What AVAILABLE steel for stainless chopper?

AEBL is in a different league. AEBL is tougher than most carbon steels, at the same hardness, let alone those high alloy Vanadium steels.

JG Custom Metal Works said:
Hmmm.... nice! I know there had been some problems with the Nitro V stuff. Did they ever get those figured out?

The customer doesn’t need it immediately, but I’d like to get the ball rolling soon for him. He’s a repeat customer and good friend so I’d like to get him hooked up.

Thanks for the info everyone, I really appreciate it. Elmax is looking pretty good at the moment. AEBL could be an option. I do gyutos with it and already have the heat treat/firing schedule uploaded into my kiln. I kind of like .200” approximate thickness. Bridges the gap between 1/4” and 3/16” nicely. 1/4” can be a little slow in the hand with longer blades, yet 3/16” doesn’t carry momentum into the cut as well as 1/4”. So .200” would be nice. How does AEBL hold up toughness wise compared to Elmax?
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So, in a stainless steel chopper, if I want tough, I would go with AEBL. Tougher? 420J2. Unbreakable, no matter what: Ferrium S53. The last one is only supplied in rounds and it’s a pain to heat treat.
 
Thanks a bunch for the info.

Obviously there’s more to a chopper than just needing to be tough. With that in mind, would AEBL still be superior to Elmax?

Let me explain my persistence. I’m a believer in AEBL from the studies I’ve read. My customer is a fan of Elmax. Which Elmax is a great steel. But I’m trying to cover all the bases in an effort to make the case to him for AEBL.

My ONLY concern and motivation is that I get my customer the absolute best knife I can for it’s intended use. My business and reputation lives or dies based on whether my customer is happy. He said “I’d like to use Elmax, if that’s alright with you?” To of which i said “of course.” But this was before reading more about AEBLs toughness qualities. I’m sure Elmax would be fine to use, but in the back of my head I have the voice that says “if you don’t do the best for your customer, you’re not doing the right thing.” Because, at the end of the day, the knife needs to perform as it was intended. I want to give my knives EVERY advantage to perform in that usage. Therefore trying to sway him over to AEBL would be the logical thing to do. But, I don’t want to piss him off or make it seem like I have a vested interest(other than his best interest) in promoting AEBL over Elmax. So, with all this being said, hopefully you guys can understand my dilemma and persistence in questioning the use of Elmax over AEBL.

One thing that I think throws some people off is that AEBL is so cheap. I know, from a young age, I’ve been told “you get what you pay for.” With that being the case it’s easy to understand how Elmax would be perceived as being a superior steel.
 
JG Custom Metal Works said:
Thanks a bunch for the info.

Obviously there’s more to a chopper than just needing to be tough. With that in mind, would AEBL still be superior to Elmax?

Let me explain my persistence. I’m a believer in AEBL from the studies I’ve read. My customer is a fan of Elmax. Which Elmax is a great steel. But I’m trying to cover all the bases in an effort to make the case to him for AEBL.

My ONLY concern and motivation is that I get my customer the absolute best knife I can for it’s intended use. My business and reputation lives or dies based on whether my customer is happy. He said “I’d like to use Elmax, if that’s alright with you?” To of which i said “of course.” But this was before reading more about AEBLs toughness qualities. I’m sure Elmax would be fine to use, but in the back of my head I have the voice that says “if you don’t do the best for your customer, you’re not doing the right thing.” Because, at the end of the day, the knife needs to perform as it was intended. I want to give my knives EVERY advantage to perform in that usage. Therefore trying to sway him over to AEBL would be the logical thing to do. But, I don’t want to piss him off or make it seem like I have a vested interest(other than his best interest) in promoting AEBL over Elmax. So, with all this being said, hopefully you guys can understand my dilemma and persistence in questioning the use of Elmax over AEBL.

One thing that I think throws some people off is that AEBL is so cheap. I know, from a young age, I’ve been told “you get what you pay for.” With that being the case it’s easy to understand how Elmax would be perceived as being a superior steel.
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One option is showing your client Larrins graph, and telling him that Elmax has (more or less) the same toughness of M390.
There’s another steel you can use, Zfinit, a nitrogen steel with good edge retention and good toughness (much tougher than Elmax and a bit less than AEBL). It’s price is probably the same as Elmax, so your client will see it as “premium” steel (I was like that in the past, if a steel was too “cheap” probably wasn’t good).
 
On reasion AEBL is so cheap is demand. Thy make a lot of it for the razor Industry. I look at it as a great value for a good knife stainless. Elmax from my reading is a fantastic steel and me personally would not want AEBL when elmax was on the table. But like was said toughness is not everything. Hell a blade made out of 17-4 would be crazy tough probably about impossible to break. But it has low hardness and the edge retention of a plastic hubcap. So it’s a fine balance but I think generally people stress WAY to much about toughness and pass over geometry and thickness.
 
You can make a chopper out of cpmrex121, 1/4”+ thick and with a really obtuse edge, it will probably bounce in the wood instead of cutting, but won’t break, but is this the ideal steel for the job? In my head, a chopper is a knife designed to hit wood hard, and not only clean wood, so a shock resistant steel is preferred, usually a mid carbon (two much carbon makes the steel brittle in hard chopping tasks). I would run away from stainless to this task, unless is one of the three I’ve mentioned.
 
