@@tacticalcenter8658 Yeah, the important modifier was "that wants to spread correct information." There are plenty of metal experts (and even more armchair metal experts), but most of them aren't using their platform primarily to educate
@@nvalley you can goto bf and find a wealth of information. Theirs also a wealth of books about metallurgy. Not to mention white papers from science direct. All with correct information.
You seriously earned the Nerd part of Knife Steel Nerds in this video. Not just a deep dive, but an indignant and pedantic quality about the deep dive that made the inner nerd in me smile.
Daaaaammm!!! We’ve never been as excited about AR-RPM9 mostly because it’s been exclusive to the brand and it never seemed like anything special. Very thorough video, thank you Larrin
@@BirdShotIVI’m going to check it out. Hopefully I get a laugh. I feel so dirty and used right now. Thanks a lot Michael Emler. I bought the Sea Snake because of you. What am I supposed to tell my family now? I can never look them in the eye again. 🤦♂️ 😂
Exactly my thought as well. Showing "rare earth" and saying "trace elements" was a dead giveaway. Unfortunately, sometimes that happens even when engineers try to correct them. Which could be why the voiceover was different. The marketing slide was done, but someone caught it before the voiceover was recorded.
As a Chinese, this naming really sounds like a direct translasion from Chinese words by a translator who is not familiar with metallurgy. My bladesmith friends in China told me that there is a new powder metallurgy steel available, and by watching your video, I guess that steel is this AR-RPM9 knife steel. I'm not sure about the pricing of this AR-RPM9, but that steel and the China made M390 you mentioned are very cheap in China (20 to 50 bucks for a decent bushcraft knife), with relatively good mechanical properties. Anyway, great video, and hope bladesmiths can make great knifes with this steel!
China has nothing to do with this. it's all Artisan which is an American company. they ofc source their materials from China and manufacture their products inside China, because obviously China does it better than anyone else can for less money and are highly reliable. This steel was named, and marketed and sold and promoted entirely by Americans & it's made in China for them.
@@TimJohnson-x1othey don’t just source their material from China their manufacturing is done completely in China. Like finch knives. To say they just “source” from China is incorrect.
@@TimJohnson-x1oI think he was saying it was a bad translation. If its made in china there has to be a translation somewhere even if its an american company
With the way that CJRB position and price their products, this is probably the "mystery steel" with the highest public exposure (outside of "Damascus", of course). Thank you for this desperately needed public service.
Iirc they also have a Damascus like steel that is not damasteel and it also is not powdered metallurgy. Jim skeleton did a vid on the questioning about that.
@@tacticalcenter8658wow! I didn’t know that. I was hyped to see a budget powder steel. I can’t look at ARRPM9 the same anymore. It’s crazy they sell Damascus steel that’s not even Damascus. I’ll check out Jim’s video. Thanks for the info!👊
Just recently started getting into knives after years of trepidation over this exact concern: there is so much wriggle-room for companies to falsely advertise the properties of steels. I'm glad that the science around steel properties is common and solid nowadays. I'm even more glad that guys like you are doing amazing work investigating the truth behind these claims about steel. You're awesome!
AR-RPM9 came out during the Covid lockdown. Everything was about budgets, and getting the best bang for the buck. In the knife community, all the social media testings were showing that basically anything below 9Cr isn't worth your time. So I always assumed that AR-RPM9 was just an amalgamation of a bunch of knife steel buzzwords to boost sales. It sounds scientific-y, CPMish, and it's got a 9.
They perform that way with his protocols. Mass manufacturer's will use other protocols, equipment and aim hardness. An example of that is BOS ht will do secondary hardening if a maker wanted it. That protocol was not tested in Larrins chart.
That is exactly what I did! I expected slightly better performance than 9CR but I was underwhelmed. I'd consider Cold Steels 8CR to be better in toughness and edge retention but that is with a sample of one CJRB knife.
Did he though? He said the steel should be pretty decent and is priced appropriately but the name is just incorrect. They never claimed it was going to perform like M390 or even S35VN. 9Cr is a solid budget steel and this steel is a tougher and easier to sharpen version. Good enough for my $75 Pyrites.
I have said for a long time that it's not powder form steel. Still a decent budget steel considering what it can be had for. Very serviceable and easily stropped back many many times. On 30-40 dollar knives it gives good performance per dollar, it ain't nothing special but it works.
It'd probably finish quite close to a near-mirror if it wasn't a factory grind job in a tumbler. Still, I'd hardly call it an 'artisan' product in the examples seen here at least. But hey it wouldn't be the cutlery industry if someone wasn't making at least something up :)
it was obvious it's not. Because if you are going to pay for PM steel, you'd use something better than this. Also the composition isn't even something would make sense to do in a PM form. For the most part if the steel lacks vanadium then there isn't much of a compelling reason to use such a more costly process.
Fantastic work, thank you. I have one knife in AR-RPM9 and I’ve been suspicious of the claims about the steel. You have confirmed what I was sensing while using the knife. Honestly, I usually lean towards quality D2 and 14C28N when purchasing a pocket knife. The affordability / resilience of these 2 steels are the Goldilocks zone for me. I have knives in 8Cr, 9CR, and 154CM and my use case is best with the D2 and 14C28N. The latest and greatest isn’t always the greatest.
