bucks 420HC

M

mkf2294

Joined
Jan 1, 2009
Messages
46
every one of my buck knives with 420HC will rust so easliy compared to all my other knives. i oil the blade and keep it dry and it still wants to get rust pits. no other knife i have will do this.i have other knives with 420HC by other companies and it does just fine. :thumbdn:
 
MKF,I would'nt think you'd have that problem even in SC.Coastal areas are more problematic on knife steels.Sometimes storing the knife in a leather sheath promotes corrosion.If its that bad there you much have a nightmare w/ your rifles and shotguns.My experience is much like Soleil.Only Buck didn't switch to 420 until
1994.DM Buck Collector Life Member 1119
 
You may have some kind of contamination on them, like steel dust or something. I'm in Greenville, and have no rust issues from my old Buck slipjoint. Its possible it wasnt heat treated properly. As many as they make, one's bound to get through sometime.
 
David Martin said:
MKF,I would'nt think you'd have that problem even in SC.Coastal areas are more problematic on knife steels.Sometimes storing the knife in a leather sheath promotes corrosion.If its that bad there you much have a nightmare w/ your rifles and shotguns.My experience is much like Soleil.Only Buck didn't switch to 420 until
1994.DM Buck Collector Life Member 1119
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Thanks for that correction Dave:thumbup:. I thought 420HC was always Bucks primary steel. Now I have to find a chart of their stampings so I can tell what steel my knives are:D. I have always lived in humid areas, currently on the Florida coast, with no rust problems on any Buck steel that I have.
 
Soleil,From 1961-1980 Buck used 440C.These knives will be stamped:Buck or Buck
USA
or Buck
119(model #)
USA
Depending on the year.Then year codes:<, >, V and upside down V,X,+,-,/ .In order Buck used 425M 1981-85 no year codes.These codes came in 1986-93.After these came 420HC.DM
 
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I have several Buck 110's in 420HC. I havn't had a corrosion problem with the blades. I live a few hundred yards from the Gulf of Mexico. Last summer my house was flooded with 2 inches of saltwater from Hurricane Ike. The Bucks were off the floor so they weren't flooded, but the house was closed up for over a week before I could return and get the AC working. None of my knives in the house were effected by the humidity. Just my 2 cents.
 
That's odd; Buck's 420HC is one of the more corrosion-resistant cutlery steels in my experience.
 
420HC shouldn't rust easily at all. Are you sure that they are genuine buck knives? That's the only reason I can think of for them to rust like that.
 
me2 said:
You may have some kind of contamination on them, like steel dust or something. I'm in Greenville, and have no rust issues from my old Buck slipjoint. Its possible it wasnt heat treated properly. As many as they make, one's bound to get through sometime.
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oh really im in spartanburg.
 
Maybe send them back? Really they shouldn't rust. I can't think of a good reason for them to rust in such a fashion. :confused:
 
I bought this buck about 6 monthes ago. Wanted the full sized settled for this.. erm.. shorty. Anyway, put one of my legendary edges on it. Used it very lightly a couple of times. Forgot about it, musta been in my sock drawer for 5 or so months. Saw it, and dug it out the other day, but just put it on the table. Went to use it tonight to find rust pimples all down the edge!

If I'm not mistaken, the HC in 420HC means High Carbon, but I dont think you should be seeing ANY rust on stainless. Not without help anyway. I can set a rusty nail in my sink, and it will rust stain. However this knife has had so little use the black oxide still covers the serrated area. It could pass for brand new to just about anyone!

BTW I use regular grinding materials on my edges, and they have never produced rust on SS.

I'm going to look into a RMA tomorrow.

BTW it has not been in a leather sheath (only nylon), and I live over 700 miles from salt water, so thats just a nogo aswell. Humidity is not bad here, and things here are not known to 'rust out' like they do in coastal areas.

This is TOTALLY unacceptable!!!!

