H-2 Steel, Knife Steel Nerds Article is Out

[Deadboxhero]

I enjoyed reading this article, I got early access to it through Patreon, looks like the good doctor has made it publicly accessible which is nice for adding more to the discussion about the new H2 steel.

I'm very grateful to Dr Larrin for helping us understand how things work.

Wonderful fuel for the curious mind.


https://knifesteelnerds.com/2022/06/06/ ... he-sequel/


Previously, I enjoyed this article about H1 steel immensely for getting to the nuts and bolts of how these steels work which satiated my curiosity at the time even though I don't work with steels like this.

https://knifesteelnerds.com/2019/06/24/ ... -it-works/






I'm very curious to see what the hardness on the finished blades will be in comparison to H1.


What are your "Spyder thoughts" after reading the article?


I know this is one of Vivi's many favorite steels, any thoughts Vivi on H2 after reading the article?

[Enactive]

Thanks for sharing, Shawn! And thanks for writing it, Larrin! It was a great read.

[VooDooChild]

My take away, as someone who uses serrated h1, is that I probably wont notice a difference.

[Deadboxhero]

My take away, as someone who uses serrated h1, is that I probably wont notice a difference.

I think that's the idea, two birds with one stone, H1 availability was going away and this replacement will keep all the properties people love about H1 with perhaps an improvement to corrosion resistance.

The work hardening feature is not unique to H1, H2 ( like other austinitic stainless steels) will still have that feature, it would still be interesting to measure the hardness between them so we can have an idea of how they compare more.

[cabfrank]

[Woodpuppy]

I came here to post the same article, which I confess falling asleep trying to read about 10:30pm last night! I’m, shall we say, uneasy with change. But the only constant in life is change. Spyderco wouldn’t use it if it didn’t meet expectations.

But what many of us want to know is, how does MagnaCut perform with serrations?

[Manixguy@1994]

After reading , still look forward to try out H2 in the future and hope Sal will comment at some point . MG2

[dsvirsky]

My take away, as someone who uses serrated h1, is that I probably wont notice a difference.

My thoughts, as well. If Spyderco didn't tell me it was a new steel, I might never have noticed.

[vivi]

I know this is one of Vivi's many favorite steels, any thoughts Vivi on H2 after reading the article?

I felt like it was a good break down of what we all expect from H2. I'll be watching his site when H2 becomes available. He never seemed to cover H1 much so hopefully when H2 comes out we can get more data on it.

I don't expect H2 to perform drastically different.

I thought it was interesting how close H1's composition is to pot metal

Either way I have enough H1 pocket knives to last me, my kids and my eventual grandkids!

[wrdwrght]

I still want to know why the scallops of serrated H1 (and why not H2?) are as Rockwell-hard as they are, especially as Larrin continues to doubt “work-hardening”.

[jwbnyc]

Yeah, H1 was not a steel that caught the imagination of the HRC testers. The only HRC rating that I was able to find, besides the astronomical edge readings, was 59 from Fallkniven. Then we have Larrin’s rather low edge readings.. Nobody seemed interested enough in H1 to get many readings. Maybe we will get more with H2.

[vivi]

Yeah, H1 was not a steel that caught the imagination of the HRC testers. The only HRC rating that I was able to find, besides the astronomical edge readings, was 59 from Fallkniven. Then we have Larrin’s rather low edge readings.. Nobody seemed interested enough in H1 to get many readings. Maybe we will get more with H2.

I'm hoping. Some people seemed dismissive of H1 overall, and I feel like it never got examined as well as it could have. Maybe I'm off but I feel like it's a very unique super steel in the knife world.

[ladybug93]

Maybe I'm off but I feel like it's a very unique super steel in the knife world.

i'm a fan, as you know. i really hope that h2 is at least as good as h1 and doesn't sacrifice any of the things i love about h1. really, i just hope i can't tell a difference. h1 is basically a miracle, so i'm not very keen on changing it.

[Coastal]

It's interesting and compelling that Spyderco sought a way to replace H1, one-for-one, in their lineup. They could much more easily have decided that LC200N and eventually, MagnaCut, were good enough for the entire Salt Series. Instead they pursued a near-exact replacement for H1. That says that Spyderco, like some of the rest of us, values H1's properties, and that H2 will probably be very nearly a duplicate.

[vivi]

It's interesting and compelling that Spyderco sought a way to replace H1, one-for-one, in their lineup. They could much more easily have decided that LC200N and eventually, MagnaCut, were good enough for the entire Salt Series. Instead they pursued a near-exact replacement for H1. That says that Spyderco, like some of the rest of us, values H1's properties, and that H2 will probably be very nearly a duplicate.

