maybe the rare earth element is the friends we made along the way

I always just assumed rare meant undercooked.

always appreciate your detailed explanations. you sir are an asset to the knife community thank you

We're so lucky to have a metallurgist in the community that wants to spread correct information

Great info! Thank you so much for doing the detective work for us on this steel.

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.

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!

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.

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

Dammmmmnnn, now this is a can of woopass. I am so glad you are doing these.

Great video! As my old English teacher would say, “You are being clear and concise.”

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.

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.

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!

Thank you so much for this 🙌

This sounds like the marketing material was written by the marketing department only, with no input from the materials scientists and engineers involved.

I'd written it off as 9Cr when it was announced but I never actually read the name. That's hilarious.

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.

Crazy that both 154CM and CPM-154 performed basically the same in your tests! Great info and thanks for your research on "RPM9"!

Let's be honest, we're all just opening packages anyway. And anytime we're doing more than that, we often reach for our beater knife so that we don't mess up our nice knife.

Thanks for this, it means a LOT to the knife community.

Jeez .. Larrin cooked them 🔥 In a Step-by-step detailed explanation of facts 👏

I ❤ 440C & 1095 To me, they are true value steels, especially when done right.

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!

I don't know if there's malice when it comes to Chinese marketing, but there's definitely greed and "hopefully our customers are gullible enough to never find this out". Thanks for the good work.

I'm glad your channel exists so I can avoid some of the pitfalls of magical knife steels. 👍

Marketing crap aside, I've had good experiences with the steel, it's just annoying that they lied

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.

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.

Maybe they meant Middle Earth elements? You know, like Mithril?

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

Thank you!!! I've been wondering exactly what you are informing. As always you are the man! Thanks

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.

As soon as they said that they added rare earth elements I knew something was wrong

Great information. Thank you for all the work you do. You are invaluable.

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.

Uh oh. I've never heard about any of this. Smells like a deep rabbit hole I'm about to enter.

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.

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!

Always great to learn from you Larrin,thanks!

Good on you for posting this video, we would all love a deeper dive into a lot more of these over seas OEM knives

Great post Larrin, very well elaborated, thanks a lot, very much appreciated.

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.

This video was incredibly interesting and informative. Thanks for taking the time to do it.

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

Thank you for enlightening us with your tests

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.

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.

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.

Thanks for your diligence.

First the Kendrick/Drake beef and now this?!?

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 always steered clear of that AR- RPM9 steel, glad I did now. Good work looking into it and calling them to account for it.

Brilliant analysis and technical understanding

Thank you very much Larrin for debunking all this misinformation and setting things straight! Thumbs up!

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.

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.

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....

Mr "Nerd" lol, what, in your opinion, would be the best steel to make bolt carriers, barrels for semi automatic, or firearms in general? (The pressure bearing components)?

Thank you so much that was very interesting.I appreciate the investigation😊

I appreciate your expertise in the matter, you and Triple B really get it done! 🎉

I appreciate you. Thanks for sharing your expertise.

Thanks for the information. It’s really interesting and educational. I subscribed and look forward to future videos

Well done on you’re analysis, much appreciated.

Thanks for making it so clear 😊

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.

Thank you sooo much!!! Just great research, read detector work! God bless you from all knife community! 🙏

I can’t wait to see what Artisan’s/CJRB’s response to this new information and Thank you for setting things straight, Sir!

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

Larrin you are the best. Thanks for all your research

This breakdown is amazing. I'm tired of all the false advertisement in the knife world.

Love your clear cut easy to understand explanation of this steel! This from an expert of metallurgy! 🤔👍

Thanks Larrin and team! This answers why i always got a weird gimmicky vibe when people showcased this steel.

Thank you for your hard work.

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!

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. 😀

WOW Really eye opening stuff! great vid and service to our edc community!

Very good explanation and knowledge provided, keep up the good work

thank you for making this video. I've been calling out this stuff from when it was launched.

Thanks for providing facts and evidence. 👍

Amazing video. So informative and impressed with your knowledge

Larrin, with my autodidactic knowledge you never dissapoint to blow my mind, good job!

Enlightening. Thanks you!

Thanks for the info. Much appreciated 🙏🏼

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

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

Great video! Yes I hope Artisan changes the steel name moving forward to ASF7 or even SF9CR18MOV for accuracy.

glad you let us know, crazy that even retailers jumped on it and praised it as particlesteel

Can you do a video on 154cm vs VG-10/440c?

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!

This steel actually sharpens up really nice. I like the steel.

Thanks for the heads up.

Great info, appreciate the research

Thank you for all your work

Hey Larrin, how would you rate vg1 steel and Sleipner steel on your data sheath? Thank you so much!

Great video and information. Thanks

Great analysis. Id like to see more.

Got a couple of knives with Arrpm9. They do okay with holding an edge. They don't seem to rust. Fairly easy to sharpen. Kind of put them in the same class as 440 stainless. Think D2 is a small step above. Hard to really complain given the price of the blades.

Despite the either false advertising or “lost in translation” issue, it still seems to be a decent knife steel. I have a couple, and they seem to cut well, hold a decent edge, and seem to be relatively corrosion resistant. Granted, it’s not S30V or MagnaCut, but for the knife prices, it seems to perform adequately.

I have a few knives in the steel. Pyrite-Alt, Ekko and Space Cowboy. It sure sharpens up sharp!