Quality dive knife, sharp and rust resistant

[Peter69_56]

I am struggling to find a dive knife that will hold a good edge as well as being rust resistant. Plenty of knives are rust resistant, but generally soft and impossible to sharpen properly. The knife should easily cut fishing line as well as netting material. I like a knife to be razor sharp, not to just have a point edge like so many are. The holder should be reliable in holding the knife without losing it.

I have found the rust resistant ones are high in stainless but soft. The ones that sharpen to a razor edge are great but rust as they are high in carbon steel.

Titanium knives can be sharpened but generally the soft side of the knife does make it hard to sharpen well (the titanium coating being the sharp edge). I find them just OK.

I have tried Oceanic and am not impressed, mainly soft but don't rust and are cheap. Holders are marginal as well.

Have a Smith & Western sharpens like a razor but rusts and the holder lets it fall out and nearly lost it twice.

Best so far is the UK Hydra alloy which is not too bad and the holder is good. Is there anything better?


Other peoples experience would be appreciated.

 

[pjhansman]

Have a look at Spyderco knives

 

[Chuckitall]

Spyderco H-1 knives do both. Made for salt water. You didn't mention what kind of knife you are looking for. I use alot of titanium knives thru the years without any problems. If you use it alot any knife will dull, but I still manage to cut fishing line and rope with no problems. I gave up pure Stainless many years ago due to rust spots. I'm not in the mood to worry about a cleaning a knife after a day or week of diving.

 

[Peter69_56]

I am probably a bit anal with knives as my father was a practical man and taught me how to sharpen cut throat razors along with ones trusty knife everyone had on them as a tool.

I detest coming into a home and then expected to use meat or bread knives which are blunt. Can't cut tomato or bread with a blunt knife, so I sharpen my knives so I can take the hair from my arm. Now I am practical as well and realise a dive knife wont quite be that sharp, but my first test is to try this when sharpening and then realise it will be somewhat less than this in normal use. Any knife you cant do this to is clearly not hard enough to take a good edge. I usually have one on my wing belt or BCD below the pocket and also a line cutter on my chest.

Tried leg knives but found them less than practical and given a replaced knee somewhat difficult to retrieve.

I always rinse my gear but the cheaper or higher carbon steel knives still do rust significantly along with so called stainless knives. Bought one cheap knife from a Sydney LDS and it lasted 2 days (with rinsing) before it was a total sheet of rust. So much for their guarantee it wouldn't rust. I gave it to the locals where we dived in PNG.

Have seen the spyderco ones and was wondering how good they are.

 

[abyss_scuba]

I have gone from a old Dacor that had a 6 inch ruler on the blade I wore on my calf to a small bc knife to a medical shears. Best thing is we were able to cut garbage off turle we encountered.

 

[ajduplessis]

Eezycut. Eezy as that!!

 

[Searcaigh]

I have a small ScubaPro knife that has held up well over the years, very little rust appears after many dives that I clean with sink cleaner stuff (Jif).

I have a TUSA knife that has never been in the water that started rusting after about a year (it was a gift), if I can find it I will post a pic of it.

 

[Superlyte27]

Spyderco H1 is the only knife to consider. It's got a true lifetime warranty, like a snap-on tool. It will NOT rust. I've left my H1 in a tool box for two weeks filled with salt water, it didn't rust.

It's stupidly sharp. I've had several people check it's sharpness with their fingers, only to notice they'd cut themselves, lol.
I'm a dealer, buy one, if you don't like it, I'll give you your money back.

 

[maniago]

On the steel beds of my lathe and such, I use ordinary car wax on them. Keeps the surface rust from a sweaty (ie salty) hand from forming. Might or might not work on knifes, but its a cheap solution.

That said, I bought two of these for myself and my wife Underwater Kinetics Blue Tang Titanium Blunt

She's got the blunt one. I bought the pointy one for those underwater knife fights that my PADI instructor told me about....

I'll also note however, that I carry a $5 EMT shears and a Trilobite cutter. The knife is dive optional - the other two, never.

 

[elmer fudd]

I liberally coat the blade of dive knives with silicone lube. It does a great job of keeping rust away.