I am familiar with your name and have read a fair number of your articles. All of that did not hold a candle to this video. You are truly amazing! Thank you for all letting you do.
This sounds like the marketing material was written by the marketing department only, with no input from the materials scientists and engineers involved.
Well done Larrin! Thank you! Just give me some good 'ole 154CM, D2, S30V, or my favorite VG-10, and I'm good to go! Really appreciate all your work on knife steels!
Glad to know more about the stuff. I still really enjoy the steel, and from my experience it's still noticeably different from 9cr18mov, mostly in terms of sharpening and toughness
This is exactly why I don't try to convince people about stuff I don't know about - there's always a smart mofo out there who can not only make you look 10 times dumber than would by just being quiet, but they can point out exactly where it's dishonest... Excellent work, Sir!
Honestly, there are many factors that go into what knives I choose buy, and I buy a lot of them. The steel it's made from is often the least of my concerns and not the driving factor. In fact, sometimes I just don't care. But I love watching the stuff that comes out of your head, the sheer power of your research, the confidence and tenacity in which you present it, and suddenly....I care greatly. That, sir, is the gift you give us. Gratitude!
Dr. Thomas, please turn Suer Thanks on! Some of us would be happy to contribute this way. It’s a setting in Studio under Earn, Supers, toggle Super Thanks to ON
Artisan is a very public face company. They are always presenting at Blade Show TX and GA and openly participating in on the spot live interviews. I bet it won’t be long before they address the questions to their fans.
Thank you for making these videos. I very much enjoyed this one. Knife steel is such a fascinating topic in general….to those of us who are a little strange anyway
If they advertised it as spray form i think people would have been just as interested. There are not that many spray form steels used on knives and at the price point people would understand that this is a good deal.
I commented similar both on some youtube videos and on Fb and kept getting told I don't 'understand' metallurgy or 'knifemaking' etc...funny then that it seems the company using the steel doesn't seem to, some form of projection I guess. The cost and performance also gave clues.
Appreciate you. Recently bought one of these knives and it's good to know what AR-RPM9 actually is. Wasn't expecting the world from a $40 EDC knife, but given your analysis, I feel like I got a little more value for my dollar. If it's slightly improved 9Cr, I'm happy with that. Bonus, the knife design is pretty cool-looking.
Which one did you get? CJRB More Maileah is one of my favorites for edc, quite bummed them lying about the steel. I think even if they said "spray formed" in their marketing for the steel, that would still be quite successful and interesting for a buyer, and set them apart from other companies. Albeit, not to the same extent as calling it "powder"
@@snowhusk Agave, aluminum handles. I took it out with me today because of this video and used it on a garden hose repair. Worked like an absolute champ. Nice, clean cut. No complaints whatsoever. Oh, cool. I have their Crag, too, which is sort of a bigger, regular flipper version of the More Maileah as far as the cleaver blade (but it's D2). Also a great EDC. I guess I don't feel so "lied to" about it because I didn't think it too reasonable to expect real powder metallurgy-level performance out of a $40 knife. I mean, it will be great when we get to that point, and I think we will fairly soon. This is kind of half-way there.
Thank you for the video and your explanation. I always put it in the 9cr range anyway. So this was no real surprise really. The steel performs well for a budget steel. The info is great and confirms suspicions. lol Cheers my friend.
Sprayform 9cr is totally good stuff, wish they would've just said it was so, but I think they misunderstood things somewhat by the translation barrier and "powder steel" And also marketing. I wouldn't mind psf27 making it into products either since D2 is booming in cheap knives for good edge retention while being easier to sharpen on alumina and silica stones. Sprayform d2 would nearly double the toughness and better carbide distribution on the apex. Same company makes the stuff!
And here I was, thinking the 9 was in reference to the .9% carbon the whole time… great video Larrin, really appreciate the in depth explanation of spray form vs powder with the visuals.
Cool. The marketing was a bit over the top. It's like PM/SF version of 9Cr18MoV. I'm still happy with it, for the money, on my CJRB knives regardless of their overly optimistic (maybe even false) marketing.
Wow! I have a CJRB in ARRPM9 and as the end user was not particularly impressed. I am not at all surprised by your analysis. You are as always amazing sir!
The kitchen knives nerds would love to see what the new steels from Takefu are and how they perform. If you could get your hands on some SPG Strix and VG XEOS, it'd be awesome.
Larrin, always liked your opinions based on facts and not fiction, unfortunately I bought my first AR-RPM9 bladed knife last week, might have thought twice if I'd seen this first. 😀
Thank you for the entry level explanation of the PM process, would love some more in depth videos on these processes. A video on history of steel manufacturing processes would be very nice. Reading your articles bring great insight into some of the years many of the tool steels were invented/formulated/discovered, many of them being from the mid century or earlier.
Ah the clever word games these companies play. Though when you have people that will pay $400 instead of $40 as long as they believe it's "special/super" etc etc. lucky there are folks out here trying to keep em honest. Good content. Keep it up.
