Well, here it is. I took my Black FRN handle SE Pacific Salt and over the past four weeks did a test to see how it stood up to tap water with large amounts of standard table salt mixed into the water. See for yourself: H1 Stainless Steel is technological magic!
The first pictures are the Pacific Salt over the span of the (roughly) four weeks, mostly immersed in the plastic cup of salt water:
Everyone especially take note of the salt deposits on the knife. This really amazed me: The salt crystals must have grown or condensed onto the knife parts by themselves because once I immersed the Salt in there, I left it and didn't do anything to it:
Here are more pictures of the Pacific Salt salt water test:
Now here are the pics of the Salt after I took it out of the saltwater, and, used nothing but warm tap water and a scrub pad to clean it off. Absolutely amazing. Carbon steel and most other stainless steels would likely have been encrusted with rust that would have been alot harder to clean:
Final pics of the Pacific Salt after it was cleaned:
Well there you have it, everyone. Sal and all the people at Spyderco: THANK you for producing the world's best knives and for making a science-fiction dream into real and tangible reality: Humankind's true Rust Proof Steel.
Thanks SEF. You got pretty much the same results I get on the salt that I keep in my kayak. It stays in a wet salty compartment 24/7 and still functions like new. Like you I will tend to get a tiny bit of red leaking out of the pivot area if it sits unused and saturated for a very long time (weeks or months). I would guess that the pivot is made of a highly stainless steel but not actually h1. Like yours it can be rinsed/wiped clean in seconds.
When I took my Dfly to Florida and left it clipped to the draw string of my shorts in the ocean, after getting home I noticed rust around the pivot as well, and found the same rust on my H1 Ladybug. I believe the culprit to be the black washers around the pivot.
Evil D wrote:When I took my Dfly to Florida and left it clipped to the draw string of my shorts in the ocean, after getting home I noticed rust around the pivot as well, and found the same rust on my H1 Ladybug. I believe the culprit to be the black washers around the pivot.
I bet you are right. The same bit of rust showed up back by the clip and at was definitely from the washer. I might take mine apart later and have a look. I'll let yall know if I do.
My understanding is Spyderco won't sell you a new blade for a knife. However, pivot pins and washers can be gotten pretty easily. The pivot pin would need to be the exact same size and I don't know if Spyderco's pin diameters are the same size as the normal pins you can get on the knife making sites. Washers can be replaced easily I'm sure even if the hole is a little too big. So, if the other parts in a salt (no liners) do corrode to the point they need to be replaced I think they could be if you can do it yourself. To a pro may be expensive enough to just get a new knife. But if you can repair it or have a friend who can the corrosion of parts other than the blade might be reparable. But, with just a little preventative maintenance the pivot pin/washers can be protected for years. Tuf-glide or other corrosion prevention product should work. Especially for fresh water activities.
The thing about a small amount of corrosion is even when it's there the knife still works for many years. Just because a knife isn't in perfect condition doesn't mean it's not still a great knife. Gotta go. I need to wipe all of my knives off in case one of them has a fingerprint on it. :D
The washer at the clip screws corrodes a bit. A little cleaning and they are fine though, no pitting, just a little surface rust, they come clean when treated with cleaning agents containing abrasive particles (I guess barkeeper's friend is something like that).
My Salt 1 did not show any sign of corrosion at the pivot.
Evil D wrote:When I took my Dfly to Florida and left it clipped to the draw string of my shorts in the ocean, after getting home I noticed rust around the pivot as well, and found the same rust on my H1 Ladybug. I believe the culprit to be the black washers around the pivot.
I bet you are right. The same bit of rust showed up back by the clip and at was definitely from the washer. I might take mine apart later and have a look. I'll let yall know if I do.
A couple of years ago there were one or two professional divers on the forum here. They made the comment that after a couple of years, a Salt knife would fail... the lock spring would rust out. Their solution was to just buy another one.
If your Pacific spends 24/7 in salty conditions, you might want to keep that in the back of your head.
-Brian A distinguished lurker.
Waiting on a Squeak and Pingo with a Split Spring!
