AEB-L Steel Knife Blade Blanks
AEB-L started life as a razor blade steel at Uddeholm, and that history explains everything about it. The alloy is deliberately lean: less chromium and carbon than most stainless knife steels, which produces an exceptionally fine, even grain structure.
We run AEB-L at 60 HRC. Fine grain means the edge can be taken thinner at the apex without the microscopic tearing that coarser steels suffer during sharpening. The result is a keenness that steels with better datasheet numbers cannot match.
AEB-L at a glance
| Maker | Uddeholm (Voestalpine) |
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| Type | Fine-grain stainless, first made as a razor blade steel |
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| Chemistry (average %) | C 0.67, Si 0.40, Mn 0.60, Cr 13.0 |
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| Our hardness | 60 HRC |
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Strengths: Takes a very keen edge, is tough for its hardness and sharpens easily.
Trade-off: Lower wear resistance than the powder steels.
Why kitchen knife makers choose it
If you care how a blade feels going through a ripe tomato, this is the steel. It also sharpens more easily than 60 HRC suggests, again because of the grain; there are no large carbides to fight. Corrosion resistance is good, a little behind N690 but well within what a kitchen knife needs.
Where it gives ground is abrasive wear. In rope, cardboard or dirty work AEB-L dulls sooner than the powder steels. For food on a wooden board, that is not the job it is being asked to do.
How these blanks are made
After laser cutting, each profile is hand ground in our workshop, then vacuum heat treated at Voestalpine, the mill that produced the steel. Industrial furnaces hold temperature evenly across the whole load, so every blade in a batch comes back at the hardness it was specified for. Ground through 40, 120 and 240 grit before heat treatment, shipped sharpened unless the order note asks otherwise, free laser engraving included.
Choosing between our stainless steels? Read N690 vs AEB-L vs 1.4116.
AEB-L steel: properties, hardness and how it compares
AEB-L steel is an Uddeholm stainless first made for razor blades. Its lean chemistry gives a very fine grain, so it takes a keener edge than most stainless steels and sharpens easily. We harden our AEB-L blanks to 60 HRC at Voestalpine.
Compared with N690, AEB-L takes a finer edge but resists corrosion a little less. Compared with 1.4116, it holds an edge longer at a higher hardness.
| Steel | Our hardness | Edge retention | Corrosion resistance | Sharpening | Best for |
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| AEB-L | 60 HRC | Good | Good | Easy for its hardness | Kitchen knives, the finest edge |
| N690 | 58-60 HRC | Good | Excellent | Easy, ordinary waterstones | One steel for kitchen and outdoor |
| 1.4116 | 54-57 HRC | Fair | Very good | Easiest, almost any stone | First builds, hard use, low budget |
For a longer comparison, read N690 vs AEB-L vs 1.4116.
Related categories
Related reading: choosing steel for a kitchen knife and what HRC really means.