A large margin of error, perhaps, for acceptable work, but what I've heard is that the best/most proper work is more tightly controlled by the expert hand eye and feel of a truly expert worker, and this is much in line with my experience of craft (my sister is a great caulker; who knew?
Don't stalk her; you know me....). I think jens has an excellent point concerning the idea that problems which are told of/occur at the edges of the bulat technology area might be tales arising from distance-distortion of true tales from the heart of the area, or may be true tales arising from some sort of habitual poor working of the steel/distortion of the technology at the edge of its area.
Gt Obach, any comment? Another question for you, if you don't mind: There is a folkloric idea that seems to make sense (?) that bulat is subject to cracks (and thus tempered soft, because the whatever the name crystal cutting inclusions form the magic edge, not the steel matrix, yes?) because the crystal inclusions (I thought they were carbide crystals; can't remember what you said; checking would've been easier than explaining; I am a stupid and lazy man.....), or I suppose the "cavities" in the matrix if you imagined them gone, would provide places for cracks to start, due either to their hardness(?) or to an effect similar to when a crack starts from a sharp scratch or a sharp square tang shoulder, etc.? Please inform us. We have mostly folklore, AFAIK. People are going to be following you and Ann and being like "He threw his shoe at me. No! He threw it at me! Give me that! I have His shoe......" so watch out..................
