Z MAX Steel

[timos]

Soooo... Now that I am doing my own heat treating, I am able to experiment with these high alloy "super steels".
I have a big ol' bar of this German steel called Z Max. at an RC of 68-69 Larrin's testing shows toughness similar to SG2 and CPM154.
But with the RC68-69 hardness we have huge increases in wear resistance, over that of HAP40 and ZDP189 , closer to Maxamet and REX 121.

The steel is not stainless but I will be shooting for a higher Austenizing temp to help with that. I will be using Larrins info as a guide to do my own testing. If anyone would like to participate please let me know. After my coupons get RC tested I will be looking to finish out two of my 210mm lasers.

Comment here or send me a PM. Thank you.

[ronnie_suburban]

This sounds very cool. I'd love to test drive one of these when the time comes. Thanks!

[Kekoa]

Ooooooh, that sounds like it would be cool.

[Kekoa]

So are you thinking of doing a pass around for one of these?

[timos]

a pass around more or less, a couple active home cooks and a couple professionals would be ideal.

[Bensbites]

What about some testing. Side by side other knives. Cut x feet of cardboard then cut paper towels or newspaper?

[timos]

we can do that with the kiri-dashi coupons too.

[timos]

Im finishing up orders till about thanksgiving , but when im doing hand work on blades and handles, I like to heat treat and temper upcoming projects.

Ill give one of these 210mm zmax chefs a go pretty soon. @Bensbites maybe you can RC test that for me, as my hardest rc file is rc64.

[timos]

Ill post some pics of the zmax blade as I go along. Hoping I can get a decent 400 grit belt finish on it.
I have a zmax kephart to mess around with as well.

[Robstreperous]

Wow. That sounds really, really cool.

Tim, the first thing that's entering my mind though is what's it going to be like to sharpen? I mean, are these diamond stones only kinds of steel? Granted, it might take a decade or so (kidding) for the edge to wear down but once that day comes will mere mortals be able to do the job?

Intensely interested in this obviously......

[Kekoa]

Can't wait to hear more about this project as it goes.

[timos]

My RC64 file is barely even scuffing this stuff. Maybe i can send a pc to get rc tested just to see where my recipe is coming out.

Its very hard. Still no match for a good ceramic belt though I think its the tungsten forming very hard carbides (WC carbides)...so use diamond or CBN with this steel.

[timos]

Edge is a beast so far. its about .015 behind the edge , too thick for many ingredients. Im going to take it thinner and see how the edge stability is.

[taz575]

Tim, I found Norton makes a Ceramic Norax belt and 3M has Ceramic Gators. They are nice for finishing these stupidly wear resistant steels! They are thicker and can be run wet, so there is less belt splice bump even on hard platens and they leave a nice belt finish. I use those on my S90V Shechita. Ceramics cut well, but I found I needed to use more pressure to get the belts to cut and not just glaze over.

I have a Wilson HRC tester now, so I can test a coupon if you want!

EDM stones may also do a decent job getting the steel prepped for finishing, too.