My on going salt steel comparison journal
Posted: Wed Jan 03, 2024 8:39 am
This will be my ongoing experiences with all 3 salts as my work steels...
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion involving the now 3 salt steels, and I've seen a lot of opinions of thoughts on them all. I just wanted to share my experiences of real world, hard use, in all 3, with the hopes that it makes it easier for people to decide what is best for them.
When I first got into spyderco i bought a salt, because i needed something rust proof. At the time h1 was my only choice, so my choice was easy. Nowadays, with 3 steels it could be confusing, esspecially if you don't have a knife hobby. While there is a good amount of info about all three, so much of it, to me, doesn't tell us the whole story Paper and rope cuts only give you "controlled environment" results. They don't tell what you might see in a real world situarion. I had never heard of catra or similar tests before joining here, and if im being honest im still in my infancy of even pretending to understand metalurgy. A lot of the info comparing these, is not going to help everyome. What's always told me the most is real world experience, and hopefully i can offer some of that
My background is in working on the water. Im a saltwater flyfishing guide on the east end of long island. Guiding is the lesser knife use of my two jobs, but it's about the best corrosion test there is. Small boat + angry north atlantic ocean = knives getting salt soaked daily. My other job makes me abuse my knives though. On offdays, offseason, and sometimes after charters I work for a business building/maintaining/installing moorings, doing boat/vehicle maintanance, dock building, building/grounds maintainance, driving boats, diving under boats, and basically anything that lets me put my knives in less than ideal situations. A full spectrum of use opportunity.
So here is how each steel has faired for me. I plan to keep this ongoing, as i get more experience with magnacut especially.
H2 (For this purpose, i'm considering h1 & h2 one in the same)
Knives used : pacific salt2 PE, atlantic salt SE, salt 2 wharncliffe SE, stretch2xl SE (new)
As of writing this, this is my favorite steel. Insanely tough, and ive never rusted it. My plain edge pacific was my first spyderco, and this was the first year i cleaned it. Not a speck of rust anywhere. I have hit this steel into metal more times than I can count. I've cut into metal reinforced exhaust hose, cut through steel belted tires, and ive never chipped it. I have rolled it, and deformed scallops on serrated but never so bad that it wouldnt keep going. I've used them as pry bars, and have turned more hose clamp screws with my atlantic's tip than I care to admit. The knife has taken more abuse than it was probably meant to. Even when it does deform, the sharpmaker in my tool box brings it back to life in minutes. PE performance isnt the best, but if youre not making a million cuts a day its fine. SE however, lasts a long time and its my preference. When I get rid of old mooring pendants, I separate the thimbles for recycling. With a SE blade I can cut through these heavy 1" salt, sand and barnacle crusted lines, hitting the hard steel thimbles all day Without concern. I've cut fiberglass with it, scraped barnacles and gaskets, and it just keeps going. For ultility work id say go SE, for a knife that gets less use but you never want to rust. PE is tough to beat. For PE and SE is keep them around 15dps and coarse. Its easiear with the 15 degree side of the sharpmaker. For serrated i usuall go 8 passes on the swrrated side to everyone on the flat.
LC200N
Knives used : pacific salt 2 PE, Salt 2 wharncliffe.
This is my choice for work knife PE. At the end of the day, to me, its basically a slightly lesser H2, but with better edge retention. As far as corrosion its really excellent, but i have rusted it, albeit extremely limited amounts. My pacific did every charter with me this year and very minimal rust. It didnt effect performance at all. Most came around the pivot and was unoticable until taking it apart. Strength and toughness is very high too. I have done pretty much everything ive done with h2, and never chipped it, but I have rolled it. Rolling would happen on big impacts with metal or fiberglass, but only once bad enough where the sharpmaker couldnt fix it pretty quickly. I swung it full force into a galvanized cleat and rolled a very small piece high enough that i got a small crack in the bevel. The rest of the knife didnt care though, and i fixed it home with my worksharp system. Easy to sharpen and fix steel. Where is beats h2 is edge retention. To me its slightly better than vg10. I never sharpen it hair popping sharp. I cut rope, not shave with it. And usually keep it a coarse grit around 15dps if i wanna get crazy ill add an 18dps microbevel, but often jts not practical. Ive used the edge to clean up a fiberglass repair, then cut some rope and still have enough edge to cleanly cut shrink wrap. If you want near h2 qualities, with better PE performance lc200n is a great choice.
