Really interesting read. It's cool that a company like Crucible was willing to consider a proposal for something as expensive, time consuming, and potentially fruitless as a new steel from essentially someone off the street.
My poorly worded response was more to Crucible taking a chance on somebody off the street. Larrin is not some unknown quantity. He has connections in the knife industry, including Crucible. He's also a metallurgist with accomplishments in his own right. Crucible still took a risk, but it wasn't a huge one.
He also has a well known website and is considered one of the worlds leading experts on knife steels and knife craft.