Tom Krein reground ZDP: how's your holding up?

KeithAM

KeithAM

Joined
Dec 15, 2003
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Yesterday my son gave me a ZDP Spyderco Endura (great kid). I already had 2 ZDP Calypsos, which I found to have acceptably thin edges from the factory for my uses. The Endura is thicker, so I'm thinking of asking Tom to give it his treatment.

Those of you who've had Tom Krein regrind your ZDP blades:

1. How have the blades held up?

2. How, if at all, do you restrict what cutting chores you perform with your reground ZDP?

3. How do your experiences with thin ZDP square with the supposedly lower "edge stability" of such a high carbide volume steel?

I plan to use the knife as a general EDC, which means I'd want it to stand up to at least carving hard wood, cutting zip ties and copper wire.

Thanks!
 
I haven't carried my stock ZDP Endura since ten minutes after my Krein regrind arrived. I kept one stock so I could compare, but that was all the time it took to find there was no comparison. It outperfoms the stock grind so much that it isn't even funny. I have restricted myself to cutting things that are softer than steel, and I have resharpened it a couple of times. I have had no problems with chipping at all. I really believe that ZDP needs to be thin to show its advantages over other steels, and the thick saber grind was my single complaint with the ZDP Delica sprint run.

Send that puppy off for a full flat .010 behind the edge grind. You'll be glad you did.
 
My experience with my Endura ZDP regrind is exactly the same as Yablanowitz. It just skinned out a deer and still shaves nicely. No chipping issues, and I don't plan on cutting metal with it. I also have a Caly Jr. ZDP reground to .005" with a high hollow grind and it has tremendous cutting ability. I use it everyday, and it devours cardboard and plastic. The only time I chipped it was when I nicked a packing staple on a cardboard box. The knife was going through the box with so little resistance that I got lazy and let the knife go astray and clip the staple. My DMT Coarse took out the chip real quick. Another benefit of the Krein grinds is how easy they are to sharpen due to working so little steel. I have nothing but good to say about my Krein regrinds, thay are my favorite cutters.

Mike

Edit to add: How thick of a copper wire are you talking about cutting? the Endura should easily handle speaker wire at .010". Cutting straight down instead of twisting the edge on the cuts will make a big difference. Zip ties are no problem for my Caly Jr., so the Endura will have no issues with them unless you really try to twist the edge in the cut.
 
Ditto here. I love my regrinds, and they sharpen up quickly. I can't talk to strength, as mine were ground so thin (at my request) that I don't dare try wire, my hands aren't real steady. Sure works good on real-world everyday stuff, cardboard, etc.
 
Mine is doing fine. I have a ZDP189 Jess Horn Tom put his whammy on for me and my only complaint about it is that sometimes it cuts surprisingly fast and easily to where if you are not paying attention you end up cuttting things you didn't really want to cut. Like fingers for example! :eek:

I read once where Tom referred to it as a 'light saber'. You don't quite appreciate that statement until you use one and it bites that finger you didn't get out of the way in time. :D

I would not use one of these regrinds for any heavy duty wire stripping or scraping but for precise tasks and detail work they are very very nice to have access to. Carrying my Horn is like having a surgeon scalpel on my pocket whenever I need it.

STR
 
Thanks forall of your observations.

I'm wondering if I misunderstand what Tom does. Does he remove steel behind the edge bevel only, or does he also reset the edge bevel at a more accute angle than the factory? :confused:
 
Oh its both. He takes the primary grind down and in the process that will change the edge bevel in both the thinness and the way it looks. On my ZDP if he had taken it any farther down to the apex of the edge it would be a zero degree edge making the primary and cutting edge one and the same.

I want to warn you about these light sabres. If you get one you'll love it but I've worked with cutlery all my life and I've never had a knife that caused me so many times to look down and find that I did in fact poke myself with the thing or cut my finger and so cleanly I didn't even know it until I saw spots of blood on the handle or somewhere else nearby. The thing bites man!

STR
 
STR said:
If you get one you'll love it but I've worked with cutlery all my life and I've never had a knife that caused me so many times to look down and find that I did in fact poke myself with the thing or cut my finger and so cleanly I didn't even know it until I saw spots of blood on the handle or somewhere else nearby. The thing bites man!

STR
Click to expand...

I'm psyched. As I once read in a comic posted by Cougar, "knife scars are all the more manly." ;)
 
My son used to tell me 'chicks dig scars' :D but yablanowitz is right. This one of mine cuts so clean and so painlessly you don't even know it bit you until you see blood. At least thats how its been for me.

STR
 
Just to clarify a bit, I had Tom grind my Endura from flat saber (stock) to full flat, and thin the blade down to .010 inch thick where the edge bevel meets the primary grind. He may have changed the edge bevel as well, but there wasn't enough of it left for me to tell by eyeball. I had him leave it that thick because I tend to use my knives pretty hard at work. This one has cut 28 year old carpet in a store, latex and silicone caulking, mastic adhesive, drywall and a few other things with no damage. It hasn't cut any copper wire, that's one of the things I carry a LM Wave for.
 
Wow....my knives are far more afraid of old, dirty carpet and in particular of drywall, than of copper wire. That's some serious workload for your knives, Yablanowitz.
 
I don't have the ZDP but I had Tom do my Boye colbalt-bladed edc and it is AMAZING!

He took the Boye sabre-grind to a full flat-grind waaay up towards the spine, took the edge to .009" and then put the 'Kreinedge' on it.....slices the likes I've never seen......it displaces almost nothing as it cuts. :cool:

I use my Spyderco Tri-Sharp and the medium-grit dark stones to touch it up on occassion, giving it a toothy edge.....grabs/cuts free-standing hair, no problem. :eek: :cool:

Compared to an old Boye.....I did not do the pitiful sharpening job on it.....it, too, will be visiting the 'World Famous' Krein Spa in Gentry, AR. ;)

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barrabas74 said:
Have you all found it relativley easy to maintain this laser edge after some use?
Click to expand...

Yes. Because of the nature of the grind, you have to remove much less metal when you sharpen. When I sharpen my Krein ground benchmade, for example, it takes 3 to 5 strokes on a DMT blue to completely redo the edge.
 
Yep, you can completely reprofile the edge in five minutes or less. It doesn't take much when the edge bevel is 1/32" wide at ten degrees per side ;)

As for the copper wire cutting bit, most of the copper wire I deal with is 14 ga. solid conductor or larger. That is a job for a wirecutter of some sort, regardless of the knife you carry. I have cut wire that thick with a knife when nothing else was handy, but after the first cut I walked back to the truck for my sidecutters (that was before I started carrying a Leatherman).
 
As a side note, do you use the hardened portion of the LM wirecutters? How does it hold up? I use it for cutting all those damn ties that they use these days on Christmas presents.
 
Yes, I do use the hard wire portion of the cutter on the Wave once in a while, it stands up to steel wire better than the rest of the cutter surface. It doesn't work very well for small diameter copper wire, although it does make a fair wire stripper for the small stuff.
 
Had this one for a while now, cutting heavy cardboard/wires/ropes and the like, not a problem, easily touched up to breath taking sharpness, it was sharp before, but a tad
thick, now at .010" at the edge bevel, it slices oh so nice ;)

IMG_0776.jpg
 
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