Magnacut
Knives used : native 5 lw, manix lw (new)
My experience with this is more limited so upcoming posts i hope to share more. So far i think this is the best edc steel of the bunch, but perhaps the 3rd best work steel. Incredibly balanced, but at the cost of toughness and corrosion resistance. It took me about 12 months to get rust on LC, and frankly i just dont have that time on magnacut yet. Ive had some spots discolor and almost patina a little in a couple months, but further testing will see what that means. Toughness is the area I've seen it disappoint me the most. It's a little more prone to edge damage than the others ive found. Ive chipped it very slightly and only once, but it rolls a bit more. Ive also had, more than one occasion that ive bent the bevel, putting like a wave in the edge. Easy to fix but not something ive experienced elsewhere. Edge retention is excellent. Not s110v good, but very good for most stainless I'e found, and the best of the 3. Boat shrink wrap is nasty on blades. I did about 35 boats this year with my native and aside from the occasional strop it cut clean the whole time. Vinyl wrap and strapping. Strap knives give ouy after a couple boats usually. If my tasks are lighter duty, its a wonderful steel. Ive been starting kff aeound 17-18dps and fixing as neccessary with the 40 side of the sharpmaker
So anyway, i know its long winded but this is my experience so far. Hopefully it broke it down into a simple enough terms to give a potential buyer insight on my thoughts on all 3. Esspecially since adding the manix, I look forward to keeping this updated in regards to magnacut and anything else i find. If budget allows, i plan to pick up a chief in both MC and LC PE to have the same parody of blades i did woth LC AND h2.
Recently, there has been a lot of discussion involving the now 3 salt steels, and I've seen a lot of opinions of thoughts on them all. I just wanted to share my experiences of real world, hard use, in all 3, with the hopes that it makes it easier for people to decide what is best for them.
When I first got into spyderco i bought a salt, because i needed something rust proof. At the time h1 was my only choice, so my choice was easy. Nowadays, with 3 steels it could be confusing, esspecially if you don't have a knife hobby. While there is a good amount of info about all three, so much of it, to me, doesn't tell us the whole story Paper and rope cuts only give you "controlled environment" results. They don't tell what you might see in a real world situarion. I had never heard of catra or similar tests before joining here, and if im being honest im still in my infancy of even pretending to understand metalurgy. A lot of the info comparing these, is not going to help everyome. What's always told me the most is real world experience, and hopefully i can offer some of that
My background is in working on the water. Im a saltwater flyfishing guide on the east end of long island. Guiding is the lesser knife use of my two jobs, but it's about the best corrosion test there is. Small boat + angry north atlantic ocean = knives getting salt soaked daily. My other job makes me abuse my knives though. On offdays, offseason, and sometimes after charters I work for a business building/maintaining/installing moorings, doing boat/vehicle maintanance, dock building, building/grounds maintainance, driving boats, diving under boats, and basically anything that lets me put my knives in less than ideal situations. A full spectrum of use opportunity.
So here is how each steel has faired for me. I plan to keep this ongoing, as i get more experience with magnacut especially.
