Artisan Cutlery Develops New CJRB Brand

Artisan Cutlery is getting in on the budget brand trend with CJRB Cutlery. The label will be a repository for affordable designs in quality materials; Artisan tells us they have plans to expand CJRB with additional new models.

Keeping pace with the knife market’s shift to a new generation of budget materials, the CJRB lineup’s standard materials are G-10 for handle scales and D2 semi stainless blade steel. It was important for Artisan to keep the blade steel and other materials as high-quality as possible, which meant sensible cuts elsewhere. “With the CJRB line we’ve fine-tuned the designs of the knives to shave off some of the additional cost of production without sacrificing the overall quality of the piece,” says Artisan’s Russell Soffiotto. This means full liners instead of inset ones, stand-offs instead of backspacers, and other such tweaks. “They’re all pretty small details but in the end we’re able to cut the cost of the knife down without sacrificing important things like steel type and handle material.”

Currently, the CJRB lineup consists of five different models. The Briar has the longest blade length of the bunch: its spear point shape measures 3.74 inches. However, the knife as a whole goes for a sleek look and svelte dimensions. The Centros is just slightly shorter with a 3.66 inch blade and a handle design that mixes a mild arc with a flat space at the butt end. With a 3.43 inch blade, the Crag may not be the smallest knife of the bunch, but it definitely looks the beefiest, with a wide cleaver blade shape and bulked up handle relative to its peers. The Taiga is a basic all-purpose cutter, with a straightforward 3.58-inch drop point blade. Finally, the Talla fills a similar role, but spices things up a bit with a slightly shorter (3.5 inch) wharncliffe blade. All of the knives except the thumb stud-equipped Centros are flipper knives.

Multiple new models are certainly planned for CJRB; the label has been teasing the new releases on its Instagram page. The J1906 is a trailing point flipper knife with a humpbacked handle; meanwhile, the J1909 melds cleaver and wharncliffe blade shapes into some modified creation in between; the J1910 brings yet another variation into the fold, with a bulbous, almost Jens Ansø-like modified drop point; and finally, the most recent reveal has been an as-yet-unnamed rendering of a useful-looking thumb stud folder.

But Soffiotto says that the final releases remain to be decided. “At this point we have several potential models in the works, however we are still deciding which to release at this time.” He did confirm that one popular Artisan product is inbound for CJRB: “We will absolutely have a CJRB version of the Artisan Kinetic-Tool coming out soon.” Soffiotto also noted that Artisan will also have more affordable products in its own lineup in some form or other. “We still plan on producing the budget friendly versions of our Artisan branded knives but we may be making some changes to make those models a little bit more premium in the future.”

Knife in Featured Image: CJRB Cutlery Talla