Colt
 
If you sharpen your stainless on the same stones as you use on your non-stainless, this can make the stainless rust as easily as carbon steel.
 
It most certainly can Hawkins! I found this out years ago when (for reasons I wont go into) I sharpened my axe on the kitchen counter over the sink. Even though the sink had been lightly cleaned fine shavings left around the top lip of the sink revealed themselves a day later as rust spots on my SS sink! LOL Took me a minute to figure aout what had happened. :)

Anyway, its seriously unlikely that is the case with this Buck. I wont go into my long and tedious process of putting a proper edge which I have NEVER seen on a new blade, but I am fairly certain that my equipment wouldnt be able to pass on such material. I do use a fine stone for coarse dressing, but the polishing abrasives I use are non-porus, and would not be able to hold the particles. Further complicating that theory for my problem is that ALL my grinding and polishing is done under clean running water. I have been doing things this way a long time, and I only have to dress cold steel with oil, but this is normal. Never Stainless. The Chromium oxide should be all thats needed. I agree with an earlier poster that the heat process may have been flawed on mine, leaving it with a pitted barrier allowing rust.

I have seen SS with rust, but had almost always been abused, mistreated, or exposed to corrosive etc. Never a knife clean and in the sheath.

The rust can be seen with the naked eye, but at 50x, it looks like a kitchen knife dug up out of the yard after 50 years.

Colt
 
Colt.1911 said:
I bought this buck about 6 monthes ago. Wanted the full sized settled for this.. erm.. shorty. Anyway, put one of my legendary edges on it. Used it very lightly a couple of times. Forgot about it, musta been in my sock drawer for 5 or so months. Saw it, and dug it out the other day, but just put it on the table. Went to use it tonight to find rust pimples all down the edge!

If I'm not mistaken, the HC in 420HC means High Carbon, but I dont think you should be seeing ANY rust on stainless. Not without help anyway. I can set a rusty nail in my sink, and it will rust stain. However this knife has had so little use the black oxide still covers the serrated area. It could pass for brand new to just about anyone!

BTW I use regular grinding materials on my edges, and they have never produced rust on SS.

I'm going to look into a RMA tomorrow.

BTW it has not been in a leather sheath (only nylon), and I live over 700 miles from salt water, so thats just a nogo aswell. Humidity is not bad here, and things here are not known to 'rust out' like they do in coastal areas.

This is TOTALLY unacceptable!!!!

Colt
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umm..."stainless" is a misnomer. The proper term is "Corrosion Resistant". Any "stainless" alloy can rust, given the proper set of conditions. Saying that a "stainless" blade must never rust is probably overoptimistic.

One of the things that can cause rusting in "stainless" is particles of iron ground into the surface. "Stainless" depends on an oxide layer only a few atoms thick to protect the alloy from corrosion. If you get iron particles into it, it can create a pathway for atmospheric moisture and oxygen to get to the actual metal and it can corrode. This sometimes happens at a knife factory, but can happen during the sharpening process.

One of the things I try to be careful about is cleaning my sharpening gear really well after I sharpen a low alloy or carbon steel before I sharpen up a "stainless" blade. It does not take much iron to contaminate the oxide layer. Even fine ceramic stones carry sufficient material.

Just a thought.
 
I understand the process, materials, and properties of SS. Chromium oxide is the barrier you speak of. I do know why and how SS will corrode.

But all science aside. Around 1985 my dad gave me one of those 'survival' knives. Remember the cheap Rambo knives? Well most of them had 440c stainless blades that seemed indestructable. The handles were that cheap tubular crap, and I could go on and on about how the handles fail. BUT THE BLADE! The blades would take a beating and them some! I saw a guy once cut a flat tire off a rim with a Rambo knife and a ball peen hammer striking the back to cut through the steel bands (of course the knife was ruined after).

