Laminated H1: Yea or Nae?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

If Spyderco were to make a knife with different laminations of H1, would it lead to a super-tough knife blade, or would it be pointless?

I guess because H1 work hardens, it would be no use?

[SpydyLover123]

I dont think you could do it dou to the fact that laminated steel is forge welded together and h1 is work hardrned.

[3rdGenRigger]

Lamination is typically done to reduce corrosion...and laminating the most corrosion proof steel with something less corrosion proof sort of defeats the point, even if it was possible. And due to the way H1 is hardened, it is already softer at the spine so I'm guessing the toughness would be more or less unaffected.

[tvenuto]

H1 is certainly a unique animal in the knife realm. Not sure what the purpose of lamination would be, or even if it's possible/practical.

I know you worded the original question: "If Spyderco" but I still think this belongs in off-topic.

[bearfacedkiller]

Not sure about heat treating. I believe there has to at least be a little bit of compatibility between the steels being used when laminated blades are being produced. Maybe somebody can chime in on the feasibility of the idea. It is over my head.

[Cliff Stamp]

If Spyderco were to make a knife with different laminations of H1, would it lead to a super-tough knife blade, or would it be pointless?

What do you mean exactly? Laminate it with what and in what manner?

[SpyderEdgeForever]

There were two ideas when I was considering it:

1 Three pieces of H1 steel, laminated together, mostly for an improvement on toughness, over one single piece.

2 H1 steel on the outside and a different steel on the inside/edge section.

How would you improve H1 as it stands, or would you?

[Cliff Stamp]

1 Three pieces of H1 steel, laminated together, mostly for an improvement on toughness, over one single piece.

I am not sure why you think this would make the blade tougher, it would just make it weaker as you have added a joint. The main reason why historically that knife makers had to do a lot of processing of steel (forging, welding, laminations) was that they had very poor steels. Modern steel making produces, even on the lowest end, steels which have far higher tolerances than the best steels that were used in the past. The steels back then had to be made by hand, production was very limited. It made no sense to use this very expensive steel for the entire blade, it isn't like the spine cuts anything.

Now if you gave me the a knife forged by a viking smith centuries ago I would love it, a great historical piece, a wonderful point of conversation. However if I was actually doing some work and I had to pick on the basis of what works as a tool, that kind of knife of a current $1 foreign import - well the import wins. That kind of thing spoils the romance of the katana but modern steels are simply far better. They are all forged in the mills, vast reductions, very homogeneous, like hammer forging but perfectly balanced so that all of the steel gets the exact same number of hammer hits at the exact same force.

Now you could ask Sal , isn't it a bit silly to make a a knife out of S110V, an extremely expensive steel and use this for the entire blade. Why not make the edge out of S110V and just make the rest of the blade out of a basic steel which high corrosion resistance and decent hardness? This seems perfectly sensible - but here is the thing, making that kind of laminated blade is fairly expensive especially when it is being sold to a niche market. There are other issues as well such as in mass production where you are not individually laminating each piece of steel you have to be very careful about the steels expanding/contracting differently so they have to be well matched in terms of hardening response.

2 H1 steel on the outside and a different steel on the inside/edge section.

I am really not understanding what you would be trying to do here. While this has been done historically for a number of reasons, the steel isn't part of the edge and thus can be mild steel, or even iron and provides extreme toughness and just reduced cost (historically). However are H1 blades actually failing due to lack of toughness? I don't see why you would look at that as the point to try to improve. The main complaints about H1 are generally that the edge can dent/roll or wear faster than a general martensite based steel.

As for H1 - well here is the thing, properly hardened, steels like AEB-L, 14C28N, etc. are very corrosion resistant, just look at a few of Jeremy's videos :

https://youtu.be/ZaNybj_vlxw

I like H1 as a durable steel, easy to grind, sharpens well - but I am hard pressed to say why/when I would pick it over those steels. But in a production setting, well there are issues because high corrosion resistance demands high end hardening/processing. H1 is likely more cost effective than that kind of heat treatment on 14C28N.

[bdblue]

I can't determine what would be gained by laminating H1.

But now that I start thinking about it- I wonder if you could improve H1 by forging it.

[Cliff Stamp]

....I wonder if you could improve H1 by forging it.

It is already forged, all steels are with rare exceptions, most steels are rolled significantly after casting.