this forum sometimes....it is timing out rather than allowing corrections in typos and dropped words....hey, at least i tried...above post 6AL4V comment should be "due to the fact", while following paragraph should start with "Now" rather than "no"....as if it really matters....

 

[mtngunr]

Some of the older guys here will know what i mean when i talk weight.....after years of toting around all manner of must-have latest-greatest, you just get tired of it...when, at the end of the day you unload and unclip a pile of mainly useless junk on top of dresser or bunk and breath a sigh of relief as a pack horse does when uncinched....

And you find latest-greatest sharp hard edges wears holes in pockets or wears through hems at waistband or top of pocket....and never gets used....and just too much of it with much of it ending going nowhere....

When you long for something substantial but which does none of the above, where it is so forgotten it risks going through both washer and dryer, and causes no wear to clothes inside or out.....where, when you get home, you automatically transfer an item to robe pocket rather than dropping like a well shed curse on dresser, and item frequently lost or thought lost due to invisibility to self....a quick pat down giving a sigh of relief as you realize it right there and not forgotten at home....

And all this quite aside from daily maintenance of some items where you wonder who owns whom.....

These knives bring the fun back....no excuse to not have at hand, no worries of any maintenance....now, to work on all the OTHER junk...

 

[SingleGrind]

I definitely know where you're coming from, though we most definitely have different preferences when it comes to blades, HI or not

I can't carry a heavy folder, it just isn't right. My Emerson CQC-7AW is just perfect, while the CQC-15 got a little heavy after spending a year in my pocket. I frequently forget the 7 is there, and have fallen asleep with it in my back pocket many times, on purpose and not.

Both of these Emersons have batonned wood and gone swimming with me, but I'm not really one for the ocean. While the Spydie Salt will excel at one of those, I don't think it could handle the other, and I like a knife that will be able to do whatever I need it to do when I need it.

Oh ya, and taking apart an Emerson won't void the warranty like some other manufacturers. Ernie made them like that for a reason. I take mine apart about once a year, sometimes twice, but all they get is a good cleaning, never any oil or lube. An "emergency cleaning" could happen if the knife was dropped in thick mud or a chemical, but that doesn't happen to me, at least yet.

 

[mtngunr]

Back when the world was young, dinosaurs ruled the earth, the US Army rebuilding a demoralized downsized post-Vietnam force, and we still knew enough to not move in and destabilize an entire region with no game plan on replacing it with something better, just in time to jump into Grenada and Panama was a one-hand knife with hole and clip called The Worker.....10 yrs later the Army was cool again, and so was being in it since we were winning, and we still knew not to destabilize an entire region and now knives like The Worker were called tactical/strategic and The Worker was now all lightweight plastic and went even more places......while a guy invented a dubious liner lock on show knives and a guy aching to sell knives to military after not selling much in the crowded arcane show knife arena by the name of Emerson got permission to use the liner lock....almost an instant hit, he sold rights to another company to make his design (as with me, an aerospace guy with access to exotics and heavily used in his designs)....another guy also copied same design elements of titanium/G10/ATS34, and the company made his first as it basically a copy of known plastic The Worker knives anyhow.....this was all about the time of Desert Storm and just beyond....and a world of hype then and ever since....

In below top view of all four you can see clips add a world of thickness....the middle two are the newest and clips removed....top and bottom knives from age of the dinosaurs and deployed places....they look worse than photos show...

You can also just make out G10 fraying at edges and drilled holes, and stainless bolts rusting, and only screwed into thin liner material which is not much of a nut...and last two shots show the new larger Spyderco about as much knife in a smaller lighter package in every respect than bolted knives, and far kinder to both hand and pocket....













As you can see, i did indeed buy into the type/hype very early on, and years of use show it mainly foo-foo.....with disadvantages outweighing advantages of original light weight high strength.....and at far greater cost for the foo-foo back then....but successful enough the bolted designer immediately built his own factory to cut out the middleman....i leave them to those who like them....i have not seen a truly significant improvement since the all steel Police model and plastic Endura and Pacific Salt version of same aside from bragging rights....otherwise bolted is just a bit lighter than the steel version and a bit stronger than the plastic, fatter, and costs twice as much.....it would not hurt to add that the above bolted knife weighs almost as much as the two new clipless knives combined......that IS a significant weight difference at the end of the day to wearer and to pocket liners....

As hinted at above, though, there is one certain reason for not using the zytel handle, and that is if you live in a climate of frequent sub-0°F cold and will be HEAVILY stressing the handle such as very hard stabs....then a metal liner makes perfect sense.....down here, Hell will certainly have frozen over first before i ever need worry of such....as for batoning,.....generally i just ask why?....the very idea of wishing to take a refined razor sharp knife and then use it as a splitting wedge is beyond me, and a rock or wedge of wood makes far more sense.....but even careful batoning would harm almost no knife if done with any care at all...if it just HAD to be done....

An old fart has spoken....all bow....

 

[ThePeacent]

I have batonned with two of my Saltsm actually. SE Pacific Salt from the pic (my go-to EDC since the day I got it) and the Spyderhawk.

It was small, soft pieces of wood, mind you, but they worked like champs and none of them got blade play afterwards.

I really love the Salt series, they're my favorite Spydies and I find them tough, dependable, lightweight and awesome chainsaw-like pocket companions!