Even though I agree it’s deceptive advertising, to play devil’s advocate, I’ve always seen everyone describe it as “basically 9cr” and have been told to expect near-identical performance from it, so I don’t feel quite as misled as some people do. I think the most interesting thing about this steel is the wide range of reactions to it, since I see almost equal amounts of people saying it’s terrible and can’t hold an edge, that it’s good for the price, or that it’s an absolute steal and they love it more than other prominent budget steels. Kind of interesting, since other steels comparable to it, like 8cr13mov, are fairly-universally-derided, with a few caveats given to certain companies (“At least Spyderco’s 8cr is good”) With all that said, I still would prefer 14c28N as the budget stainless baseline. Probably just the familiarity that makes me prefer it for the price of most CJRB/Artisan “budget” offerings, but still
Thanks for the hard work! I know this has been a big topic in the industry with lots of knife reviewers saying that artisans steel is the only powder metallurgy steel in the budget segment, just the facts now alone change the game somewhat and the fact that other Chinese OEMs have gotten better edge stability and retention out of 9cr makes a lot more sense. Still like my pyrites thought 😂 but now sencut in 9cr is probably the better option if you like the design of the knife, seems like their heat treatment is better through subjective testing I’ve seen.
False advertising isn't good, but to play devil's advocate, these blades are cheap. So better 9cr at that price point doesn't anger me that much. That said. I appreciate your knowledge and transparency. Keep on doing what you do.
I'm much more irritated that they lied than that it isn't a true PM steel. If they had just come out and said, "hey, we have sprayform 9cr18 in these $50 knives!" I would have been jazzed.
@@InsipidMoniker You know there were several E-mails and meetings between the marketing department and either internal engineers or the steel company. Where the technical people tried to explain it, and marketing didn't listen. Either that or they got a marketing brochure from the steel company and completely misinterpreted what it said. Why? Because they said "trace elements" instead of rare earth elements in the uncut voice over.
Yes, but the people selling/advertising these products shouldn't be using ignorance as an excuse. Lies? Half-truths? There should be zero tolerance for any of it. If they want to talk big on social media they should hire an actual metallurgist.
@@KnifeSteelNerds When a 'fictional' steel meets science, does that make it Science Fiction? ar ar ar. But seriously, keep up the good work. Also, please recalibrate the OES to detect Mithril.
@@KnifeSteelNerds Maybe it can be detected through testing the hardness. Mithril is "hard as dragon scales" after all. You just need to test the hardness of dragon scales first to establish a baseline. Simple.
Dr thomas i can say it a million times, u are totally awesome to the max, we love u, keep up the intelligent work and please keep the videos coming & thanks
Another fine example of a Chinese cutlery company, trying to sell knives to unsuspecting collectors under false pretenses!!.....Thank you Dr. Thomas for the clarification.
Decent information here. I kind of had suspicions that AR-RPM9 was spray formed, a bit after I learned what it was (from the introduction of the mentioned YJ01-V1). There's a lot more going on technologically and mechanically with current PM processes over the spray formed process that was developed in the mid to late '70's and is much easier to replicate. I haven't seen any PM steels previous to this available from China, so it just doesn't make sense why they'd be the first to bring it to market in the country and ONLY produce a cheaper bearing steel rather than other steels that would lend to wider industrial production (M390 formulation is popular in the plastics molding sector for instance). I'm still of the mind that Artisan/CJRB isn't actively malicious, intending to deceive us "dumb Americans". It's probably a mixture of language translation (the steel is still granulated in the sprayforming process, so it could easily be interpreted as "powdered" as a verb), maybe some misinformation or stretching of the truth from the steel provider, and of course marketing spin based on the information they're given. I say that because it's marketed as their budget option with the formulation being spot on what they stated rather than trying to sell it as some outlandish upscale material in the hopes that no one calls their bluff. It just sets their knives apart from the piles of D2 and normal *Cr**MoV steels in the price range. I can see your reasoning for the proposed steel re-naming, but at the end of the day it's their (currently) proprietary steel and naming conventions for those don't always follow logic, so I give the current name a pass, just as much as I do CPM-SPY27 which also doesn't describe the steel's contents.
For the most part they price their knives like 9CR would be for the most part so I’d assumed it was similar or slightly better than that. As you said, clear the marketing and I have no issue. If they could do a powered form of a steel like this, another manufacturer would have done it by now as well. If only slightly different.
How disappointing Though it could be worse But as someone who left the advertising world, because being knowledgeable about what was being sold wasn’t as important as being sensational I can’t say I’m surprised In the computer world The car world The smart phone world Everyone lies to get an edge over the competition Personally, I always thought the 9 in AR RPM9 stood for the . Percentage of carbon I was really hopeful that they would make a “AR-RPM 15” which would just be a stainless D2 made with their process Glad to know it’s not just Ingot steel, but bummed that it’s not true powder steel Though I suppose that’s how they keep the pricing down so low, cause knives like the pyrite are really affordable
Regardless of the specifics and details, the biggest disappointment with AR-RPM9 has been it's performance. I own 3 knives in this steel, and have been underwhelmed - performance-wise - by all of them. I will not buy any more.
