MT37P - AEB-L Mule Team Performance Thread

[Steeltoez83]

First edge on my mule. Interesting fact, triple b used my urban to assist with the heat treat protocol for the mule. I was scoring 15V runs so I skipped out on this mule. But the stars aligned and I was able to get one a month after release.

[aprivetera]

Brought the mules on a camping trip and had a chance to baton the AEB-L on cedar and oak firewood. Cedar was quick and pleasant, while the oak took a bit more work. No observable damage so far, even hammering on the tip because the blade is a bit short for the wood.

Will post more images and updates later. Overall very impressed with quality and durability. Thanks Spyderco and Shawn!

Edit: took a look under the loupe at home and after a beating there were only a few tiny signs on wear in a two or three areas along the very edge of the blade. The paracord wrap is badly damaged and the log I was using to baton had marks from the spine. The knife itself is totally fine. Definitely some tough steel!

[Steeltoez83]

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

[weeping minora]

Screenshot_20230609_225337_Gallery.jpg

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

What handle scales do ya got on that bad boy?p

[Steeltoez83]

Screenshot_20230609_225337_Gallery.jpg

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

What handle scales do ya got on that bad boy?p

These are from Elijah Sonnatag. His older brother and knifemaker Micah mentioned his younger brother was making these. So I bought a few sets to test out. They were 30 bucks on etsy last I checked, and he has quite a few color options. They are thicker scales and I feel they give a better balanced feel in hand in contrast to the g10 scales spyderco offers. The scales have a medium texture id say, so it's function focused not fashion. Overall I'm liking them.

[weeping minora]

Screenshot_20230609_225337_Gallery.jpg

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

What handle scales do ya got on that bad boy?p

These are from Elijah Sonnatag. His older brother and knifemaker Micah mentioned his younger brother was making these. So I bought a few sets to test out. They were 30 bucks on etsy last I checked, and he has quite a few color options. They are thicker scales and I feel they give a better balanced feel in hand in contrast to the g10 scales spyderco offers. The scales have a medium texture id say, so it's function focused not fashion. Overall I'm liking them.

Thanks for the info, Steeltoez. They do look quite hand-filling, from the pictures. I favor the function over fashion, myself. Going to see what he has to offer and probably pick some up.

[Ramonade]

I've not yet had time to start testing on AEB-L but there's one thing I was curious about.

Would a simpler steel with a lower carbide % still get a beautiful mirror edge and not lose too much bite ?

Seems like it's no issue when it comes to front end sharpness ! This thing bites Hard with that HT !

I'll start playing with mine soon, I'm pretty sure Ill prefer a low grit edge but I'll put a mirror again on mine and see how long the bite lasts.

So far even well heat treated 14C28N or other stainless steels in the same range did not fair well when it comes to keeping that good aggression when cutting. But you never know until you try

[Traditional.Sharpening]

I've not yet had time to start testing on AEB-L but there's one thing I was curious about.

Would a simpler steel with a lower carbide % still get a beautiful mirror edge and not lose too much bite ?

Seems like it's no issue when it comes to front end sharpness ! This thing bites Hard with that HT !

I'll start playing with mine soon, I'm pretty sure Ill prefer a low grit edge but I'll put a mirror again on mine and see how long the bite lasts.

So far even well heat treated 14C28N or other stainless steels in the same range did not fair well when it comes to keeping that good aggression when cutting. But you never know until you try

I would say it's much more about edge angles than steel to answer your question. I would only go high polish on knives with very acute edge angles, the more standard 15+ degree edge angles really benefit from coarser edges much more than narrower edge angles. Drop that sucker below 10 DPS and polish away, I'd expect you are really happy with the results.

[weeping minora]

I've not yet had time to start testing on AEB-L but there's one thing I was curious about.

Would a simpler steel with a lower carbide % still get a beautiful mirror edge and not lose too much bite ?