And they are waveable as well! It works perfectly, this zip-tie mod.

 

[mtngunr]

I would say HARD beat the snot out of it batoning while leaning on handle (why?) would cause enough bounce as to peen hooks of the lock bar and blade....but as you point out, selection of what wood to baton is far more critical than selection of knife unless one of those types who simply MUST pound a cutting instrument crossgrain into a piece of oak and through a knot.....were i lost in the woods, and only one knife to survive with, and it a small one, the last thing in the world i would do to it was anything which risked breaking it.....seems rather obvious....

But back to the knife and steel itself, it is probably the most unappreciated modern super exotic steel on the planet........everyone concentrates instead on latest powdered steel with highest hardness numbers which may cut cardboard for 20 yrs straight without a touchup, but which rusts, and which snaps like an icicle when used as a working knife in most typical work environments where folk NEED a knife.....this stuff will NOT rust under any circumstance, takes a fine razor edge and holds it more than decently, almost impossible to break or chip without it being near intentional, and pretty much seems about everyday-work-knife perfection and i think the company foolish for targeting only the salt water and military minority crowd of knife owners....i know they think if it catches on military that civilians will then buy it, but in THIS case it should be the other way around where everybody already uses and trusts the stuff at home and would not trade it for the world.......

But instead, it is hardly known or marketed at all......bizarre.....

 

[Bawanna]

I just gotta say that hooked serrated blade makes my teeth hurt looking at it. Nasty, nasty cutting instrument.

Photo 1 perplexes me. Perhaps an asphalt spreader in the back ground. Not a track hoe as was my first thought.

And just to make sure my mind is working right (highly unlikely), the zip ties are to assist with handy quick opening?

Good photos.

 

[mtngunr]

I will step in, in case he does not....the much mentioned "wave" is a patented Emerson backwards protruding hook cut into spine which opens a knife when drawn from pocket...and one wonders if first one then copied might not have been a Spyderco with back half of hole cut away and then design refined....folks get the same effect with zip ties on the hole....takes several to steady the larger tie in one place......and murder on pocket liners and top hems, i would imagine...

The hole as designed for thumb actuation is plenty fast for me and keeps knife flat.....

 

[mtngunr]

Hey, Bawanna, a question for you.......if you had a choice, which of the originals posted would you carry?....

The biggest and baddest, or the more common sense size able to be shirt pocketed?

Keeping in mind both are nearly straight razors in arm hair removal out of the box.....

And that both are clippable if desired.....

 

[Bawanna]

I would definitely go for the smaller version. I was just browing the Spyderco site and like the little mouse size that I think is even smaller yet. I think it was a mouse, I have a regular mouse, tiny little thing, but right handy.

The last folding knife I carried regular was a SOG Pentagon Elite. Very fine knife, love the little button to release the blade.
I rarely carry anything but a fixed blade anymore. I have a little folder Kershaw in my front bag but seldom use it.

I see the smaller version you show with the yellow handle and steel blade (not black) for 89 bucks I think it was. The little mouse size for about half that. I closed the site before I weakened and sent any of my HI coin to somebody else.
Got plenty of folders, although there's a Kahr branded Spyderco that I have a hankering for. Not the salt steel but same shape which I'm fond of.

I managed to get one of the Bladeforum traditional folders last year with the stag handle. But the things so pretty I hate to use it and stuff just don't stay in your pocket when you sit full time. Gorgeous little knife though. All a guy really needs truth be told but don't tell my wife that neither.

 

[mtngunr]

I had a little Manbug until yesterday, the slightly beefier version of the Ladybug....they even make a Salt version but i would prefer the better edge holding of the standard VG10 for a little knife not subject to as much abuse.....i would dare say, and did when i gave my Manbug away to a 5th grader boy, that it would accomplish 90% of every chore knife chore he would ever have...

With the thumb ramp hole up top, you can really lean on those suckers and cut amazingly tough things and with a full three finger hold on bottom .....i could fold over 32 layers of cheesecloth parts bag and handheld with both, poke the little knife right through it and pull down and cut right off through edge, hems and all....

Need to get another now...

The Kahr is the same knife as the smaller of mine but with blade bobbed for residents of cities required to have only short bladed knives but otherwise same knife for sure, BUT with bolted scales/liners and still heavier than my full blade Salt 1....i use a vendor who even has special runs done, as fraud is unbelievable out there and i do not always want to be guessing if i bought the real thing...not as cheap as cheapest ebay seller but generally with shipping cost of same, knifeworks dot com.

 

[mtngunr]

For scale for Bawanna.....original Clipit Delica and Salt 1 (first H1 steel knife and introduced shortly before this scaless handle design dropped in other knives, it was originally marketed simply as a Delica with H1 steel)....

the knives with liners do not have quite the blade depth of the Salt 1 as they lack the clipped sheepsfoot blade....and they are slowly but surely going to a cheaper full flat grind on most, they have a flat bevel sabre grind on a few, and offer the original hollow grind bevel on exactly one black handled Delica...

I think the Salt 1/H1 Delica best on several fronts, then, also having what i think the strongest and sharpest blade design of the lot.....







Note damage to teeth on reverse shot, AUS8A steel ....they are more fragile than a straight edge and especially in some harder steels they currently use, and i would recommend tougher H1 if teeth were required....