Thak you for doing the investigation. A shame that they falsely advertised the steel. As you quoted Hanlon's razor at the end, its probably their stupidity / ignorance. For the price the knoves ive gotten in this steel served for my uses. And theyre not a lot more expensive than similarly priced knives with other budget steels. All in all I won't hesitate to buy a CJRB / Artisan Cutlery knives in this steel at the right price.
So it’s…slightly better 9cr wrapped in business BS. I’m happy you explained it so it’s understandable. Artisan is (largely) treating it as their budget steel so as long as people like whatever it’s attached to, now knowing what it is and isn’t, and not paying a premium for it…it’s fine for a budget knife? It’s like Civivi and their Damascus…just tell me what it is and I’ll decide what I’m willing to pay for it to look pretty.
If I had paid a premium price believing it were a true powdered metallurgy steel I would be upset. But the price point of these knives for ~9CR is on-par if not better than most so I'm not mad. I am disappointed that either by design or by accident they pushed the powdered metallurgy narrative. Most of all though, I appreciate this video for the analysis and providing data. And I learned something new: spray form
maybe the rare earth element is the friends we made along the way
Looking at you, Bricky...
Quips as sharp as your edges!
AC-FWMATW-7. Really rolls off the tongue
Go to bed pete.
😆
always appreciate your detailed explanations. you sir are an asset to the knife community thank you
Facts!
a lowercase comment
Hey Neeves, I dont make things up when I say them. aarpm9 is not powdered metallurgy.
@@tacticalcenter8658 he didn't say you made anything up, not did he even reference you
@@DinoNucci this is for a recent video where I told him aarpm9 was not powdered metallurgy and he argued with me that it was. Dont be a fanboy.
I always just assumed rare meant undercooked.
Ha!
hahahaha how I like my steak, not so much my knife steel
Hi, do you remember me saying it wasn't powdered metallurgy?
@@tacticalcenter8658 possibly 😣
Video response loading now
Ahahahah
We're so lucky to have a metallurgist in the community that wants to spread correct information
He's not the only metallurgist. There's some who are exceptionally skilled. Perhaps he has the most clout.
@@tacticalcenter8658He's not the only one but nobody else is doing what he does variety wise.
@@tacticalcenter8658 Yeah, the important modifier was "that wants to spread correct information." There are plenty of metal experts (and even more armchair metal experts), but most of them aren't using their platform primarily to educate
@@nvalley you can goto bf and find a wealth of information. Theirs also a wealth of books about metallurgy. Not to mention white papers from science direct. All with correct information.
@@nvalley there's actually a wealth amount of correct information out there. People are just too lazy.
Great info! Thank you so much for doing the detective work for us on this steel.
Dammmmmnnn, now this is a can of woopass. I am so glad you are doing these.
You seriously earned the Nerd part of Knife Steel Nerds in this video. Not just a deep dive, but an indignant and pedantic quality about the deep dive that made the inner nerd in me smile.
I bet he has a huge eggplant.
Nothing gets a nerd worked up like catching a false claim in a subject they are interested in.
Daaaaammm!!! We’ve never been as excited about AR-RPM9 mostly because it’s been exclusive to the brand and it never seemed like anything special.
Very thorough video, thank you Larrin
watched a second time.
Can’t help but laugh 😂😂
anyone want to buy our Artisan collection?? 😢😢
I don’t normally promote on other channels but we made a fun response video to this if anyone wants to check it out 😂😂
@@BirdShotIVI’m going to check it out. Hopefully I get a laugh. I feel so dirty and used right now. Thanks a lot Michael Emler. I bought the Sea Snake because of you. What am I supposed to tell my family now? I can never look them in the eye again. 🤦♂️ 😂
Comments being deleted?!
PizzA!
Why can't I comment on this without it being deleted??
It sounds like the marketing team got the spec sheet for the steel and knew zero about what any of it meant and started using the Google machine.
Exactly my thought as well. Showing "rare earth" and saying "trace elements" was a dead giveaway. Unfortunately, sometimes that happens even when engineers try to correct them. Which could be why the voiceover was different. The marketing slide was done, but someone caught it before the voiceover was recorded.
As a Chinese, this naming really sounds like a direct translasion from Chinese words by a translator who is not familiar with metallurgy. My bladesmith friends in China told me that there is a new powder metallurgy steel available, and by watching your video, I guess that steel is this AR-RPM9 knife steel. I'm not sure about the pricing of this AR-RPM9, but that steel and the China made M390 you mentioned are very cheap in China (20 to 50 bucks for a decent bushcraft knife), with relatively good mechanical properties. Anyway, great video, and hope bladesmiths can make great knifes with this steel!
哥们，M390是粉尘钢（即Powder Metallurgy 技术）。而这个视频论证了AR-RPM9不是粉尘钢……，它用的是介于粉尘钢和传统钢坯之间的技术。
@@justician9 对的，所以我觉得我朋友和我说的国产M390用的不是真正的powder metallurgy，而是sprayform
China has nothing to do with this. it's all Artisan which is an American company. they ofc source their materials from China and manufacture their products inside China, because obviously China does it better than anyone else can for less money and are highly reliable. This steel was named, and marketed and sold and promoted entirely by Americans & it's made in China for them.