H2 (For this purpose, i'm considering h1 & h2 one in the same)
Knives used : pacific salt2 PE, atlantic salt SE, salt 2 wharncliffe SE, stretch2xl SE (new)
As of writing this, this is my favorite steel. Insanely tough, and ive never rusted it. My plain edge pacific was my first spyderco, and this was the first year i cleaned it. Not a speck of rust anywhere. I have hit this steel into metal more times than I can count. I've cut into metal reinforced exhaust hose, cut through steel belted tires, and ive never chipped it. I have rolled it, and deformed scallops on serrated but never so bad that it wouldnt keep going. I've used them as pry bars, and have turned more hose clamp screws with my atlantic's tip than I care to admit. The knife has taken more abuse than it was probably meant to. Even when it does deform, the sharpmaker in my tool box brings it back to life in minutes. PE performance isnt the best, but if youre not making a million cuts a day its fine. SE however, lasts a long time and its my preference. When I get rid of old mooring pendants, I separate the thimbles for recycling. With a SE blade I can cut through these heavy 1" salt, sand and barnacle crusted lines, hitting the hard steel thimbles all day Without concern. I've cut fiberglass with it, scraped barnacles and gaskets, and it just keeps going. For ultility work id say go SE, for a knife that gets less use but you never want to rust. PE is tough to beat. For PE and SE is keep them around 15dps and coarse. Its easiear with the 15 degree side of the sharpmaker. For serrated i usuall go 8 passes on the swrrated side to everyone on the flat.
LC200N
Knives used : pacific salt 2 PE, Salt 2 wharncliffe.
This is my choice for work knife PE. At the end of the day, to me, its basically a slightly lesser H2, but with better edge retention. As far as corrosion its really excellent, but i have rusted it, albeit extremely limited amounts. My pacific did every charter with me this year and very minimal rust. It didnt effect performance at all. Most came around the pivot and was unoticable until taking it apart. Strength and toughness is very high too. I have done pretty much everything ive done with h2, and never chipped it, but I have rolled it. Rolling would happen on big impacts with metal or fiberglass, but only once bad enough where the sharpmaker couldnt fix it pretty quickly. I swung it full force into a galvanized cleat and rolled a very small piece high enough that i got a small crack in the bevel. The rest of the knife didnt care though, and i fixed it home with my worksharp system. Easy to sharpen and fix steel. Where is beats h2 is edge retention. To me its slightly better than vg10. I never sharpen it hair popping sharp. I cut rope, not shave with it. And usually keep it a coarse grit around 15dps if i wanna get crazy ill add an 18dps microbevel, but often jts not practical. Ive used the edge to clean up a fiberglass repair, then cut some rope and still have enough edge to cleanly cut shrink wrap. If you want near h2 qualities, with better PE performance lc200n is a great choice.
Magnacut
Knives used : native 5 lw, manix lw (new)
My experience with this is more limited so upcoming posts i hope to share more. So far i think this is the best edc steel of the bunch, but perhaps the 3rd best work steel. Incredibly balanced, but at the cost of toughness and corrosion resistance. It took me about 12 months to get rust on LC, and frankly i just dont have that time on magnacut yet. Ive had some spots discolor and almost patina a little in a couple months, but further testing will see what that means. Toughness is the area I've seen it disappoint me the most. It's a little more prone to edge damage than the others ive found. Ive chipped it very slightly and only once, but it rolls a bit more. Ive also had, more than one occasion that ive bent the bevel, putting like a wave in the edge. Easy to fix but not something ive experienced elsewhere. Edge retention is excellent. Not s110v good, but very good for most stainless I'e found, and the best of the 3. Boat shrink wrap is nasty on blades. I did about 35 boats this year with my native and aside from the occasional strop it cut clean the whole time. Vinyl wrap and strapping. Strap knives give ouy after a couple boats usually. If my tasks are lighter duty, its a wonderful steel. Ive been starting kff aeound 17-18dps and fixing as neccessary with the 40 side of the sharpmaker
So anyway, i know its long winded but this is my experience so far. Hopefully it broke it down into a simple enough terms to give a potential buyer insight on my thoughts on all 3. Esspecially since adding the manix, I look forward to keeping this updated in regards to magnacut and anything else i find. If budget allows, i plan to pick up a chief in both MC and LC PE to have the same parody of blades i did woth LC AND h2.