>>963300>UglyYes, I too disqualify hammers and chisels based on aesthetics.
Also, Joe does his own heat treatments including multiple quenches, multiple normalizations and multiple tempers to minimize retained austenite and minimize grain size, while maximizing toughness at the ~62-63 HRC he targets with 1095.
He also adjusts his heat treatment recipe for each individual sheet of 1095 he receives based on its specific properties by making a tester and destructive testing it. For each sheet.
He also does all his grinding with active liquid cooling so there is no risk of the heat treatment being damaged.
Hand made knives with modern heat treatment protocols cost more to make than production knives.
