>>452624>>452636I actually do a lot of heat treating, that is how I know you also know absolutely fuck all about it.
You clearly don't understand the process, you don't know what tempering is or anything about crystalline structures in steel, or that tool steel and high carbon steel are basically the same thing unless your are talking about stainless tool steels.
Untreated steel is a mix of pure iron and carbides, to make it both harder and tougher it is heated until it has become non-magnetic or austenitic it is quenched to freeze the carbon inside the now martensitic microstructure, rather than transforming back into ferrite and cementite. Tempering destroys the martensite turning it back into ferrite and cementite in a controlled manner, this can be by heating all of the steel to a certain temperature in an oven or by applying heat directly to a particular part of the steel. For example, quality knives will be quenched just past the blade by the tang, allowing some heat to run back into the tang next to the blade to create tougher but elastic steel there, then high heat will be applied directly to the spine and allowed to run through to the edge of the blade before it is quenched again to stop the tempering continuing, resulting in a much softer elastic spine and tough hard edge.
Also on the subject of construction, axes constructed with a carbon steel insert are just a money saving / selling point thing now, modern carbon steels allow for axes to be homogenous and have the same or better properties than an axe with a welded carbon steel insert.
