ZDP-189 - Best blade steel

bondoo7 said:
Stacy, where did you get that S35VN thin stock, and any kind of steel in that thickness for fine kitchen blades? I'm from the other side of the pond and I have a really hard time to get thinner stock than 2mm that mostly came 40mm wide. Thanks!
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AKS has thin S35VN.
 
I think D2 gets a bad rap from all thoes industry heat treats done on blades. With a tweaked heat treat and a bit of care you can really push it. I just did a small batch of knives in D2 at 63rc and thy are whicked Sharp. About lost a finger blade show. Good thing we had bandages at the ready. Normaly people think of D2 as the steel that takes a shitty edge and holds it forever. But this is not the case if your willing to play with the heat treat alittle.
 
I would argue that CPM 10v is better with its 10% vanadium, since vanadium has a higher abrasion resistance. blade seems to be an awkward term too assuming we are talking knife and not sword though, I havnt seen a katana jacket made out of any of these crazy expensive steels yet I would be interested to see how that turns out with an iron core, I would say the best blade steel in my opinion would be CPM 3v being its damn near s7 toughness bit still has an abrasion resistance three times that of A2. just my 2 cents. How expensive is ZPD?

cru forge V is probally the best core steel for san mai katanas given the right heat treat it can still be plastic even in a martensite state serving as soft and hard core at the same time.
 
I have two and could not recommend the steel. One William Henry and one Boker. Very hard to sharpen and the edge doesn't last that long for my uses.
 
I have one ZDP189 "blade", it is a Miyabi MC66 (micro carbide 66HRC) large Santoku. It is made with the San Mai method, stainless steel jacket surrounding the ZDP core. IIRC the spine is ~0.070" with a slight convex FFG to a thin edge. The out-of-the-box sharpness was impressive. I have had it for a few years, haven't used it a whole lot, but decided to put my own edge on it. I am impressed with the steel. I do not find it chippy, or all that difficult to sharpen, especially with diamond and ceramic stones. Takes an amazing edge, with aggressive bite, even in the JIS 2-3k range. It is a beautiful knife with great performance. I like using it over an 8" chef's knife.
 
Joseph Gardner said:
I would argue that CPM 10v is better with its 10% vanadium, since vanadium has a higher abrasion resistance. blade seems to be an awkward term too assuming we are talking knife and not sword though, I havnt seen a katana jacket made out of any of these crazy expensive steels yet I would be interested to see how that turns out with an iron core, I would say the best blade steel in my opinion would be CPM 3v being its damn near s7 toughness bit still has an abrasion resistance three times that of A2. just my 2 cents. How expensive is ZPD?

cru forge V is probally the best core steel for san mai katanas given the right heat treat it can still be plastic even in a martensite state serving as soft and hard core at the same time.
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I don’t know your background but have you actualy ever used any of these steels. 10V is a very specialized steel and does not fit most users needs. I like my 10v folder but it’s anything but a hard user. Does not take the greatest edge and takes a good amount of time to get there. On the plus side it does hold it for about forever. And people are doing swords out of 3V but I don’t know if I buy the “three times more abrasion resistant then A2”. So many things go into abrasion resistance. You can’t just go off a chart. I’m not sure what your talking about with cruV as a core being plastic. Any steel can be plastic with the right temper. Problem you have is both steels will receive the same temper.

Like I said I don’t know your background in knife making but generally we make recommendations from actual experance not paper data.
 
JTknives said:
I don’t know your background but have you actualy ever used any of these steels. 10V is a very specialized steel and does not fit most users needs. I like my 10v folder but it’s anything but a hard user. Does not take the greatest edge and takes a good amount of time to get there. On the plus side it does hold it for about forever. And people are doing swords out of 3V but I don’t know if I buy the “three times more abrasion resistant then A2”. So many things go into abrasion resistance. You can’t just go off a chart. I’m not sure what your talking about with cruV as a core being plastic. Any steel can be plastic with the right temper. Problem you have is both steels will receive the same temper.