The point is, as a kid I beat the living crap out of that knife. For years actually. The handle broke a dozen times I bet, and my dad put it back on every time. TO THIS DAY you can only find rust on one area, where my dad had spot welded the handle. But nowhere on the blade, which by the way has several deep nicks maybe a quarter inch, and appears to have gone through several wars. BUT NO RUST!! hmm

Seems funny that a 24 year old piece of crap that cost $14.99 new that has been beat to hell and back should not rust. But a nearly BRAND NEW Nighthawk, kept in EXCELLENT condition, in the sheath will rust in 5 months.

In case you missed it, MY polishing apparatus in NON-POROUS, always has clean, fresh water running over it, and is soap cleaned after use. It is extremely rare for me to use this equipment on cold steel because the effort is wasted on a edge that wont stay for long. Furthermore, typically I only use stones as a rough dress on a badly damaged blades. This Nighthawk has never seen under (what would be considered) about 600 grit, and is polished high to what would be considered about 2000 grit. Never seen a stone, no way to get iron, or steel particles in there. I get what ppl are saying about grinding particles from another knife getting in there. There just has been no exposure.

As you can tell I have my own technique for sharpening/polishing that I have developed over a lifetime. I have only seen this behavior in cold steel knives. I would be willing to put it to the test, but think that might run out my time on the warranty. Just gonna send it back. Thanks for the replies.

You shouldn't be seeing ANY rust on stainless steel. There, I said it again for an easier quote. Anything will corrode when exposed the right oxidizer. Saying it rusts under NORMAL conditions though is wrong. Maybe to be completely correct I should restate:

You shouldn't be seeing ANY rust on stainless steel, unless its been exposed to a highly corrosive environment, badly damaged AND exposed to a corrosive environment, or poorly made.

As you will read below, what I already knew. That Chromium will form the oxide coating when oxygen is present (no process by man is required). So if you take a 100 ton stamping machine, and punched a perfect hole in the center of the knife blade, the hole shouldn't rust. This is also my experience with SS, as the blade gets nicked, it never rusts. Seen it a million times.

Nuff said,
Colt

Here is some reference material I dug up:

What Is Passivation?
Passivation is the process of forming a protective oxide film on stainless steel. However, some confusion still exists about the definition of passivation and what really causes a passive film to form on the surface of stainless steel. On one hand, ASTM A380-99 notes that &#8220;Passivation is a process by which a stainless steel will spontaneously form a chemically inactive surface when exposed to air or other oxygen-containing environments. It was at one time considered that an oxidizing treatment was necessary to establish this passive film, but it is now accepted that this film will form spontaneously in an oxygen-containing environment providing that the surface has been thoroughly cleaned or descaled.&#8221;
 
Actually, it is not pure chromium oxide, but rather a matrix of oxides of iron and chromium that tightly adheres to the metal surface.

"You shouldn't be seeing ANY rust on stainless steel, unless its been exposed to a highly corrosive environment, badly damaged AND exposed to a corrosive environment, or poorly made."​

I'd still say you are being overoptimistic.

Never the less, it remains that there are a whale of a lot of Buck knives that do not exhibit any corrosion, but yours does. Since yours is the minority, I would suggest either sending it to Buck for repair or removing the corrosion yourself. You say it is the edge that exhibits the corrosion. That certainly sounds like a contamination during sharpening issue. But, whether it is or not, I would guess that if you went after it with some fresh 600 grit sandpaper the corrosion would be removed and the knife would be good. I'd go after it myself if it were mine, but do as you will.

See ya.
 
Colt.1911 said:
in the sheath will rust in 5 months.



You shouldn't be seeing ANY rust on stainless steel, unless its been exposed to a highly corrosive environment, badly damaged AND exposed to a corrosive environment, or poorly made.
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First, you probably don’t want to store your knives in its sheath…it may rust.

Second with the exception of H1 every cutlery steel will rust given the right conditions. These conditions don’t need to be extreme.
 
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