ZDP-189 blade steel, whats turned U on/off about it?

dalefuller said:
No. I have two now that are just work knives. We'll use them up and then replace them. I had two others (CF/ZDP189 Caly 3s) that I traded away. ZDP189 is too difficult for me to work with. The longer edge holding ability is not worth the trade off of being that much more difficult for me to sharpen.

I stress that the sharpening difficulties are entirely my own. There are people on the boards that are ZDP189 magicians. I know that. I believe you and I respect you for that. I just can't do it :o and I'd rather have a steel like VG10 or S30V that has to be touched up a bit more but is far easier to work with.
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+1 on that.

It is an elegant steel there is no doubt about that. However it is extremely difficult to sharpen. Unless you are a professional metal worker, no easy way.
Personally I am a "knife enthusiast", not a metal worker nor a metallurgist so I get no fascination about the components of a particular steel.
Especially on a "worker" blade I will never choose this steel again. IMHO takes too much time to sharpen (and never becomes perfect) and in practice does not have an additional benefit over neither ATS34 and "of course" nor VG 10.


All the best
 
I have 3 customs with ZDP-189, and I really love the stuff. They are currently, the sharpest knives I own.
 
Do most of you find that the Sharpmaker is all you need to sharpen zdp-189? or do you have some other method? I can get my stretch cf to be sharp enough for every day stuff, but man when that thing was new it was sooooooooooo sharp. I can't even approach that level of sharp.(for the moment)
 
I love it. Gets very sharp, holds an edge better than most steels I've used, and works well with thin edges. Never had corrosion issues on mine but it isn't as good as VG10, S30V and others in that regard. Can't understand what makes it difficult for others to put a nice edge on it. I find it burrs hardly at all when I sharpen it, which makes getting a killer edge stupid easy for me. I consider it one of the easiest steels to sharpen, but I sharpen my knives when they roughly scrape arm hair, not when they can't cut anymore. I found ZDP189 to easily take hair whittling sharp edges and hold them.

SPXTrader said:
The secret to getting ZDP to it's maximum efficiency is to really thin out the edge.
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+1, true for many of the high wear resistance stainless steels.
 
My $40 belt sander isn't afraid of ZDP-189. I'd give my ZDP-189 knives away before I would sharpen them on nothing but a sharpmaker though.
 
T.K.C. said:
I have 3 customs with ZDP-189, and I really love the stuff. They are currently, the sharpest knives I own.
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You said that 2 years ago in this thread :p

What turns me off about ZDP-189? I honestly don't feel that it holds an edge a huge amount longer than say VG-10. And I do think that it is quite resistant to corrosion (I cut oranges with my ZDP Delica every night and let it sit, and I don't have any staining.)

I'm starting to wonder whether my Delica actually has a VG-10 blade stamped as ZDP-189...
 
THG said:
What turns me off about ZDP-189? I honestly don't feel that it holds an edge a huge amount longer than say VG-10. And I do think that it is quite resistant to corrosion (I cut oranges with my ZDP Delica every night and let it sit, and I don't have any staining.)

I'm starting to wonder whether my Delica actually has a VG-10 blade stamped as ZDP-189...
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No staining from citric acid on ZDP-189? You'd probably be the only one that can say that. Lucky.

I hope you don't have a VG-10 blade stamped ZDP-189.
 
Well, as per normal I am swimming against the stream here. I have no particular liking for a steel that I have to thin out to get a sharp edge on. That puts it right out of the utility/woodsman realm and into the 'gentleman's' knife catagory. Not that that is necessarily wrong, it's just not for me. Neither do I have time for a blade that I can't 'field sharpen' on a stream rock if necessary. I don't particularly enjoy sharpening a steel that needs a diamond hone to do properly.

Just so you don't think that I am picking on ZDP-189 alone, I also am not fond of S90V, S110V, SG2 or any other steel that I can't quickly tune up on a piece of cardboard. But, that is just me. :)
 
Like all things there are upsides and downsides to different materials.

Turned me on: High hardness and wear resistance.