Seems like it's no issue when it comes to front end sharpness ! This thing bites Hard with that HT !

I'll start playing with mine soon, I'm pretty sure Ill prefer a low grit edge but I'll put a mirror again on mine and see how long the bite lasts.

So far even well heat treated 14C28N or other stainless steels in the same range did not fair well when it comes to keeping that good aggression when cutting. But you never know until you try

The behavior of a steel to take a mirror polish and uphold bite can be attributed to how the steel sharpens and wears based on its hardness and microstructure, which would include carbide type, size and volume/distribution. I believe front-end sharpness refers to the ability of a steel to retain its fresh, off the stone level of sharpness, even after usage. More alloy will be needed, or edge maintenance (stropping), to maintain the front-end sharpness of simpler steels, IMO.

Well heat treated simpler stainless and high carbon steels will be able to sharpen to an extremely aggressive, high polished edge, with extreme ease. They make very little fuss as to which abrasive you choose to use. AUS 8, BD1N, Hitachi's White and Blue steels, as well as 1095 are all excellent examples in this class of steels. The main benefit to having a less cluttered steel is that they can benefit from a thinner geometry, as Traditional pointed out. Heat treatment is key, as that hardness needs to be pushed to gain this as a benefit (high strength). This will mitigate that lack of abrasion resistance with more acute BTE and edge angles for pure cutting performance. I very much enjoy the simpler class of steels, especially when in use in the kitchen. If used for more "EDC" or harder use tasks, these benefits may become more of a detriment. I'm afraid without the alloying reinforcements within the matrix, you will have to maintain and re-sharpen more frequently, irregardless of usage.

As a side note, I just reprofiled my AEB-L MULE to .0065 BTE. I have also preferred a rather medium grit edge, versus high polish, so far. Looking forward to getting some testing in once I gather more materials.

[Steeltoez83]

Screenshot_20230609_225337_Gallery.jpg

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

Lately I've been focusing on overall cutting lifetime of an edge. I'm fairly confident the 4 data points I've been collecting can provide a range for expected performance. I post my results on IG, so any viewership I have saw me experimenting with zdp 189, s90v, maxamet, seki k390, and 2 samples of 15v non mules last few weeks. Using ceramic or softer stones to remove burr and over stropping the edge was intentional to fatigue the steel and get lower cutting figures. I used that as basement level performance expectations. Then I ran my traditional 1k grit edge testing as standard. Then I ran a 325 DMT edge to give a higher figure in cutting. Hrc ranges differ from sample to sample so having a range in this tier level should cover alot of ground esp in the realm of supersteels. The last data point is overall cutting lifetime. I make 65 cuts to replicate an average day of work/use. I strop the knife 4 pps on a 4 micron strop to mimmick the typical edge maintenance man. And to see how many days of 65 the edge can endure to give me the ceiling figure in terms of realistic performance.
I still feel guilty about not testing this mule that much this month.

[weeping minora]

Screenshot_20230609_225337_Gallery.jpg

340 cuts in my last testing run. Stones used were my pride waterstones 400 and 1k.

Lately I've been focusing on overall cutting lifetime of an edge. I'm fairly confident the 4 data points I've been collecting can provide a range for expected performance. I post my results on IG, so any viewership I have saw me experimenting with zdp 189, s90v, maxamet, seki k390, and 2 samples of 15v non mules last few weeks. Using ceramic or softer stones to remove burr and over stropping the edge was intentional to fatigue the steel and get lower cutting figures. I used that as basement level performance expectations. Then I ran my traditional 1k grit edge testing as standard. Then I ran a 325 DMT edge to give a higher figure in cutting. Hrc ranges differ from sample to sample so having a range in this tier level should cover alot of ground esp in the realm of supersteels. The last data point is overall cutting lifetime. I make 65 cuts to replicate an average day of work/use. I strop the knife 4 pps on a 4 micron strop to mimmick the typical edge maintenance man. And to see how many days of 65 the edge can endure to give me the ceiling figure in terms of realistic performance.
I still feel guilty about not testing this mule that much this month.