It's certainly Ok to be a proponent of AEB-L for certain knives that you have produced and perform to your expectations. However it's quite another to try and sell the steel on a Chopper that you have never made or tested. It would be a Bad day if the Chopper failed to perform as the customer expected it to be equal or better than Elmax. I've used quite a bit of Elmax and have customers that request it often enough to have plenty on hand. I have done the HT testing in house and I'm satisfied that it performs as I would expect at certain RC hardness and will suggest those hardness numbers to my customers based on the type use they plan for their blades.

When a customer asks about a chopper I steer them toward Carbon Steels....52100 is my all time hard abuse steel of choice it takes a great edge and is a chopping monster that is easy to touch up the edge in the field(not the case with many stainless steels). My next choice is the 3V Carbon which actually is a Brute for chopping and shows signs that it's most stain resistant of the Carbon steels bordering on almost...almost I said Stainless but is a bit more tedious to touch up the edge compared to 52100.

Bottom line is that it's Important to take into consideration the customers request for a particular steel. If I were requesting Elmax and was being sold AEB-L not having used that particular steel I would be a bit hesitant of its unknown capabilities.
 
It looks like you are looking for a super steel. But I have a kukri made of 440B which is vey appropriate for that use .Made at one time for AGRussell by Italians.
 
mete said:
It looks like you are looking for a super steel. But I have a kukri made of 440B which is vey appropriate for that use .Made at one time for AGRussell by Italians.
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It’s almost like N690 stainless, I think, Mete. Extrema Ratio uses it in all his knives, including his kukris, in this case, they drop the hardness to 54/55hrc, if I remember correctly. So, the steel is the same, but the behavior will be much different. Maybe the OP can use Elmax and drop the hardness, because when hardness decreases, toughness increases, but the client will experience a different behavior from the same steel.

Maybe JG Custom Metal Works JG Custom Metal Works can use cpm3v with this exact heat treatment:

Roman Landes Heat Treatment recomendation

“Now this is what I would recommend for heat treat cpm 3v:


1st preheat: 500-600°C, equalize

2nd preheat:800-900°C, equalize

Autenize: 1060-1070°C, equalize, soak 30-35min

Quench in Oil preheated 60-80°C

Cryo: immediately after cleaning, minimum -80°C or lower soak 30min

1st Temper: 150°C equalize, soak 2hrs, quench in water

Cryo: immediately after temper

2nd Temper: 180-200°C equalize, soak 2hrs

should give you 60+ and a fine durable grain.“ Roman Landes.

With this heat treatment, this steel will have some stainless properties, lots of wear resistance (probably the same as Elmax, or even higher), toughness (much more than Elmax) and a premium steel (price is the same as Elmax, more or less).
 
hugofeynman said:
AEBL is in a different league. AEBL is tougher than most carbon steels, at the same hardness, let alone those high alloy Vanadium steels.
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At the same hardness................... Now , that is really trick question :) Lets compare say 52100 with 58 rockwell and aebl chopper in whatever hardness you want ? Cutting and toughness .............. ?
 
Natlek said:
At the same hardness................... Now , that is really trick question :) Lets compare say 52100 with 58 rockwell and aebl chopper in whatever hardness you want ? Cutting and toughness .............. ?
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Look at Cruforge V on Larrins graphic, wish is basically 52100. He didn’t tested it at 58hrc, but, by the correlation line he drawn, we could estimate that AEBL should be at least as tough as Cruforge V (52100) at 58hrc.
 
Maybe AEBL should be at least as tough as Cruforge V (52100) at 58hrc.... What about /most important/ cutting ? Do you think that aebl can out perform 52100 in cutting in that hardness :)
 
Larrin said:
This study is relevant to that question: http://www.hefajstos.agh.edu.pl/files/[2008] Wear tests of steel knife blades - J. Verhoeven A. Pendray H. Clark.pdf
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I m sorry Larrin , but something like this video will be more relevant to me .We don t cut paper with our chopper , for paper scissors is better choice .In test with that catra machine we have controlled cutting .....when we cut like on this video many things happen ,many different force is involved ..I m not trying to look like I m some smart .. but test in laboratory and test in real world .......... is apple and orange :thumbsup:

It s long video....................

 
right tool for job. a knife is to cut. you want to chop, use an axe or hatchet. my fiskars hatchet weighs less than a big chopper would and no need to worry about toughness. is probably 80CrV2.
 
Knives like that in the video are the right tools for the job. They are designed and intended for use as chopping tools.
 
Natlek said:
I m sorry Larrin , but something like this video will be more relevant to me .We don t cut paper with our chopper , for paper scissors is better choice .In test with that catra machine we have controlled cutting .....when we cut like on this video many things happen ,many different force is involved ..I m not trying to look like I m some smart .. but test in laboratory and test in real world .......... is apple and orange :thumbsup:

It s long video....................

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You asked which one cuts better and now you’ve switched to which one chops better. You’re about the 70th person over the last three days to tell me that humans cut differently than robots.
 
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