ZDP sharpening advice?

G

gustavosal

Joined
Mar 14, 2007
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63
After slicing up cardboard to aerate the compost, my Delica ZDP was quite dull. In fact, it did not have a particularly impressive edge brand new out of the box. The Sharpmaker hasn't given particularly good results, and a try with the f$#&!ng Lansky coarse diamond hone not only did nothing to sharpen the edge, but scratched the blade above the edge line--the reason I quit using the Lansky in the first place. :mad:

What angle are folks sharpening their ZDP Delicas at, and with what sharpening system?

FWIW, I've had great success with SV30, VG-10, and 154CM on the Sharpmaker. With the ZDP, I've spent way too long trying to get it as sharp as my VG-10 Delica with no success. :(

Thanks in advance,

Gus
 
I don't use the Sharpmaker, I do all my sharpening freehand on DMT diamond hones. My beater sprint run ZDP Delica has been thinned down a lot, but I have been using roughly 30 degrees inclusive for a microbevel. It actually holds up pretty well at that angle.
 
I haven't had to do any serious sharpening of my ZDP Spydercos, but today I touched up the edge on my Caly Jr. using the Sharpmaker at 30 degrees.
 
Padawan said:
I haven't had to do any serious sharpening of my ZDP Spydercos, but today I touched up the edge on my Caly Jr. using the Sharpmaker at 30 degrees.
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I've been using my ZDP PE Endura like mad this week and it's still scary sharp, but definitely lost the uber-sharpness it had out of box.

I'm wondering how to touch it up now. 30 Degrees with fine rods on Sharpmaker, or shoud I have ultra fines?

Tips much appreciated!

--
northernlight
 
I just use the fine white rods that came with my Sharpmaker, then I strop it a bit on my jeans. Could probably get it sharper with the ultra-fines, but I don't own a set, and the fines work well for me.
 
I've gotten better, and finally gotten a good edge on the Delica. I found great advice here on getting the most out of my Lansky system. I've had it for 19 years and never quite got it right, which is why I stopped using it a few years back. Anyway, what I find with the ZDP is that it requires a really light touch on the hone once the initial edge profile is set. It's not as scary sharp as I'd like, and I'll see how this edge lasts. This has still been a huge pain in the butt compared to S30V, which I have some experience with.

gus
 
is it serrated or plain?

if its serrated i would get a lansky spyder dog bone

i posted about this a few weeks ago

i have a serrated and the dog bone gets it back to being sharp in under 5 min
cus you have to sharpen each serration individualy but the results are outstanding

for the plain edge i use the dmt stones and after it feels just away from shaving i buff it on my bench grinder with the buff wheel and green rough
 
I haven't had to fully sharpen, but I've restored hair popping sharpness with very light passes on an UF rod and then stropping on chromium oxide.
 
I have two ZDP-189 Spydercos, a Caly Jr. and a Delica 4. I haven't beat them up, but do use them often. I have found that ZDP-189 really likes chromium oxide. I have a Hand American leather block loaded with chromium oxide that I use once a week which keeps both knives super sharp.
 
I have WH in ZDP and I find it a pain to sharpen it. Takes a lot of passes to sharpen it.

I got the idea in my head to reprofile it to 15 deg. Stopped after 2 hours. Now I like it at 20 deg also. :rolleyes:

But love the ZDP. Don't need any more attention for long more then a few strokes with a steel.

I just received a week ago my Caly III in ZDP/CF curious how this will hold up! Amazingly sharp out of the box! It bite me already sometimes (needed the bandages from NGK), waiting to dull a bit, now it splits my skin to easy.
 
My experience sharpening ZDP has been both pleasant and unpleasant. The unpleasant part is reprofiling the edge and setting the main bevel. I reprofiled my ZDP endura to about 12 degrees per side and this took about 4 days working for about an hour each day. This was on a DMT D8XX and I was getting quite frustrated by the second day. I was very close to just giving up and sending it to Tom Krein for a regrind but I stuck with it. After that main bevel microbeveling was a breeze, much easier than any other steel I've sharpened. The reason being I had absolutely no trouble with microburrs or wire edges while honing the microbevel (at least none that I could see under 100X). For this reason I was able to get it extremely sharp in no time at all.
 
Uncle Rukus said:
My experience sharpening ZDP has been both pleasant and unpleasant. The unpleasant part is reprofiling the edge and setting the main bevel. I reprofiled my ZDP endura to about 12 degrees per side and this took about 4 days working for about an hour each day. This was on a DMT D8XX and I was getting quite frustrated by the second day. I was very close to just giving up and sending it to Tom Krein for a regrind but I stuck with it. After that main bevel microbeveling was a breeze, much easier than any other steel I've sharpened. The reason being I had absolutely no trouble with microburrs or wire edges while honing the microbevel (at least none that I could see under 100X). For this reason I was able to get it extremely sharp in no time at all.
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Did you use much pressure? I knoe when I first got my D8XX I used lighter pressure than I do now and reprofiling still took a while on ZDP and S30V, though much better than my DMT X coarse. When I started using 2 hands and really leaning into the stone with back and forth strokes the steel just got obliterated and reprofiling went much faster. I think with more pressure it would take you WAY under 2 hours to bring an Endura ZDP down to 12 per side. I haven't had any issues with my stone getting smooth either. That might be worth a try for you in the future.

As for getting ZDP sharp, it is extremely easy to sharpen for me using microbevels, like you said. That is the beauty of microbevels, they make even the hardest steels easy to sharpen because you are working with such a small amount of steel.

Mike
 
I used about the same amount of pressure I use with S30V or 154CM. With these steels I don't notice a big difference in the amount of time it takes to reprofile, usually about 100 strokes per side or less on the D8XX. It must've taken close to 500 per side with ZDP. After about an hour and a half I lost patience and started using a lot of pressure. I don't usually like doing this because it's harder for me to hold the angle consistent, and I'm afraid of tearing diamonds out of my D8XX. Although if you've never had any trouble wearing out the stone, I might give it another shot. Has anyone had a D8XX wear out that you know of?
 
Uncle Rukus said:
I used about the same amount of pressure I use with S30V or 154CM. With these steels I don't notice a big difference in the amount of time it takes to reprofile, usually about 100 strokes per side or less on the D8XX. It must've taken close to 500 per side with ZDP. After about an hour and a half I lost patience and started using a lot of pressure. I don't usually like doing this because it's harder for me to hold the angle consistent, and I'm afraid of tearing diamonds out of my D8XX. Although if you've never had any trouble wearing out the stone, I might give it another shot. Has anyone had a D8XX wear out that you know of?
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Mine is still cutting very strong, and I have been using heavy pressure to reprofile lots of high carbide stainless. Thom Brogan is the guy who inspired me to use heavy pressure, as he hasn't had any durability issues with his D8XX using heavy pressure, so I would think that is another guy who could vouch for the D8XX lasting under heavy pressure. I know the heavy pressure greatly speeds up the process, but I can understand not wanting to wear out such an expensive stone. Since I'm just shaping with it I'm not all that concerned about holding an exact angle on the D8XX anyway (plus I go flat to the stone a lot to hold the angle), so I don't think being slightly off on your angle will be an issue.

Mike
 
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