AEB-L Urban Performance Reviews

[ZrowsN1s]

Come on now, let's keep it friendly Spyder Fam :spyder:

One thing I will say about the knife so far is it's great for cutting up strawberries for my morning oatmeal :D
Doesn't seem to mind being rinsed regularly (I try to hit it with compressed air afterwards). No liners help with that. Been keeping an eye on the spring to see if any corrosion occurs, all good so far. Probably take it apart next week and check the pivot.

[Ankerson]

Come on now, let's keep it friendly Spyder Fam :spyder:

One thing I will say about the knife so far is it's great for cutting up strawberries for my morning oatmeal :D
Doesn't seem to mind being rinsed regularly (I try to hit it with compressed air afterwards). No liners help with that. Been keeping an eye on the spring to see if any corrosion occurs, all good so far. Probably take it apart next week and check the pivot.

Is it still Strawberry season out there in Calf?

[ZrowsN1s]

Come on now, let's keep it friendly Spyder Fam :spyder:

One thing I will say about the knife so far is it's great for cutting up strawberries for my morning oatmeal :D
Doesn't seem to mind being rinsed regularly (I try to hit it with compressed air afterwards). No liners help with that. Been keeping an eye on the spring to see if any corrosion occurs, all good so far. Probably take it apart next week and check the pivot.

Is it still Strawberry season out there in Calf?

Yes sir. Blueberries too. Not as good as they were last month, but good enough to buy a pound of them at Costco and put them on my breakfast :D

[Ankerson]

Come on now, let's keep it friendly Spyder Fam :spyder:

One thing I will say about the knife so far is it's great for cutting up strawberries for my morning oatmeal :D
Doesn't seem to mind being rinsed regularly (I try to hit it with compressed air afterwards). No liners help with that. Been keeping an eye on the spring to see if any corrosion occurs, all good so far. Probably take it apart next week and check the pivot.

Is it still Strawberry season out there in Calf?

Yes sir. Blueberries too. Not as good as they were last month, but good enough to buy a pound of them at Costco and put them on my breakfast :D

Good enough. :D

Always liked Strawberry's. :cool:

We have a few places here that we can go and pick our own.

[ZrowsN1s]

Probably much better when you can pick your own! I make do with these though.

Some gratuitous produce pics :D

[Ankerson]

Probably much better when you can pick your own! I make do with these though.

Some gratuitous produce pics :D

That will work. :)

[awa54]

last night the Urban was used as the world's tiniest machete; I hacked off a bunch of low hanging apple twigs, the largest of which was about 1cm / 3/8" in diameter, most were green, a few were seasoned. The 12.5 DPS edge with no secondary bevel took no damage whatsoever and paper cutting is just as before (clean push cuts heel to tip).

Not a bad start.

[ZrowsN1s]

last night the Urban was used as the world's tiniest machete; I hacked off a bunch of low hanging apple twigs, the largest of which was about 1cm / 3/8" in diameter, most were green, a few were seasoned. The 12.5 DPS edge with no secondary bevel took no damage whatsoever and paper cutting is just as before (clean push cuts heel to tip).

Not a bad start.

:cool: nice to know the thinner edge can take a few wacks. I'll thin mine out eventually, a little hesitant because I'm liking it at 15dps and it's easier to take off steel then to put it back :D

[Cujobob]

I love AEB-L and would love to see it catch on, but it can be wasted if one were to leave the edge at an angle over...12 or so degrees, maybe? It can take extremely fine edges. It also requires being hardened to near maximum hardness or it ends up with terrible edge retention. I didn't read through every page of this thread, but was the target hardness range stated?

[The Meat man]

I love AEB-L and would love to see it catch on, but it can be wasted if one were to leave the edge at an angle over...12 or so degrees, maybe? It can take extremely fine edges. It also requires being hardened to near maximum hardness or it ends up with terrible edge retention. I didn't read through every page of this thread, but was the target hardness range stated?

Nope, no word yet on the HRC of this knife.

[ZrowsN1s]

I love AEB-L and would love to see it catch on, but it can be wasted if one were to leave the edge at an angle over...12 or so degrees, maybe? It can take extremely fine edges. It also requires being hardened to near maximum hardness or it ends up with terrible edge retention. I didn't read through every page of this thread, but was the target hardness range stated?

No it was not. No idea what the hardness is. I may be leaving some performance on the table until I go down to 12 or 10 dps. But at 15dps, I'm able to get an impressively sharp edge off of fine ceramic. Easier than I can with other steels (except H1). With more skill and better abrasives, I could probably do the same with other steels, but with my modest set up I like the ease of sharpening. Edge retention seems no worse than PE H1 at the moment, but I'll need to use it a little more before I have a firm opinion on that.

[Woodpuppy]

I just reprofiled my Urban to 15dps on the cbn sharpmaker rods last night. That took longer than I expected! But the edge bevels on my example were pretty poor.

So far I’ve had two spots show up after taking it swimming. Love the form factor.

