You're right. Then you watch some kid in the Philippines make a lathe out the crap lying the gutter behind a muffler shop and we're reminding of how easy we have it
Yeah, or you see what the Indian, or Filipino hillbillies are cranking out, as far as guns, using almost nothing, too.
I have, on occasion, sicced an apprentice on to the task of finding out the heat treat schedule to anneal HSS, as well as to make it hard. It's an eye opener, with some crazy cycle times, going up into days, as well as long terms at fairly exact temperatures, to either dissolve the crystal structures within (solution heat treatment for annealing) or to get the darn things to grow again (precipitation Hardening) with lots of periods and steps in the schedule to keep sorted.
After they see what it takes, they no longer worried about the tool being softened while grinding!
So far as I ever read, the worst thing a fella had to look out for, was to not plonk a red hot tool bit into the tank, as you might create a microfracture on the surface. So you let it cool slowly, and take the black crust off later!
Armstrong, the guys that made the rocker tool holders and tool posts that everyone seems to forget still work pretty well, used to sell holders for grinding HSS tool bits too. Basically a big handle, that you mounted the bit in to grind it. Armstrong put a big ol' ball end, on that handle, so you could lean on the sucker with your hip, and get some use out of that multi HP grinder in the back of the shop, eh!
I have a nice little belt sander that I grabbed with an eye to making a tool grinder out of. It came out of a metallurgical Lab, where it was used to prepare mounted weld section specimens, for the fine polishing before etching. The neat trick is that it is built to be water cooled! Figured it would be a treat for chisels and plane blades, at least for roughing, with not too much to worry about with the heat!