zdp-189 educate me

I've several Spy in this steel, including the Caly3, that is laminated zdp.
Zdp is a very good steel, hard to sharpen (hard, not difficult!), but with a very durable edge. I live in a region very humid and, even if it has a lot of chrome, sometimes I find some very small point of "rust"... Depends on the high concentration of carbon. However, it never happened on my Caly, because zdp steel is the less exposed.
I particulary love this steel on small blades, like Caly. This is my;)
caly3zdp420jcf.jpg

Hope that help.
 
I have it on a couple of William Henry's as the core metal and it stays sharp a long time. No corrosion issues so far.
 
ZDP holds that fine edge longer than any other steel I have used. It is best suited to a polished edge on a knife used with care for precise work, in my opinion.
 
Or you can just use ZDP to rip through cardboard the way I do. It works either way!
I like the way that it sharpens on fine diamond bench stones.
 
I'm here to tell you one weakness that ZDP-189 is prone to>> it doesn't have the corrosion resistance that most stainless supersteels have. If you ever use a ZDP-189 blade to cut up food with then you had better clean it up and dry it as soon as humanly possible.

About 4 years ago I made a serious mistake of cutting up a bunch of premium tomatoes out of my organic garden. I forgot to wash it and within 10 hours I had pits on the edge of that blade that resembled the surface of the moon. I even had to send it back to the factory to have some of the pits ground out.

I love ZDP-189!! Performance wise it's one of my very favorite blade steels. But I'm telling you that food acids will do serious corrosion damage to it. Now I've never had a problem doing outdoor cutting chores with it but most usually I immediately rinse it off in fresh water after skinning an animal or cleaning a fish. I've never had any fish slime or guts do anything bad to my ZDP blades but food acid particularly off of fruits and high acid foods will seriously damage the blade if you're not careful.
 
Fish slime isn't acidic. I carry a William Henry B-15 Tom Brown Quest "survival knife". I put a clip on it and carry it on the placket of my shirt. In the very warm part of summer, this environment becomes an accelerated corrosion test site. Industrial corrosion testing involves salt spray cabinets and steam cabinets in which parts coated with salt paste are placed. The idea is to simulate 5 years of environmental exposure in 72 hours.
Anyway, my blade is a 410/ ZDP 189 sandwich. The bread (410) is famous for its corrosion resistance. In fact that is why it is used to protect most of the blade from corrosion. The bologna (ZDP-189) is accused of having poor rust resistance. I am here to tell you that in my personal accelerated corrosion environment, the ZDP out performed the 410 SS. The 410 had more and bigger pits than the ZDP. If you keep an eye on the blade, you can wipe off the rust before it becomes too noticeable. A Carbon steel blade in the same environment would be red dust (without copious quantities of oil). The big trick to keeping stainless knives looking great is rinsing them off with clean water.
 
Danville
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I saw the first ZDP-189 knife brought into the US at the Blade Show in the early 2000's era. Two Japanese guys had some small folders that were the most amazing cutting machines I ever saw. I bought a Spyderco Endura, I believe was the model and it cut like a piece of wood. Unless you have a belt sander or are prepared to spend hours on a course grit diamond stone, I don't like this steel. I much prefer a 1095, over stainless or powdered steel, any day. I can re-sharpen in a few minutes and it holds an edge just fine. I also love 1084 steel. I guess you can say I'm old fashioned. In my opinion, Spyderco blew the edge geometry on this knife and it should never have passed quality control. Luckily, I have belt grinders and all kinds of stones, but I prefer to free hand on Japanese water stones. Forget about free hand with ZDP, if a radical edge change is required. Generally, I like Spyderco, but not this model. Just one man's opinion.
 
ZDP... I love this steel. Not only does it stay sharp, the level of sharpness is VERY high as well.

I have a Edgepro and Sharpmaker and it is not any more difficult than any other supersteel out there to sharpen. Period. I get by with stropping for months before I take them to the SM for a mere touch up.