Truth. LC200N has been rust proof for me so far, so it makes me curious what Spyderco found to make them want to keep both H1 and LC200N in the line-up. It seems like they could have phased out H1 if they wanted to, but they chose to keep it around.

I for one am thankful of that. LC200N is my second favorite steel, but H1 is still #1 for me.

[JSumm]

After reading , still look forward to try out H2 in the future and hope Sal will comment at some point . MG2

I hope Sal will chime in. I don't think this was a Spyderco decision to move away from H1 steel, but a Spyderco decision to do what they could to keep a steel with these attributes in the lineup. Not sure what percentage of a manufacturer's portfolio comprises of a steel like H1 sold mostly to one company for knives. I would imagine not much. So you can picture a meeting looking at just the numbers questioning why they were still doing this. Maybe none at that meeting carry knives. I don't know.

[Bill1170]

It's interesting and compelling that Spyderco sought a way to replace H1, one-for-one, in their lineup. They could much more easily have decided that LC200N and eventually, MagnaCut, were good enough for the entire Salt Series. Instead they pursued a near-exact replacement for H1. That says that Spyderco, like some of the rest of us, values H1's properties, and that H2 will probably be very nearly a duplicate.

Truth. LC200N has been rust proof for me so far, so it makes me curious what Spyderco found to make them want to keep both H1 and LC200N in the line-up. It seems like they could have phased out H1 if they wanted to, but they chose to keep it around.

I for one am thankful of that. LC200N is my second favorite steel, but H1 is still #1 for me.

The reason could be as simple as needing to retain a Japanese-made rustproof alloy in the lineup.

[Woodpuppy]

I still want to know why the scallops of serrated H1 (and why not H2?) are as Rockwell-hard as they are, especially as Larrin continues to doubt “work-hardening”.

From my read Larrin does not doubt work hardening. Rather, he described it as the process by which an austenitic steel is converted to martensite. This happens during manufacturing before the sheets are provided to a knife maker, I assume. What he was questioning is if the grinding of serrations into the blade constitutes additional hardening. Note that work hardening is the mechanical changing of shape (bending, folding, squishing etc.) but not grinding. Brass work hardens- this is why we anneal it for reloading purposes. The stretching during firing followed by setting the shoulder back in a die. The material hardens so you must anneal it or the necks will crack.

[metaphoricalsimile]

I still want to know why the scallops of serrated H1 (and why not H2?) are as Rockwell-hard as they are, especially as Larrin continues to doubt “work-hardening”.

I would not take it as a given that the scallops of serrated H1 actually *are* significantly harder. The very edge of a knife is very hard to actually test the hardness of since the hardness test itself can displace enough metal that you are at least partially testing the hardness of the material underneath the blade. Additionally there are *some* claims that the serrated edge has exceptional hardness, and *some* claims that do not find this effect. In science when you have un-replicated results you do not take them as fact.

It could easily be that the edge-holding nature of serrated H1 is a combination of serrations keeping a blade cutting well after the point where a plain-edge blade would stop, as well as the influence of the expectations of the knife user.

Also Larrin does not doubt that H1/H2 work hardens, what he doubts is that a grinding operation actually work hardens the steel, and the data that he has access to lends credence to that doubt. As Larrin has actually shared the data and methodology with us, *and* his data also tracks with my personal experience with serrated H1 (it cuts mostly due to the serrations rather than actually having good edge retention) I tend to trust his claims over the conflicting ones.

[vivi]

I still want to know why the scallops of serrated H1 (and why not H2?) are as Rockwell-hard as they are, especially as Larrin continues to doubt “work-hardening”.

I would not take it as a given that the scallops of serrated H1 actually *are* significantly harder. The very edge of a knife is very hard to actually test the hardness of since the hardness test itself can displace enough metal that you are at least partially testing the hardness of the material underneath the blade. Additionally there are *some* claims that the serrated edge has exceptional hardness, and *some* claims that do not find this effect. In science when you have un-replicated results you do not take them as fact.

It could easily be that the edge-holding nature of serrated H1 is a combination of serrations keeping a blade cutting well after the point where a plain-edge blade would stop, as well as the influence of the expectations of the knife user.

Also Larrin does not doubt that H1/H2 work hardens, what he doubts is that a grinding operation actually work hardens the steel, and the data that he has access to lends credence to that doubt. As Larrin has actually shared the data and methodology with us, *and* his data also tracks with my personal experience with serrated H1 (it cuts mostly due to the serrations rather than actually having good edge retention) I tend to trust his claims over the conflicting ones.

in regards to the last paragraph the information he presented made a lot of sense to me.