@@TimJohnson-x1othey don’t just source their material from China their manufacturing is done completely in China. Like finch knives. To say they just “source” from China is incorrect.
@@TimJohnson-x1oI think he was saying it was a bad translation. If its made in china there has to be a translation somewhere even if its an american company
With the way that CJRB position and price their products, this is probably the "mystery steel" with the highest public exposure (outside of "Damascus", of course). Thank you for this desperately needed public service.
Iirc they also have a Damascus like steel that is not damasteel and it also is not powdered metallurgy. Jim skeleton did a vid on the questioning about that.
@@tacticalcenter8658wow! I didn’t know that. I was hyped to see a budget powder steel. I can’t look at ARRPM9 the same anymore. It’s crazy they sell Damascus steel that’s not even Damascus. I’ll check out Jim’s video. Thanks for the info!👊
I’m shocked but not too shocked. They need to make a statement about this.🤔
At least Damascus looks cool. This on the other hand is just cheap Chinese schlock
@@elgatofelix8917 Pakistani pot metal Damascus is probably the worst. But Chinese Damascus is next in line.
Great video! As my old English teacher would say, “You are being clear and concise.”
Just recently started getting into knives after years of trepidation over this exact concern: there is so much wriggle-room for companies to falsely advertise the properties of steels.
I'm glad that the science around steel properties is common and solid nowadays. I'm even more glad that guys like you are doing amazing work investigating the truth behind these claims about steel.
You're awesome!
AR-RPM9 came out during the Covid lockdown. Everything was about budgets, and getting the best bang for the buck. In the knife community, all the social media testings were showing that basically anything below 9Cr isn't worth your time. So I always assumed that AR-RPM9 was just an amalgamation of a bunch of knife steel buzzwords to boost sales. It sounds scientific-y, CPMish, and it's got a 9.
Thanks for this, it means a LOT to the knife community.
Crazy that both 154CM and CPM-154 performed basically the same in your tests! Great info and thanks for your research on "RPM9"!
He says hardness is not effected (thus box cutting) but powder version is tougher
They perform that way with his protocols. Mass manufacturer's will use other protocols, equipment and aim hardness. An example of that is BOS ht will do secondary hardening if a maker wanted it. That protocol was not tested in Larrins chart.
I'd written it off as 9Cr when it was announced but I never actually read the name. That's hilarious.
That is exactly what I did! I expected slightly better performance than 9CR but I was underwhelmed. I'd consider Cold Steels 8CR to be better in toughness and edge retention but that is with a sample of one CJRB knife.
Jeez .. Larrin cooked them 🔥
In a Step-by-step detailed explanation of facts 👏
Did he though? He said the steel should be pretty decent and is priced appropriately but the name is just incorrect. They never claimed it was going to perform like M390 or even S35VN. 9Cr is a solid budget steel and this steel is a tougher and easier to sharpen version. Good enough for my $75 Pyrites.
I'm glad your channel exists so I can avoid some of the pitfalls of magical knife steels. 👍
I have said for a long time that it's not powder form steel. Still a decent budget steel considering what it can be had for. Very serviceable and easily stropped back many many times. On 30-40 dollar knives it gives good performance per dollar, it ain't nothing special but it works.
It'd probably finish quite close to a near-mirror if it wasn't a factory grind job in a tumbler.
Still, I'd hardly call it an 'artisan' product in the examples seen here at least. But hey it wouldn't be the cutlery industry if someone wasn't making at least something up :)
it was obvious it's not. Because if you are going to pay for PM steel, you'd use something better than this. Also the composition isn't even something would make sense to do in a PM form. For the most part if the steel lacks vanadium then there isn't much of a compelling reason to use such a more costly process.
@@TimJohnson-x1o but you're not paying for a PM Steel. Check the prices on the AR-RPM9 knives. They are inexpensive.
Fantastic work, thank you. I have one knife in AR-RPM9 and I’ve been suspicious of the claims about the steel. You have confirmed what I was sensing while using the knife. Honestly, I usually lean towards quality D2 and 14C28N when purchasing a pocket knife. The affordability / resilience of these 2 steels are the Goldilocks zone for me. I have knives in 8Cr, 9CR, and 154CM and my use case is best with the D2 and 14C28N. The latest and greatest isn’t always the greatest.
Man will never outgrow D2
I always steered clear of that AR- RPM9 steel, glad I did now. Good work looking into it and calling them to account for it.
Thank you so much for this 🙌
I ❤ 440C & 1095 To me, they are true value steels, especially when done right.
I am familiar with your name and have read a fair number of your articles. All of that did not hold a candle to this video. You are truly amazing! Thank you for all letting you do.
This sounds like the marketing material was written by the marketing department only, with no input from the materials scientists and engineers involved.
This is why engineers aren't big fans of marketing. There are some great people in that profession, but this behavior is far too common.