I use my ZDP blades around food often, I treat them with Flitz and occasionally coat with Ballistol to keep corrosion at bay. These are like magic.
 
high HT making it hard to sharpen and prone to chipping. its is pretty stain resistant. in my experience, it doesnt really rust or pit, just sort of darkens like a patina. holds an edge very well do to the high heat treat
 
Stays Sharp said:
ZDP... I love this steel. Not only does it stay sharp, the level of sharpness is VERY high as well.

I have a Edgepro and Sharpmaker and it is not any more difficult than any other supersteel out there to sharpen. Period. I get by with stropping for months before I take them to the SM for a mere touch up..
Click to expand...

I like what he said ...... Iam basically the same
 
I love the zdp steel. In my experience, it takes a mirror polished edge quite well and can get crazy atom-splitting sharp. I've never had any corrosion issues, but I don't cut food with my zdp knife. I didn't find it all that difficult to re-profile the edge. I spent about 20 minutes on the black DMT stone, 10 on the blue, 10 on the red, and finished with the 1200 grit green. Final stropping brings the hair popping edge afterwards! I think you'll be really happy with your new zdp Spydie!
 
I like ZDP-189 a lot. I find it worth the trouble to keep it sharp, and mine does show a little patina where the blade is exposed out of the handle of my Endura....probably from sweat etc.
 
When I first started out ........I thought ZDP was the steel of steels , then I heard about M-4 , M-390 , S90V , S110V
Now Iam lost .............LOL
 
I know what you mean hehe, great ones out there and more to come. Personally speaking, I still hold ZDP in high regard and a super steel. It's in my favorite EDC blades the Stretch and Endura so I'm G2G.
 
ZDP-189 allows me to do things like this with a Spyderco Endura (64-65 HRC)
I converted the saber grind portion of this blade to a hollow grind zero edge with my Tormek T7 wet grinder, and then did some test cutting to find out what this edge would be able to handle.
With that zero edge i got a very quick result: it rolled (not chipped) immediately when cutting into my testblock, a old piece of desk with a very hard plastic top layer.
So i continued testing with a few microbevels of increasing width (none of them turned out to be strong enough to pass my test), until finally i settled on a still tiny convex bevel that had enough strength to handle cutting that same piece of desk with force: cutting into the edge of it while pushing with my other hand on the back of the blade.
No damage and no noticeable loss of sharpness, and that is what i was after: an edge as thin as possible, but thick enough.

Thickness behind the edge is now 0.2 mm, the edge itself remains shaving sharp for a very long time, and the knife cuts with the best of them.
I have been using this knife ever since in my EDC rotation, in fact it is in my pocket while i write this.





 
Last edited:
JD Spydo said:
I'm here to tell you one weakness that ZDP-189 is prone to>> it doesn't have the corrosion resistance that most stainless supersteels have. If you ever use a ZDP-189 blade to cut up food with then you had better clean it up and dry it as soon as humanly possible.

About 4 years ago I made a serious mistake of cutting up a bunch of premium tomatoes out of my organic garden. I forgot to wash it and within 10 hours I had pits on the edge of that blade that resembled the surface of the moon. I even had to send it back to the factory to have some of the pits ground out.

I love ZDP-189!! Performance wise it's one of my very favorite blade steels. But I'm telling you that food acids will do serious corrosion damage to it. Now I've never had a problem doing outdoor cutting chores with it but most usually I immediately rinse it off in fresh water after skinning an animal or cleaning a fish. I've never had any fish slime or guts do anything bad to my ZDP blades but food acid particularly off of fruits and high acid foods will seriously damage the blade if you're not careful.
Click to expand...
Wierd. I had much more problems with my superblue stretch than my zdp stretch. I usually use a pacific salt, or salt1 as my lunch knife. I started trying out my new stretches. The superblue one oxidized while cutting the first apple. It also discolored the apple. I had to wash it after lunch right away, and it still had a patinia, which doesn't' bother me but it extended into the edge, kind of pitting it.

I've not washed my zdp stretech for a couple days after cutting up mangos and other fruit and it still remains fine. I was unaware until today they offered a laminated version, I thought it was a typo.

Anyway, my zdp stretch has really spoiled me. I no longer use my salt as my lunch knife. It doesn't slice through tomatoes and stuff like my stretch.
 
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