Turned me off: Poor availability, high cost, poor corrosion resistance, difficult to sharpen, and poor toughness.
 
offsetlover said:
try to find the Ti/ZDP-189 Leek and Mini Cyclone from Kershaw. both are excellent knives.

the only down side i have heard of is that the stuff (ZDP) is not friendly around water, but dont quote me
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The Kershaw ZDP blades both have Japanese steel. It's propriatary to Hitachi I believe. So, if it has ZDP-it's Japanese. The Spydercos that use it are an American knife company, so why not buy one of those or the Kershaw? You are still supporting an American knife company.

IMO -
ZDP is meant to be used in knives for slicing/cutting. Battoning is obviously not a good material. With proper care, ZDP can be a great knife around water, just dont want to be storing it inside a coral reef.
 
RevDevil said:
The Kershaw ZDP blades both have Japanese steel. It's propriatary to Hitachi I believe. So, if it has ZDP-it's Japanese. The Spydercos that use it are an American knife company, so why not buy one of those or the Kershaw? You are still supporting an American knife company.

IMO -
ZDP is meant to be used in knives for slicing/cutting. Battoning is obviously not a good material. With proper care, ZDP can be a great knife around water, just dont want to be storing it inside a coral reef.
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ZDP is an excellent steel. It works thinned out or at factory edges. As for the processing of the raw steel, Kershaw is the only manufacturer Hitachi allows to finish. IMHO, its the best there is.
 
I think my Kershaw brown blur had it in it's composite edge and I didn't find anything different about it.

I ony used it to open a few envelopes and like any new knife it was sharp. I did end up selling it though, because I didn't ilke the rubber inserts in the blur knife.
 
because of reports of chipping i hesitated to try this alloy.my endura was only 100$ & i figured if it was a bummer no biggie. 1st i releived the clumsey bevel by double & as earlier posted cut thru 4 ton buns covered with poly net & mud. now this did dull the knife but a little work with diamonds brought it back. i agree with you guys as to not letting an edge go down too far & stroup it often. i was cutting honeysuckle vines the other day & hit gavalnized wire real hard 3 times & figured chips were in edge. brought it in & no edge deformation at all. then i commented that brittleness was probably proclaimed by people that did'nt know how to use a knife. really i hit that wire with a full swing since you do'nt tarry cutting hanging objects. now i'm tempted to go back on bevel another 5 degrees. however it doe'nt get as sharp as my gec 1095, i have'nt found anything that surpasses gec in sharpness.incidentally using this knife around carpet cleaning chemicals has not made a patina. probably due to fact i wipe blades off when i'm finished.
 
A.P.F. said:
Well, as per normal I am swimming against the stream here. I have no particular liking for a steel that I have to thin out to get a sharp edge on. That puts it right out of the utility/woodsman realm and into the 'gentleman's' knife catagory.
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Gentleman's knife? I've taken reprofiled ZDP blades to CAT5 cable, power cables, cans of food, carving wood, batoning wood, cutting food, slicing cardboard, cutting thick zip ties etc. Never saw any edge damage except on a Caly Jr. I gave an extremely thin full convex grind (took away the edge bevel and blended it into the overall blade profile, behind the edge was less than 8 degrees per side from what I remember, probably much thinner. Got minor chipping that stopped once I put a microbevel on it.). ZDP is a lot stronger than it's given credit for. It's no S7, but it can do any chore you'd put a pocket knife up to.
 
2brothers said:
No staining from citric acid on ZDP-189? You'd probably be the only one that can say that. Lucky.

I hope you don't have a VG-10 blade stamped ZDP-189.
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How long should it take ZDP-189 to begin staining after being in contact with citric acid? When I said "let it sit," I meant around 25-30 minutes max. From what I hear, it sounds like it should start staining in 5 minutes in an acidic environment.
 
I know Jd Spydo had one of his ZDP189 blades corrode of cutting tomatoes and not rinsing the blade off right away. I cut apples, pears, bananas etc. with mine many times but I never let them go unrinsed for more than half an hour either.
 
The only ZDP-189 blade that I had chip with very light use, was the burgundy Spyderco Caly. Jr. My customs with ZDP-189 have not chipped.
 
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