Thank you, Tom! That's an excellent question. Stone washing and/or tumbling isn't too bad to get into money wise, and I like the look on a user "survival knife." I did this finish on a couple of knives early on, and liked it a lot.
But for HH knives it presented a number of challenges, due to the way the knives are built and such. The primary reason I abandoned the idea was that it is basically impossible to re-stonewash the blade after it has been used (or scratched before making it out of the shop
) because the knife is permanently assembled, and the softer guard steel didn't take as kindly to the tumbling as the blade steel did. Additionally, it was problematic to get the guard face re-stonewashed because of the blade being there at a right angle (the media had a hard time producing the same look).
So I went with a finish that could be completely redone at a future point in time, whether for a collector or a user. Plus, the blasted and two-tone finishes are just so much more popular. As Killian said, "You gotta give the people what they want!"
Sam