That is almost how it always is
Well done Larrin! Thank you! Just give me some good 'ole 154CM, D2, S30V, or my favorite VG-10, and I'm good to go!
Really appreciate all your work on knife steels!
Mate....
As always at the top of your game...
And this is yet another thanks from yet another member of the knife community....
Great stuff....
Marketing crap aside, I've had good experiences with the steel, it's just annoying that they lied
Yeah, I like the steel. It looks nice.
@@Funkdoctor yeah it looks good.
It has less edge retention than 9cr18mov. The first batches of aarpm9 had issues due to heat treat protocol. Outpost76 has some info on it.
@@tacticalcenter8658 Sounds more like a manufacturing issue than an issue with the steel itself.
@@arthurmoore9488 the protocol was changed and the aim hardness also.
Glad to know more about the stuff. I still really enjoy the steel, and from my experience it's still noticeably different from 9cr18mov, mostly in terms of sharpening and toughness
This video was incredibly interesting and informative. Thanks for taking the time to do it.
This is exactly why I don't try to convince people about stuff I don't know about - there's always a smart mofo out there who can not only make you look 10 times dumber than would by just being quiet, but they can point out exactly where it's dishonest...
Excellent work, Sir!
Just always say "they claim" before any statements about stuff you didn't make.
Honestly, there are many factors that go into what knives I choose buy, and I buy a lot of them. The steel it's made from is often the least of my concerns and not the driving factor. In fact, sometimes I just don't care. But I love watching the stuff that comes out of your head, the sheer power of your research, the confidence and tenacity in which you present it, and suddenly....I care greatly. That, sir, is the gift you give us. Gratitude!
Thank you!!! I've been wondering exactly what you are informing. As always you are the man! Thanks
I can’t wait to see what Artisan’s/CJRB’s response to this new information and Thank you for setting things straight, Sir!
Dr. Thomas, please turn Suer Thanks on! Some of us would be happy to contribute this way. It’s a setting in Studio under Earn, Supers, toggle Super Thanks to ON
This breakdown is amazing. I'm tired of all the false advertisement in the knife world.
Thank you very much Larrin for debunking all this misinformation and setting things straight!
Thumbs up!
Always great to learn from you Larrin,thanks!
Great information. Thank you for all the work you do. You are invaluable.
Artisan is a very public face company. They are always presenting at Blade Show TX and GA and openly participating in on the spot live interviews. I bet it won’t be long before they address the questions to their fans.
Thank you for making these videos. I very much enjoyed this one. Knife steel is such a fascinating topic in general….to those of us who are a little strange anyway
If they advertised it as spray form i think people would have been just as interested. There are not that many spray form steels used on knives and at the price point people would understand that this is a good deal.
I commented similar both on some youtube videos and on Fb and kept getting told I don't 'understand' metallurgy or 'knifemaking' etc...funny then that it seems the company using the steel doesn't seem to, some form of projection I guess. The cost and performance also gave clues.
I commented about how the factory itself, where aarpm9 is made doesnt have the capability to make powdered metallurgy.
@@tacticalcenter8658 Good catch.
Appreciate you. Recently bought one of these knives and it's good to know what AR-RPM9 actually is. Wasn't expecting the world from a $40 EDC knife, but given your analysis, I feel like I got a little more value for my dollar. If it's slightly improved 9Cr, I'm happy with that. Bonus, the knife design is pretty cool-looking.
Which one did you get? CJRB More Maileah is one of my favorites for edc, quite bummed them lying about the steel. I think even if they said "spray formed" in their marketing for the steel, that would still be quite successful and interesting for a buyer, and set them apart from other companies. Albeit, not to the same extent as calling it "powder"
@@snowhusk Agave, aluminum handles. I took it out with me today because of this video and used it on a garden hose repair. Worked like an absolute champ. Nice, clean cut. No complaints whatsoever.
Oh, cool. I have their Crag, too, which is sort of a bigger, regular flipper version of the More Maileah as far as the cleaver blade (but it's D2). Also a great EDC.
I guess I don't feel so "lied to" about it because I didn't think it too reasonable to expect real powder metallurgy-level performance out of a $40 knife. I mean, it will be great when we get to that point, and I think we will fairly soon. This is kind of half-way there.
@@SharkVsTreePSF 27 would also be a decent thing for them to do, sprayform D2. Same company makes it as well.
Thank you for the video and your explanation.
I always put it in the 9cr range anyway. So this was no real surprise really.
The steel performs well for a budget steel.
The info is great and confirms suspicions. lol
Cheers my friend.
Sprayform 9cr is totally good stuff, wish they would've just said it was so, but I think they misunderstood things somewhat by the translation barrier and "powder steel"
And also marketing.
I wouldn't mind psf27 making it into products either since D2 is booming in cheap knives for good edge retention while being easier to sharpen on alumina and silica stones. Sprayform d2 would nearly double the toughness and better carbide distribution on the apex. Same company makes the stuff!
@ that is some great ideas. Thank you for the reply and info. Psf27 would be interesting.
Good on you for posting this video, we would all love a deeper dive into a lot more of these over seas OEM knives
Brilliant analysis and technical understanding
Great post Larrin, very well elaborated, thanks a lot, very much appreciated.
