When talking about knives (Mostly cooking knives, but can be applied for any blades I guess), you can hear that this blacksmith makes better knives than another one, even though they use the same material. How does craftmanship really make a knife stand out from another ?
In: Engineering
Starting with the same raw material does not give you the same end material. Forging is a really complex process of manipulating the distortions (work hardening), heat treatment, and geometry to control the microcrystal structure throughout the blade. This has huge influences on the hardness, toughness, and flexibility of the different portions of the final blade.
Ideally, you want an extremely hard cutting edge so you can sharpen it really sharp, an extremely tough cutting edge so it doesn’t crack/chip/dull easily, and enough flexibility and toughness in the spine that the whole thing doesn’t snap off the first time you put some pressure on it. Achieving all that, while ending up with the shape/finish you want, takes a lot of skill and performing many inter-related processes in exactly the right order.
/u/chwillchwill’s analogy is spot on…the alloy is the raw ingredients, not the meal.
I think the best analogy is a chef. A chef uses the same ingredients that you do at home and yet we like what they make, generally, more than our own cooking. So what’s the difference? Timing, temperature, amount of ingredients….so many variables.
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