William Henry blade material

R

rckendall

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Oct 26, 2006
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I had the opportunity over the weekend, to handle a few William Henry knives. I was quite impressed, but fortunately they did not have the model I was really interested in.

Shopping on-line, I now see that some are offered with ATS-34 blades and others have ZDP 189 Laminated blades (which are RC-67 or so).

Can someone shed some light on which material is better for which uses? Personally, I use my edc mostly for cutting my fruit. If I need something for rough work, I look for another.

By the way, I tried the search/advanced search and found nothing.

Thanks
Richard
 
WH makes some great slicing knives. I've had a few and still use one almost every day. It works great on leather and 550 cord. The bigger ones will be great for cutting up fruit and if you get one of the heavier ones you can get the seed of the avocado out.

As for blade steel, both are really great. Going with the William Henry ATS-34 knife you will save money. ZDP is the latest and greatest steel. Both will stay as sharp as you can keep them. I've found zdp sharpens better on a diamond stone, but takes a wicked edge.:D

Hope this helps.
 
I have an Ats-34 Wh that is one of the best slicing knives that I have. It holds a great edge. I don't own any of the ZDP, but have heard great things about it. Point is that WH makes a great knife and whichever steel you get will slice with the best of them. Steven
 
My only concern would be that the ZPD is so hard it might chip out with hard use but for ordinary uses either is fine.
 
kamkazmoto said:
My only concern would be that the ZPD is so hard it might chip out with hard use but for ordinary uses either is fine.
Click to expand...

That is what makes ZDP superior to most other knife steels. It can be hardened up into the high 60's RC while maintaining some durability. A zdp blade will handle fruits/boxes/tape/soft woods/leather/550 cord/finger tips:p/and plastic with little or no loss of edge. if you pick up the april(i think) issue of blade magazine thier test writer used only a ZDP bladed WH for something like 35 days for many things including a lot of custom leatherwork and in the end all he needed to do to bring it back to insanely sharp was give it a good stroping on unloaded leather.
 
I have a WHK in ZDP. It takes a very fine edge when you take the time to sharpen it. It does take some extra effort. Buy the diamond stones for the sharpmaker, it works well.
 
There is an excellent revies on the WH Gen-Tac w/ZDP-189 in the latest issue of Blade magazine. Probably more information about the blade steel than I could ever write or have enough space. And written a lot more intelligently than I ever could. BTW: I currently own two WH knives w/ZDP steel and they are AWESOME!!
 
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