AR-RPM9 Knife Steel Is Not Powder Metallurgy
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- Опубликовано: 16 июн 2024
- We investigated AR-RPM9 to test whether the company's claims about it are true. They aren't.
Written version of the information in this video: knifesteelnerds.com/2024/05/1...
00:00 Announcement of AR-RPM9
01:23 Composition
06:23 Powder Metallurgy?
10:52 Properties
13:41 Malice or Stupidity?
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.
😆
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.
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.
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.
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.
@@user-xf4es7eh9ythey 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.
@@user-xf4es7eh9yI 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
Dammmmmnnn, now this is a can of woopass. I am so glad you are doing these.
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.
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!
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??
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.
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.
😔
Bingo
💯😂
No need to get personal
Some of us actually use our "nice knife" ...lol life's short
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.
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
I ❤ 440C & 1095 To me, they are true value steels, especially when done right.
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.
@@user-xf4es7eh9y but you're not paying for a PM Steel. Check the prices on the AR-RPM9 knives. They are inexpensive.
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.
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.
Thanks for this, it means a LOT to the knife community.
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.
Thank you so much for this 🙌
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.
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.
As soon as they said that they added rare earth elements I knew something was wrong
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.
Always great to learn from you Larrin,thanks!
Thank you!!! I've been wondering exactly what you are informing. As always you are the man! Thanks
Great information. Thank you for all the work you do. You are invaluable.
Great post Larrin, very well elaborated, thanks a lot, very much appreciated.
Thank you for enlightening us with your tests
This video was incredibly interesting and informative. Thanks for taking the time to do it.
Uh oh. I've never heard about any of this. Smells like a deep rabbit hole I'm about to enter.
Good on you for posting this video, we would all love a deeper dive into a lot more of these over seas OEM knives
I'm glad your channel exists so I can avoid some of the pitfalls of magical knife steels. 👍
Brilliant analysis and technical understanding
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.
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
Thanks for your diligence.
First the Kendrick/Drake beef and now this?!?
Steelvil War, directed by Alex Garland.
Thanks for making it so clear 😊
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
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.
When the customers are ostensibly making their purchasing decisions based on 0.3% elemental composition we’re kinda asking for it 😂
This reads like marketing just didn't understand the specs. You see it in many industries.
it's not "Chinese marketing" genius. Artisan is an American company that is owned and operated by Americans in the United States. So what is it with American marketing, there's definitely greed and ""hopefully our customers are gullible enough to never find this out." I'd bet 10 grand you dont even have a passport and I'd be shocked if you finished high school.
That’s all marketing. Look at Nike, the sell $5 Chinese shoes for $200 and it’s the greatest technology ever!
Artisan is an American company run by Americans. Finish high school.
I appreciate you. Thanks for sharing your expertise.
Enlightening. Thanks you!
Thank you so much that was very interesting.I appreciate the investigation😊
Thank you for your hard work.
Great analysis. Id like to see more.
This breakdown is amazing. I'm tired of all the false advertisement in the knife world.
Well done on you’re analysis, much appreciated.
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
Thanks for the heads up.
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
Thanks for the information. It’s really interesting and educational. I subscribed and look forward to future videos
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!
Great video and information. Thanks
I appreciate your expertise in the matter, you and Triple B really get it done! 🎉
Thank you very much Larrin for debunking all this misinformation and setting things straight!
Thumbs up!
Thanks for the info. Much appreciated 🙏🏼
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.
Great info, appreciate the research
Larrin you are the best. Thanks for all your research
I can’t wait to see what Artisan’s/CJRB’s response to this new information and Thank you for setting things straight, Sir!
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.
Very interesting , thanks for sharing !!
Thank you sooo much!!! Just great research, read detector work! God bless you from all knife community! 🙏
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.
Thank you for all your work
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....
Thanks Larrin and team! This answers why i always got a weird gimmicky vibe when people showcased this steel.
Very good explanation and knowledge provided, keep up the good work
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.
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.
Going deep! Love it great work
Very interesting video and information, thanks!!!
glad you let us know, crazy that even retailers jumped on it and praised it as particlesteel
Ohhh this is about to shake things up.
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.
Thanks for providing facts and evidence. 👍
Larrin, with my autodidactic knowledge you never dissapoint to blow my mind, good job!
Love your clear cut easy to understand explanation of this steel! This from an expert of metallurgy! 🤔👍
WOW Really eye opening stuff! great vid and service to our edc community!
Amazing video. So informative and impressed with your knowledge
Great video...thanks for sharing.
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
Great video! Yes I hope Artisan changes the steel name moving forward to ASF7 or even SF9CR18MOV for accuracy.
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 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.
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.
Excellent video, thank you 🤘
This steel actually sharpens up really nice. I like the steel.
There's nobody saying you cannot like the steel or continue to purchase knives made with it. He's pointing out the disingenuity of the claims made by CJRB, either intentionally or unintentionally. Now you know what you are getting, which in my opinion still isn't a terrible steel, just now overpriced (again, my opinion) when Nitro-V and 14C28N blades are in the same price range.
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!
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
OMG. THE SCANDAL..
😂
thank you for making this video. I've been calling out this stuff from when it was launched.
Good stuff!
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.