Zapp Z-Wear experience and heat treat

Willie71 said:
No response from Zapp.

I have some information on a blade that chipped, and I'll post it tonight.
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I ground the chipped edge back, and hammered it through some brass rods. At 0.010", not a mark. Once I got down to 0.005", there was some marking, and at 0.003", some mild deformation that ground out with two passes with a 220 grit belt.
 
I know the thread is a little old but Id like to hear any updates that you have Willie71 Willie71 Are you still using the 1975f austentize, cryo, 1000f 2hx4 tempers as your standard heat treat? thanks
 
No. I don't remember his specific protocol but now he's using the low temp temper. I believe tempering at 400f across the board and varying RC with the aus temp. With cryo of course.
 
kuraki said:
No. I don't remember his specific protocol but now he's using the low temp temper. I believe tempering at 400f across the board and varying RC with the aus temp. With cryo of course.
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I figured it as a matter of time just like with 3V..
 
Kentucky said:
I figured it as a matter of time just like with 3V..
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I will say I have 2 knives in the wild that were treated 1975/1000 no cryo and their owners are still raving about them. I just got another bar for folders and will be trying the LTT protocol with them.
 
Im a big fan of 3v so really looking forward to trying the z-wear..She ordered a bar the other day..Enough to test and some for knives
 
Where are you getting your z-wear? And why not cpm cruwear, it’s available through alpha knife supply!
 
Kentucky said:
I know the thread is a little old but Id like to hear any updates that you have Willie71 Willie71 Are you still using the 1975f austentize, cryo, 1000f 2hx4 tempers as your standard heat treat? thanks
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I’m using 1950f for most knives, 1975 for kitchen knives, and 1925 for hard use knives. Plate quench, cryo for 12h, then 400f for 2h times four tempers. Four is probably overkill, but I recommend three.

To be honest, the 1975f is probably fine for most knives, but I don’t have enough data to trust that for everyone. If you come out at Rc63-64 in most applications, you won’t be lacking toughness. With 1975, I’m getting Rc64+. I’m not sure how accurate my tester is at that hardness, so I’m not giving a specific number.

Expect about Rc62 at 1925 (40 min soak),Rc63/64 at 1950f (35 min soak), and Rc64+ at 1975 (30min soak).

I’m thrilled with this steel.
 
Willie71 said:
I’m using 1950f for most knives, 1975 for kitchen knives, and 1925 for hard use knives. Plate quench, cryo for 12h, then 400f for 2h times four tempers. Four is probably overkill, but I recommend three.

To be honest, the 1975f is probably fine for most knives, but I don’t have enough data to trust that for everyone. If you come out at Rc63-64 in most applications, you won’t be lacking toughness. With 1975, I’m getting Rc64+. I’m not sure how accurate my tester is at that hardness, so I’m not giving a specific number.

Expect about Rc62 at 1925 (40 min soak),Rc63/64 at 1950f (35 min soak), and Rc64+ at 1975 (30min soak).

I’m thrilled with this steel.
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Great, thanks. What's your final RC value with the 1950 aust, cryo and 400 tempers? 63/64?
 
This is some more data on some additional heat treat parameters. This is for the Charpy testing Larrin is doing:

Some interesting results from yesterday. The no cryo/low temper z-wear came out at Rc55. I used a lower austenitizing temp, of 1925 to try to minimize or at least lessen the retained austenitite. Tempering was at 400f x 4. According to the data sheet, it should have been Rc58/59 with high temper. I’ve done a few knives for harder use at 1935f, with cryo plus low temper, and they come out at Rc62/63. I had another maker use his tester, and he got an average of Rc62.5 on the blade I sent him. It appears no cryo with low temper isn’t a viable heat treat. The sample can go to be tested anyway.

The cryo (1h, as the eta carbides get erased when using high tempers anyway) plus high temper came out at Rc62, but I didn’t grind the small amount of decarb off. I used 1925f as an educated guess as earlier testing using 1975 resulted in a Rc65 blade after tempering. This one (1925f) should be about Rc63 on fresh steel. 1935 would probably give me Rc63/64. I’m probably 1/2 Rc point off of the desired Rc63/64 to match my previous samples. I typically see one additional Rcpoint when I grind the surfaces clean, but in one case I saw an increase of two Rc points, but I think I had foil that wasn’t fully sealed on that one. Larrin, am I correct to assume the cryo converted enough of the retained austenitite that the high temper didn’t bump the hardness as much as it would have with no cryo?

The no cryo, high temper condition came out at Rc61.5, so probably Rc62.5 when clean. I used 1990f. I probably should have used 2000f, or even 2025f. I used four tempers at 1000f.

Z-FiNiT is tempering now. I left the samples in cryo for 48h. Chuck at AKS told me this steel serms to prefer long cryo soaks, and I didn’t pay enough attention to my equipment needs, as I was tempering the no cryo z-wear samples yesterday for 8h.


Full thread here:

https://www.bladeforums.com/threads/call-for-charpy-toughness-samples.1548360/
 
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