And here I was, thinking the 9 was in reference to the .9% carbon the whole time… great video Larrin, really appreciate the in depth explanation of spray form vs powder with the visuals.
Cool. The marketing was a bit over the top. It's like PM/SF version of 9Cr18MoV.
I'm still happy with it, for the money, on my CJRB knives regardless of their overly optimistic (maybe even false) marketing.
Uh oh. I've never heard about any of this. Smells like a deep rabbit hole I'm about to enter.
As soon as they said that they added rare earth elements I knew something was wrong
Thanks for providing facts and evidence. 👍
Thank you for your hard work.
Larrin you are the best. Thanks for all your research
Thank you for enlightening us with your tests
Wow! I have a CJRB in ARRPM9 and as the end user was not particularly impressed. I am not at all surprised by your analysis. You are as always amazing sir!
Same there knives for me always are full of qc issues. Always thought they were overhyped knives.
The kitchen knives nerds would love to see what the new steels from Takefu are and how they perform. If you could get your hands on some SPG Strix and VG XEOS, it'd be awesome.
I think Malachi has a bar of one of them. Maybe I can get some at Blade Show.
Thanks for making it so clear 😊
Thanks Larrin and team! This answers why i always got a weird gimmicky vibe when people showcased this steel.
Ohhh this is about to shake things up.
Larrin, always liked your opinions based on facts and not fiction, unfortunately I bought my first AR-RPM9 bladed knife last week, might have thought twice if I'd seen this first. 😀
Thank you for the entry level explanation of the PM process, would love some more in depth videos on these processes. A video on history of steel manufacturing processes would be very nice. Reading your articles bring great insight into some of the years many of the tool steels were invented/formulated/discovered, many of them being from the mid century or earlier.
Ah the clever word games these companies play. Though when you have people that will pay $400 instead of $40 as long as they believe it's "special/super" etc etc. lucky there are folks out here trying to keep em honest. Good content. Keep it up.
Larrin, with my autodidactic knowledge you never dissapoint to blow my mind, good job!
I appreciate your expertise in the matter, you and Triple B really get it done! 🎉
glad you let us know, crazy that even retailers jumped on it and praised it as particlesteel
Even though I agree it’s deceptive advertising, to play devil’s advocate, I’ve always seen everyone describe it as “basically 9cr” and have been told to expect near-identical performance from it, so I don’t feel quite as misled as some people do. I think the most interesting thing about this steel is the wide range of reactions to it, since I see almost equal amounts of people saying it’s terrible and can’t hold an edge, that it’s good for the price, or that it’s an absolute steal and they love it more than other prominent budget steels. Kind of interesting, since other steels comparable to it, like 8cr13mov, are fairly-universally-derided, with a few caveats given to certain companies (“At least Spyderco’s 8cr is good”)
With all that said, I still would prefer 14c28N as the budget stainless baseline. Probably just the familiarity that makes me prefer it for the price of most CJRB/Artisan “budget” offerings, but still
Thank you so much that was very interesting.I appreciate the investigation😊
WOW Really eye opening stuff! great vid and service to our edc community!
dang this dude with his research and investigation is a total valuable asset for the knife community (as someone here said)!
Thanks for the hard work! I know this has been a big topic in the industry with lots of knife reviewers saying that artisans steel is the only powder metallurgy steel in the budget segment, just the facts now alone change the game somewhat and the fact that other Chinese OEMs have gotten better edge stability and retention out of 9cr makes a lot more sense. Still like my pyrites thought 😂 but now sencut in 9cr is probably the better option if you like the design of the knife, seems like their heat treatment is better through subjective testing I’ve seen.
I'm so happy you did a video on this steel, I have two knives with this steel and I've been very disappointed both times
Great video! Yes I hope Artisan changes the steel name moving forward to ASF7 or even SF9CR18MOV for accuracy.
False advertising isn't good, but to play devil's advocate, these blades are cheap. So better 9cr at that price point doesn't anger me that much. That said. I appreciate your knowledge and transparency. Keep on doing what you do.
I'm much more irritated that they lied than that it isn't a true PM steel. If they had just come out and said, "hey, we have sprayform 9cr18 in these $50 knives!" I would have been jazzed.
@@InsipidMoniker You know there were several E-mails and meetings between the marketing department and either internal engineers or the steel company. Where the technical people tried to explain it, and marketing didn't listen. Either that or they got a marketing brochure from the steel company and completely misinterpreted what it said.
Why? Because they said "trace elements" instead of rare earth elements in the uncut voice over.
Yes, but the people selling/advertising these products shouldn't be using ignorance as an excuse. Lies? Half-truths? There should be zero tolerance for any of it. If they want to talk big on social media they should hire an actual metallurgist.
Maybe they meant Middle Earth elements? You know, like Mithril?
Unfortunately the OES wasn’t calibrated properly to detect Mithril
@@KnifeSteelNerds When a 'fictional' steel meets science, does that make it Science Fiction? ar ar ar. But seriously, keep up the good work. Also, please recalibrate the OES to detect Mithril.
