Hunting Knife – AEBL Steel – Custom. One Off – Stonewash Finish. On sale!

Description

Hunting Knife – AEBL Steel – Custom. One Off – Stonewash Finish. On sale!

I made this knife using AEB-L stainless steel that has been heat treated to 59 Rockwell by RJ Heat Treatment in Sydney.

Uddeholm AEB-L was developed in the 1960’s, with the identical Sandvik 13C26 coming shortly after. Both were developed as stainless razor blade steels which required a combination of high hardness and sharpness, along with good wear resistance, blanking, cold rolling, and corrosion resistance. Those properties also make a good knife steel for many applications. The good properties were obtained by carefully balancing the carbon and chromium content to achieve high hardness and corrosion resistance without forming too many carbides. Heat treatment tests show that AEB-L can achieve 63+ Rc for high strength and edge stability. Toughness testing shows that AEB-L matches or exceeds other common steels, even non-stainless steels. Prequenching from 1750°F may have slightly improved the hardness-toughness balance. Edge retention of AEB-L is average; better than low alloy steels like 52100, but not as good as high wear resistance steels like CPM-154 and S30V. However, the high edge stability of AEB-L means it can be used in knives with thinner edges where it has both superior cutting ability and edge retention to steels with more wear resistance but poorer toughness. AEB-L works well in knives with thin edges for fine slicing, as well as in larger knives requiring high toughness. AEB-L excels when it comes to low cost and ease in grinding, finishing, and sharpening. AEB-L works very well as a stainless alternative to low alloy steels. The steel has had a strong influence on other stainless steels serving as the baseline for products like 14C28N and Nitro-V. The use of AEB-L in custom knives is now quite common as its popularity has grown significantly in recent years.

This particular knife is totally hand ground on a slack belt to give a convex blade finish.  The knife has a stone washed finish.  This stone washed finish will ensure the knife always looks good no matter what you do to it.

The handle scales are Raspberry and Black Micarta and with Yellow spacer and Black liners.  The pins are brass.  Because of the blades stainless properties and the fact that the handle scales are synthetic, this knife will stand up to a lot of abuse and poor treatment in the elements.

The sheath is hand made Australian vegetable tanned leather and is trimmed with Kangaroo hide.

The knife has been etched with the Maranoa logo