Like I said I don’t know your background in knife making but generally we make recommendations from actual experance not paper data.
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Well actually my opinions were purely based on blade forging experience. 3v has .8 carbon 7.5 chrome, 1.3 Mo, .4 tungsten and close to 3% vanadium. When I say its about 3 times more abrasion resistant its been my experience that it takes three times the effort as well material and time spent to use stock removal means. the 3v iv worked with tends to cool off and air harden about 35% on average faster then my source of A2 and requires more oomph to forge it in less time. its really hard to beat something that has insane toughness and impact resilience while having an exceptional wear resistance. its not a hyper cutter but its more suited to combat blades or anything I would take to Afghanistan if I had to go again.

the 10v I mostly use to spike content in welded billets and for crucible material.

Cru forge V for example takes twice the effort then 1095 with just .75 vanadium, and laughs at sand paper and whet stones for polishing, 3v happens to have 4 times that amount.
 
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Once these steels are sharpened, resharpening isnt so much an issue, but its a bear to get it there, anyone who says they cannot be sharpened or doesnt take an edge hasnt spent the time time to get it there. Goodluck getting there, it is quite frustrating and overly time consuming and Id almost recommend angle grinding or using a bench grinder to get in the ballpark for angle and thickness then belt sanding.
 
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JTknives said:
I don’t know your background but have you actualy ever used any of these steels. 10V is a very specialized steel and does not fit most users needs. I like my 10v folder but it’s anything but a hard user. Does not take the greatest edge and takes a good amount of time to get there. On the plus side it does hold it for about forever. And people are doing swords out of 3V but I don’t know if I buy the “three times more abrasion resistant then A2”. So many things go into abrasion resistance. You can’t just go off a chart. I’m not sure what your talking about with cruV as a core being plastic. Any steel can be plastic with the right temper. Problem you have is both steels will receive the same temper.

Like I said I don’t know your background in knife making but generally we make recommendations from actual experance not paper data.
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I get about double the edge holding with z-wear compared to W2 or 52100. Z-wear holds its edge much better than 3v as it has a higher carbide volume. I would guess 3v will hold its edge 25 to maybe 50% longer than A2.
 
Joseph Gardner said:
Well actually my opinions were purely based on blade forging experience. 3v has .8 carbon 7.5 chrome, 1.3 Mo, .4 tungsten and close to 3% vanadium. When I say its about 3 times more abrasion resistant its been my experience that it takes three times the effort as well material and time spent to use stock removal means. the 3v iv worked with tends to cool off and air harden about 35% on average faster then my source of A2 and requires more oomph to forge it in less time. its really hard to beat something that has insane toughness and impact resilience while having an exceptional wear resistance. its not a hyper cutter but its more suited to combat blades or anything I would take to Afghanistan if I had to go again.

the 10v I mostly use to spike content in welded billets and for crucible material.

Cru forge V for example takes twice the effort then 1095 with just .75 vanadium, and laughs at sand paper and whet stones for polishing, 3v happens to have 4 times that amount.
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You are forge welding 10v? Seriously?

You can’t look at just chemistry, but where those alloys are ending up. With lower carbon, 3v has less potential for carbides than many other similar steels.
 
So... yes I have been forge welding 10v for experimentation purposes. as a smith im an insane eccentric who does things just to see what happens. I tried to laminate 15n20 to the sides and my results were... strange. the 15n20 almost immediately turned into something else from about two minutes of carbon diffusion and air hardened, some of the peices in the billet exploded from being just a tiny bit too cold and a piece even got me in the face iv only tried that, ONCE. the rest has been to wrought iron in a 2 to 1 ratio or encasing a very small section of it when doing a hot cut fold and welding the piece inside then folding a few times to be sure.

Most of the insertion has been on bloom steel billets either during stacking or to spike the content early on during consolidation folds. its a process of why the hell not.

and sure it is just chemistry with enough folds. I do forge welding for the purposes of making exotic blade alloys and not for deliberate patterns. Eccentric.
 
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