LC200N (aka z-FiNit, aka Cronidur 30) and Desert Ironwood Fishing Knife

C

Chris Meyer

Joined
Aug 15, 2005
Messages
1,297
Greetings everyone,

Here is a little knife I just finished up. I intend to use it for saltwater fishing, so I used a Nitrogen steel; LC200N, aka Z-FiNit, aka Cronidur 30, for corrosion resistance. (I got the steel from Chuck Bybee at Alpha Knife Supply.) Using the heat treating/tempering regimen that is supposed to give the “best combination of toughness/corrosion resistance”, I ended up with a hardness of 59 Rc, which I’m pretty happy with. The blade and tang both have distal tapers, which I made using a tilting magnetic chuck on my surface grinder.

For the handle, I used Desert Ironwood from Arizona Ironwood, LLC., and titanium pins from Chuck. The liners are white G-10 from Tracy Mickley at USA Knife Maker Supply.

The knife is about 9 inches overall, with a blade just under 4 inches long. I designed the knife with a slotted tab at the end of the tang so that I can attach a lanyard if I’m kayaking.

When I was going over the LC200N data sheets, it annoyed me that the temperatures were only in Celsius, so I “fixed” the pdfs and converted them to Fahrenheit. In case anyone wanted a copy, I turned the pdfs into .jpgs and posted them below my knife pictures.


















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Good looking knife.
Should do well for kayaking (I use a beta ti Mission MPU forvkayaking)
Hope the ironwood will stand up to salt water.
 
You think it is annoying that the temps were in Celsius ! The whole rest of the world is in Celsius except the bloody US and guess where 90% of the heat treating data comes from and guess what type of temp it is usually in . Every one else has to work in your Fahrenheit and convert it , so boo hoo.
Nice knife by the way. :)
 
That's lovely, and it doesn't bother me that you heat-treated it in Fahrenheit. :D

Where in CT are you?
 
Thanks guys!

Bladescout, I have a piece of purple G-10 that I planned on using for the handle, but I figured I would be constantly questioned for using it, so I went with the ironwood. I still have the G-10 in reserve though.

Parkerknives, I will concede that the metric system is much easier to use and more logical. I actually wish we had converted to it years ago, but we didn't, and now I'm too old to change. (When I was in grammar school in the 1960's they started teaching us metrics, saying we were converting, but apparently that fell through.)

Daizee, I am in Tolland, CT.
 
Thanks Daniel! I have mostly been working with CPM 154CM lately, and I didn't notice any real difference working with the Z-FiNit.
 
I like it, should be very well suited for purpose. Would be interesting to see photos after you have
had it in use a while. :thumbup::thumbup:
 
The knife looks good. I am thinking of trying this steel but am concerned that the cost outweighs the edge holding ability. Any comments regarding the edge holding ability of the Z-finit steel would be appreciated send to raponirick@yahoo.com
Chris Meyer said:
Greetings everyone,

Here is a little knife I just finished up. I intend to use it for saltwater fishing, so I used a Nitrogen steel; LC200N, aka Z-FiNit, aka Cronidur 30, for corrosion resistance. (I got the steel from Chuck Bybee at Alpha Knife Supply.) Using the heat treating/tempering regimen that is supposed to give the “best combination of toughness/corrosion resistance”, I ended up with a hardness of 59 Rc, which I’m pretty happy with. The blade and tang both have distal tapers, which I made using a tilting magnetic chuck on my surface grinder.

For the handle, I used Desert Ironwood from Arizona Ironwood, LLC., and titanium pins from Chuck. The liners are white G-10 from Tracy Mickley at USA Knife Maker Supply.

The knife is about 9 inches overall, with a blade just under 4 inches long. I designed the knife with a slotted tab at the end of the tang so that I can attach a lanyard if I’m kayaking.

When I was going over the LC200N data sheets, it annoyed me that the temperatures were only in Celsius, so I “fixed” the pdfs and converted them to Fahrenheit. In case anyone wanted a copy, I turned the pdfs into .jpgs and posted them below my knife pictures.


















​
Click to expand...
 
Did you heat treat in an inert atmosphere or vacuum like the datasheet recommended?
 
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