They can make their tools out of the finest steel available but if the don't heat treat it correctly, it might just as well be 1018. I was thinking about annealing and reheat treating the marking knife blade just to see of it was lousy steel or lousy heat treat but never got around to it. Finally, just threw it away.
But if it's most of the HSS steels, any fool can get the heat treatment right, It's far easier than a plain high carbon steel (albeit less flexible).
This is why cheap carving chisels (high carbon steel) are so often rubbish, but turning tools (HSS for better wear-resistance) can be made by any monkey, even Crown.
The really high-end makers might do all sorts of bizarre cryogenic processing to A2 (and many claim it's worthwhile) but if you take a lump of this steel, heat it once, just leave it alone to get cold and then sharpen it with an angle grinder, then you'll still get a decent cutting tool that's better than much of the low-end stuff.
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