Huntsman Knife Company...AEBL Machete

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This is a very interesting post.

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Well Boys, when it rains it pours. The Nitro V Fell Beast run has been in circulation for over a year with no reported issues until last week when a customer had both of his Fell Beasts break at the handle during routine use. Before the run was produced, I tested 3 Nitro V Fell Beast protoytpes to destruction and they exceeded my expectations and there have been no other reported problems so two failures after a full year of use was some seriously shocking news o_O Luckily, we have been able to track down the exact cause of the failures which occurred due to rare nitrogen inclusions that formed due to the HT protocol used. At the time these were made, Nitro V was brand new everyone used the AEB-l HT protocol with great success. We have since learned the AEB-l HT protocol can result in the formation of concentrated areas of nitrides and new HT methods have been developed to avoid the issue. The nitride inclusions very rarely cause failure and only caused a breakage in the Fell Beasts because of the perfect storm of thin stock, giant blade, and hard use application. Even though Nitro V has awesome properties and its performed very well for me, until the HT for Nitro V is perfected, I will not be using it for Fell Beasts. Even though there have only been two failures, that is NOT OK in my book. Bottom line is, I don't want anyone's blade failing them so I am doing a recall. I have already emailed everyone that placed an order through the website but because these things are bought and sold all over the forum, I don't know who may be in possession of one at this point so far down the road. So, if you have a Nitro V Fell Beast Please stop using it and contact me so I can give you a replacement blade from your choice 52100 or AEB-l. The replacement blanks have not yet been made so turn around time could be up to 6 weeks depending on how long heat treat takes. I will also need you to send in the scales from your current Nitro V Fell Beast so I can grind them flush to the tang of the replacement. Thanks, Hunter

Wow.. so he ended up getting a job as a lawyer that he wanted and was no longer able to do the recall so he refunded every customer.

that was a pretty nice, and expensive thing to do.. lot of integrity there.

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It's not Cliff, its Dr Stamp
#kebabstickcut, it's a thing - make it happen

He was a good guy.

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Always in search of a good choppa'

yeah. it was a nice design too.. i think a little thick though.. did you ever get one? he said it was a nice thin 30 thousands.. that sounds really thick to me, for a blade that looked scandi ground.

reminds me of my first machete type design.. looked really good..

i applaud the idea of trying nitro-v, but this is a good example of why tried and true is a good idea.. sadly, the failure he had is one that probably couldn't be forseen and might never occur to most of the blades.

however, my opinion may differ from others.. a steel supplier "invented" this steel and sold it as a better version of aebl? maybe im wrong here.
that supplier then said, use the AEBL HT protocol, which clearly led to this failure.. bad HT, or bad steel composition?
should the supplier of the steel let the customer wear the brunt of this failure on the steel when the provided recommended HT for it was wrong?

in reality, the supplier of the steel should have pretty good business insurance compared to a small maker, and I'd expect the supplier to wear this entire bill on their insurance policy.

imagine if this steel was sold to Boeing, and Boeing used it, and then one of the planes tore apart on takeoff because the supplier provided poor HT protocol?

we can prob all agree that standard HT protocols from suppliers might not be ideal for knives, but if done, they shouldn't lead to failures.. but in this case, the steel was targeted specifically to knife makers if I'm reading it right.

please correct me if I'm missing details

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It's not Cliff, its Dr Stamp
#kebabstickcut, it's a thing - make it happen

Hey Kyley,

I totally agree with your rationale on the steel and steel supplier...although i hadn't thought about it in that way. The supplier was Aldo I believe and while I think by and large the company seems to do the knife market well, I didn't like how they promoted Nitro V or 80CrV2. I believe they touted it as 5160 on steroids. It's a fine steel by all accounts, but again, it's purely marketing, mostly nonsense in nature that has the potential to prey on the consumer. But I guess then questions of the consumer's responsibility to be informed come up.

At any rate, I did have a machete and Parang from him in 52100. Love the size, handles and design on both of them, but the machete was too thickly ground for my taste and was heavy because the stock was almost 1/8" (although I chose the thicker version...totally my fault on that one...he told me to go thinner). Still having said that, the grind was thinner than many, and he would have thinned it out I do believe had I asked him too.

The Parang was nice too. I think I sold it to Mark.

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Always in search of a good choppa'

I have two machetes, a thicker one (18" Ontario D-Guard) and a thinner one (18" Gavilan spear point). I haven't used either much. What are the pros and cons of the thinner vs thicker machetes?

"I am still discussing issues of steels and performance at this stage." -- Cliff Stamp, May his memory be a blessing
"Life is GOOD", -- Stefan_Wolf, May His Memory Be A Blessing
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Personally Jason, I just think the thicker machete, at least without a very high / full height grind, is a jack of all trades, master of none. I'd prefer to have a thinner stock machete that is faster and lighter for clearing brush and trimming...that's a lot of swinging that gets tiring fast. And then a slightly shorter, very heavy stock, fluid chopper for processing thicker limbs/trunks.

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Always in search of a good choppa'

Jason.. when you hit 1/8" stock in a machete there is a lot of weight and that can be good for a swing if its very sharp, but when it dulls the thickness is working against you if you want a grass cutting machete.

if its a grass cutting machete, even a blunt one that is 1.5mm - 2mm is going to cut grass as the pass through resistance is lower and you get a lot more speed with less effort..

as an example.. i used to use a long piece of fibreglass rod that was about 3-4mm as a kid and 4ft long.. clearly not sharp, but produced so much speed i could cut down light grasses.. just like a weed wacker..

when you get to machetes of thicker nature you are starting to hit parang style that may be more suited to jungles that contain brush and bamboo that you want to cut down, where the weight is going to be an advantage.

thin for grass, thick for bamboo.

thin also makes such an awesome noise snipping brush and bush 1cm less diam

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It's not Cliff, its Dr Stamp
#kebabstickcut, it's a thing - make it happen

Collin, Kylie:
That's what I remembered, thin for grass, thick for wood. For some reason I thought we were talking about two different types of wood chopping machetes, a thick one and a thin one.

"I am still discussing issues of steels and performance at this stage." -- Cliff Stamp, May his memory be a blessing
"Life is GOOD", -- Stefan_Wolf, May His Memory Be A Blessing
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