Got a good deal on AEB-L

R

Randydb

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Sep 27, 2014
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There is a local knife shop that makes most of its money through the food, trapping and carving industries, but also does kitchen and custom knives too. Really, anything you want in stainless in the end. Family business that brings in a reasonable living.

Mike showed me his plasma cutter and mentioned he sells the ends off his sheets at cost. He showed me some 0.94 inch (3/32) AEB-L ends that were around 14"x 5ish" and told me he sells them for about $11/pound. Paid $50 cdn for 4 of them.

That is about 1/2 what I would pay anywhere else! Only issue is that supply is limited to whatever thickness he happens to be cutting. So I am thinking I may buy up some different thicknesses from him as he cuts them. I figure now my mistakes won't cost me as much!!IMG_2338.jpg
 
There Is a reason he is not using that end. Any larger size blade would have to be placed across the grain. If your making small hidden tangs or folders that are under 5” long then that steel would work great.
 
Randy3000 said:
I have always wondered if this matters, and if it is dependent on the steel and or how the steel is made.
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i can’t remember the exact change in toughness, but it’s about 10% (??????) less tough across the grain.
 
The difference in toughness depends on the steel in question, hardness, etc. The drop in toughness can be significant, even with low alloy steels that don’t have a lot of carbide banding. Here is cruforgev, for example:
upload_2019-12-23_18-46-35.jpeg
 
What is the drop across the grain for AEB-L? We made a set of carving knives with our school....this might still work with those I suppose.

Stacey says it matters but won't neccessarily make a bad knife. How much does it matter? Reading the post by Larrin I can see it makes it easier for the blade to fracture...so I guess my question is by how much? If I am making a bushcraft knife that is going to pry, batton and get a lot of rough use maybe it matters a lot? If I am making a bird and trout/light use camp knife maybe it doesn't matter as much?
 
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Sam Dean said:
Very awesome! Can they (or you) do the heat treat too?
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Yes, he will heat treat too. He specializes in stainless steels so he prefers HTing them. I can't remember exactly but he charges something like $30 for the first knife and then $5/knife after that. I think 8 blades cost me $60. I got a bunch of blades cut and HT at JT and JT did a great job. I would be happy to work with JT again.
Living in Canada though and Mike being 20 minutes from my home I can see getting things done by Mike because it doesn't have to cross the border and I don't have to deal with customs then.
 
Jarod, I didn't ask that. What I know is he does a ton of knives in AEB-L for the food processing industry all the way from slaughterhouses through to kitchens. He does a bunch of other stuff too but that is his bread and butter. Caribou Knives if you want to look it up. But adding my 8 knives into his heat treat batch was fairly small potatoes compared to what he was already doing. The blades he did for me came back to me at 61HRC. He's been doing this for over 20 years. I know he knows his stuff with heat treating stainless and does a ton of it, so I expect he is doing it right which would include foil and likely cryo.
 
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