@@KnifeSteelNerds I expect Mithril by the end of your career.
@@KnifeSteelNerds Maybe it can be detected through testing the hardness. Mithril is "hard as dragon scales" after all. You just need to test the hardness of dragon scales first to establish a baseline. Simple.
@@Thexaiosthe dragon scales are measured on the rockdwell scale
Well done on you’re analysis, much appreciated.
Dang, this scientific breakdown just destroyed Artisians BS Marketing. Great Work Dr. 👍🏾
First the Kendrick/Drake beef and now this?!?
Steelvil War, directed by Alex Garland.
thank you for making this video. I've been calling out this stuff from when it was launched.
Thank you sooo much!!! Just great research, read detector work! God bless you from all knife community! 🙏
Thanks for your diligence.
Dr thomas i can say it a million times, u are totally awesome to the max, we love u, keep up the intelligent work and please keep the videos coming & thanks
Love your clear cut easy to understand explanation of this steel! This from an expert of metallurgy! 🤔👍
Another fine example of a Chinese cutlery company, trying to sell knives to unsuspecting collectors under false pretenses!!.....Thank you Dr. Thomas for the clarification.
Love - Honesty - Respect - Trust 💖💖💖
Thanks for the information. It’s really interesting and educational. I subscribed and look forward to future videos
Decent information here. I kind of had suspicions that AR-RPM9 was spray formed, a bit after I learned what it was (from the introduction of the mentioned YJ01-V1). There's a lot more going on technologically and mechanically with current PM processes over the spray formed process that was developed in the mid to late '70's and is much easier to replicate.
I haven't seen any PM steels previous to this available from China, so it just doesn't make sense why they'd be the first to bring it to market in the country and ONLY produce a cheaper bearing steel rather than other steels that would lend to wider industrial production (M390 formulation is popular in the plastics molding sector for instance).
I'm still of the mind that Artisan/CJRB isn't actively malicious, intending to deceive us "dumb Americans". It's probably a mixture of language translation (the steel is still granulated in the sprayforming process, so it could easily be interpreted as "powdered" as a verb), maybe some misinformation or stretching of the truth from the steel provider, and of course marketing spin based on the information they're given. I say that because it's marketed as their budget option with the formulation being spot on what they stated rather than trying to sell it as some outlandish upscale material in the hopes that no one calls their bluff. It just sets their knives apart from the piles of D2 and normal *Cr**MoV steels in the price range.
I can see your reasoning for the proposed steel re-naming, but at the end of the day it's their (currently) proprietary steel and naming conventions for those don't always follow logic, so I give the current name a pass, just as much as I do CPM-SPY27 which also doesn't describe the steel's contents.
For the most part they price their knives like 9CR would be for the most part so I’d assumed it was similar or slightly better than that. As you said, clear the marketing and I have no issue. If they could do a powered form of a steel like this, another manufacturer would have done it by now as well. If only slightly different.
Great analysis. Id like to see more.
How disappointing
Though it could be worse
But as someone who left the advertising world, because being knowledgeable about what was being sold wasn’t as important as being sensational
I can’t say I’m surprised
In the computer world
The car world
The smart phone world
Everyone lies to get an edge over the competition
Personally, I always thought the 9 in AR RPM9 stood for the . Percentage of carbon
I was really hopeful that they would make a “AR-RPM 15” which would just be a stainless D2 made with their process
Glad to know it’s not just Ingot steel, but bummed that it’s not true powder steel
Though I suppose that’s how they keep the pricing down so low, cause knives like the pyrite are really affordable
Regardless of the specifics and details, the biggest disappointment with AR-RPM9 has been it's performance. I own 3 knives in this steel, and have been underwhelmed - performance-wise - by all of them. I will not buy any more.
I appreciate you. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Thanks for your work dispelling the marketing bull.
Very good explanation and knowledge provided, keep up the good work
Thank you larrin
Thak you for doing the investigation. A shame that they falsely advertised the steel. As you quoted Hanlon's razor at the end, its probably their stupidity / ignorance. For the price the knoves ive gotten in this steel served for my uses. And theyre not a lot more expensive than similarly priced knives with other budget steels. All in all I won't hesitate to buy a CJRB / Artisan Cutlery knives in this steel at the right price.
So it’s…slightly better 9cr wrapped in business BS. I’m happy you explained it so it’s understandable. Artisan is (largely) treating it as their budget steel so as long as people like whatever it’s attached to, now knowing what it is and isn’t, and not paying a premium for it…it’s fine for a budget knife? It’s like Civivi and their Damascus…just tell me what it is and I’ll decide what I’m willing to pay for it to look pretty.
If I had paid a premium price believing it were a true powdered metallurgy steel I would be upset. But the price point of these knives for ~9CR is on-par if not better than most so I'm not mad. I am disappointed that either by design or by accident they pushed the powdered metallurgy narrative. Most of all though, I appreciate this video for the analysis and providing data. And I learned something new: spray form
If you paid more than $40 you'd probably be getting ripped off.
The quality of the knife is more than just the blade steel though. Great action, good handle material, design, etc all factor into it.
Thanks for the heads up.