[Doc Dan]

I love AEB-L and would love to see it catch on, but it can be wasted if one were to leave the edge at an angle over...12 or so degrees, maybe? It can take extremely fine edges. It also requires being hardened to near maximum hardness or it ends up with terrible edge retention. I didn't read through every page of this thread, but was the target hardness range stated?

No it was not. No idea what the hardness is. I may be leaving some performance on the table until I go down to 12 or 10 dps. But at 15dps, I'm able to get an impressively sharp edge off of fine ceramic. Easier than I can with other steels (except H1). With more skill and better abrasives, I could probably do the same with other steels, but with my modest set up I like the ease of sharpening. Edge retention seems no worse than PE H1 at the moment, but I'll need to use it a little more before I have a firm opinion on that.

I would expect edge retention to be a tad less than VG10 with most materials, but better than AUS8 or pe H1. It will be far tougher than all but H1 (about which I cannot speak as yet from experience). We just need to realize what this deal actually is. It is a very tough stainless steal with edge holding that is decent but not stellar.

[The Meat man]

Now for the real contribution to this thread:

I just installed a shiny new 12.5 DPS edge to 1200 grit FEPA-F (approx. 3u), then stropped lightly with yellow stone on a firm strop. I'm a bit surprised by all the reports that this is an easy to grind steel... it's hard enough that initial stock removal with a coarse diamond plate felt much closer to XHP than AUS8, the finer grits did go quickly however and once past the coarse stones it behaved very nicely with only a hint of burr formation. We'll have to see what touch-ups are like.

My first cutting impression was that it didn't shave as well as I expected on arm hair... then I push cut some paper and changed my mind immediately!

I'll carry this for a week or so and report back.


***UPDATE***

I just did a 12.5 DPS regrind on my ZDP-189 Delica and the way ZDP ground was more *like* the AEB-L Urban than different... sure ZDP was even slower to get from factory to 12.5, but my take-away from this experience is that we (or at least *I*) got AEB-L at mid 60s HRC in the Urban.

That's really interesting David. We won't know for sure until we can get a couple samples tested, but from your experience it sounds like Spyderco is running this at a pretty high hardness. Good news. :)

[vivi]

I love AEB-L and would love to see it catch on, but it can be wasted if one were to leave the edge at an angle over...12 or so degrees, maybe? It can take extremely fine edges. It also requires being hardened to near maximum hardness or it ends up with terrible edge retention. I didn't read through every page of this thread, but was the target hardness range stated?

No it was not. No idea what the hardness is. I may be leaving some performance on the table until I go down to 12 or 10 dps. But at 15dps, I'm able to get an impressively sharp edge off of fine ceramic. Easier than I can with other steels (except H1). With more skill and better abrasives, I could probably do the same with other steels, but with my modest set up I like the ease of sharpening. Edge retention seems no worse than PE H1 at the moment, but I'll need to use it a little more before I have a firm opinion on that.

All the AEBL I've tried was stupid easy to sharpen, almost felt like training wheels! Edge retention was in between PE H1 and VG10 for mine, though none were pushed to the mid 60's RC. They were around 59-61. I've always wanted to try it at a higher rc.

[ZrowsN1s]

It would be interesting to know the HRC.

[ZrowsN1s]

Used the KME gold series Diamond stones. 300 600 1200 grit. Then stropped 5, 2.5, 1, .25 micron. Still about 15 degrees per side. Smooth as butter. Slides through paper towel. My edges usually aren't this good. Very easy to sharpen :D

[The Meat man]

Used the KME gold series Diamond stones. 300 600 1200 grit. Then stropped 5, 2.5, 1, .25 micron. Still about 15 degrees per side. Smooth as butter. Slides through paper towel. My edges usually aren't this good. Very easy to sharpen :D

Awesome! Impressive sharpening job there, Matt!

[Cambertree]

Nice to see this thread returning to the actual performance reviews most of us came here for. :D

For what it’s worth, Sal mentioned over on Cliff’s forum, that the in-house Mules they developed, when doing the R&D for this knife, were run at around 62 HRC.

http://www.cliffstamp.com/knives/forum/ ... #msg-72348

I’m waiting eagerly for mine to arrive. :)

[Doc Dan]

Used the KME gold series Diamond stones. 300 600 1200 grit. Then stropped 5, 2.5, 1, .25 micron. Still about 15 degrees per side. Smooth as butter. Slides through paper towel. My edges usually aren't this good. Very easy to sharpen :D

That’s a good sharp knife. Try this with toilet tissue.

Due to circumstances beyond my control, I cannot do sharpen at the moment. However, I know from past experience that this steel is easy to get to those sharpness levels.

I am not certain what the least angle for sharpening is with this steel. 15 per side is reasonable. I’ve done 12.5 or so in the past for normal duty without a problem. Tough steel. I knew it was tough from experience but was greatly surprised upon seeing it compared with 52100. However upon reflection, I should not of been surprised given my experience with this steel.

BTW, this is a great steel for pumpkin carving.