Very interesting and what I believe will provide much more useful information regarding realistic steel longevity. I find many variables in my carry that don't always translate very well when compared to blitzing out a ton of cutting in a more "controlled" testing environment. IMO/IME, climate seems to have a large range of effect that is hard to calculate into the equation over the course of days, or weeks, of carry and use.

I'm not on IG, so I'll look forward to whatever info you will be sharing here on this platform. Thanx for your work!

[Steeltoez83]

I've done all different kinds of testing besides cardboard or rope. From low attrition to high volume, to mild impact resilience, even experimented trying to get polyprolene rope to absorb dirt, sand, with water, glue and tiny wood chips to replicate more commonplace materials. Controlled testing is great, but there's a percentage of users who work in conditions that are less than ideal. And the testing we normally see has little relateability to them. The mule forum section encourages user feedback on these steels. And so I generally want to have a mule team inside a testing wave before I post results here. That way I can provide other sampled data points from production or sprint run steels in conjunction with mule results. There's more relateability to users if I post s30v or vg10 in the results. There's a better grasp of what's actually happening. My current testing is still ongoing, and I need to run 2 more tests. Then I'd like to run 5 tests with rex76 but that's still with triple b right now. However at 69.3 hrc it's in the same discussion as my current testing wave with 15V/maxamet etc. I will post a graph of my current results later on today. If I don't finish testing, I have a great idea of where my second sample of 15V performs at.

[Steeltoez83]

[weeping minora]

Screenshot_20230702_142917_Chart Maker Pro.jpg

Interesting to see that the differences between 15V and K390, and again between S90V and ZDP are nearly identical when testing edge finish vs edge finish and truly only seem to calculate a real difference in your real world testing model. ZDP seems to still be showing its worth as a formidable super steel, in real world use.

Taking this into account, 15V is smack in between Maxamet and K390, as Shawn (BBB) had exclaimed.

Of course, if I'm assessing your data correctly.

Thanx again for your work and sacrifice!

[Steeltoez83]

Screenshot_20230702_142917_Chart Maker Pro.jpg

Interesting to see that the differences between 15V and K390, and again between S90V and ZDP are nearly identical when testing edge finish vs edge finish and truly only seem to calculate a real difference in your real world testing model. ZDP seems to still be showing its worth as a formidable super steel, in real world use.

Taking this into account, 15V is smack in between Maxamet and K390, as Shawn (BBB) had exclaimed.

Of course, if I'm assessing your data correctly.

Thanx again for your work and sacrifice!

Thanks for the kind words.

[Bolster]

Screenshot_20230702_142917_Chart Maker Pro.jpg

Thanks for this! I tried to find you on instagram and failed. Little help?

[Steeltoez83]

Screenshot_20230702_142917_Chart Maker Pro.jpg

Thanks for this! I tried to find you on instagram and failed. Little help?

I was steeltoez83 until my account got hacked. So I'm steelytoez83 now.

[Bolster]

was steeltoez83 until my account got hacked. So I'm steelytoez83 now.

Found and followed. Thanks man! Appreciate the research!

[Steeltoez83]

I'm not sure what edge fimish I put on the mule so I'm burning thru the edge. I'm thinking of running it against my Chris Reeves. From what I've seen with my own usage of both s35 and s45 from CRK is a focus on toughness versus abrasive wear resistance. My tenacious in s35vn had 50% better edge retention of both s35 and s45 from CRK when I tested it. I personally prefer more abrasion resistance on folders and more mule Aeb-l and CRK style heat treat/ alloys for edc fixed blades.

[RyanLikesSteel]

Loving mine! Did some light batoning, and have cut many a cardboard and apples with this mule so far. Went with the micarta scales for my first mule. Just went down to 15 dps and will update with the results.