Zdp-189

Daniel Koster

Daniel Koster

www.kosterknives.com
Knifemaker / Craftsman / Service Provider
Joined
Oct 18, 2001
Messages
20,978
If you were going to get a fixed blade knife made with ZDP-189, what would it be?
 
I think it would be a sweet steel for a nice EDC pocket fixed blade, perhaps a bit bigger than Bark River's Mini Canadian with a similar overall design. Throw in some mosaic pins and some nice ironwood or other wood and I'd buy it.
 
One of Michael Burch's traditional tantos, with natural/undyed rayskin under the cord-wrap.
 
RosArms Fox-II.
RosArms-Fox-II-01.jpg


Thanks, Vassili.
 
I would like one of Gene Ingrams small flat ground blades. 2 1/2 to 3 inch broad blades like his Hippo.
 
I have seen reviews that state ZDP-189 is no more brittle than other high-end stainless steels despite the higher-hardness. One example given was that it was no more brittle at 67 rockwells than S30V is at 60 rockwells.

S30V is used in some very good larger blades, but tends to be better for smaller ones with tougher steels being better for larger blades.

So yes ZDP-189 isn't a textbook big knife steel, but it isn't a totally bad idea either as big S30V knives can be top notch.
 
As per Hitachi test, ZDP-189 is brittler than 440C and ATS-34, which are considered well rounded premium/near premium steels.
 
Hair said:
I have seen reviews that state ZDP-189 is no more brittle than other high-end stainless steels despite the higher-hardness.
Click to expand...

The charpy values are much lower, there isn't a lot of info though.

Even if they were the same, those steels (ATS-34) are not overly suitable anyway for that type of knife, that is a really low standard for toughness.

I would like a South Fork in ZDP-189 to see how it compared to S30V in the same blade, hell why not add in S125V as well.

-Cliff
 
Sandwiching sounds like a good idea, but 420J2 would be much better suited for that purpose than 154CM.
 
I'd be looking at a small high-performance fixed blade. I want to take advantage of ZDP's hardness to get a killer thin edge that lasts a very long time -- but I don't want to tempt the toughness fates. I feel this is the kind of knife that will highlight ZDP-189's properties the best.

Something like Bark River's OMF knife -- ~3+" wharncliffe -- with an appropriately thin blade seems like a nice match. Pic at http://rusticforge.com/Knives/BarkRiverKnews.htm scroll down. Anything in this general theme would be a good match, IMO. What I personally wouldn't do is a big fixed blade or general-purpose fixed blade, although the one temptation would be to do a 6" chef's knife with a ZDP-core san mai.

Joe
 
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