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Intro
Juha Perttula has a doctorate in metallurgy and he has published several studies in scientific journals on heat treating knife steels. So for this article I want to feature not just an individual study but a person’s work. His studies have focused on traditional bladesmithing, low alloy and carbon steels, and wootz Damascus. He also makes and sells knives which you can read about at his website, juhaperttula.com. Juha’s website also has links to the articles I will be discussing below, and I recommend you read them in addition to my commentary.
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Video
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YouTube Video
The video version of the following information is available here:
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What is ApexUltra?
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Background
A recent Spyderco Byte has announced a replacement for H1 steel – H2. H1 is known for being a very high corrosion resistance steel used primarily in Spyderco’s Salt line of knives. I have a previous article about the design of H1 and how it “works” which you can read here. I am somewhat tempted to re-write large chunks of that article here because H1 is one of the most misunderstood knife steels but I am going to try to hit a few of the highlights without much explanation and I hope you will read the earlier article to understand what I am referring to:
