I don't know how you could say it better than Bill or Fred's replies.
Pretty much covers all the ground on the subject from materials,
actual production and the reality of doing it as a onesy - twosy
operation.

And unless you are someone that simply enjoys all the running around,
scheduling, shipping, and plain old work, I wouldn't do it. I looked
into this years ago with he idea of making a really strong bowl gouge;
I wanted to make mine with the flute cut back only about 3 inches. I
figured that would really cut down on any vibration, harmonics, etc.

So I figured that by the time the steel got here, I had the stock cut
and the flute milled, sent it off to a knife manufacturer for proper
tempering (a place in Houston will temper your blank with batches with
other like steels, but you wait for a batch to be run) by someone
that will Rockwell stamp the tool for verification, made a handle, cut
a ferrule, polished out my newly tempered metal and then mounted it in
my handle..... *huff*...*puff*
.... I could probably buy about four of really nice gouges and still
come out waaaay ahead.

Plus I could start using them in the time it took to ship to me. And
we still aren't looking at any of the newer, fancy steels, either.

So I bought another Henry Taylor "artisan" and took the metal
polishing stuff to it, and for $60 I had a great tool.

http://tinyurl.com/26uc93

And for those that don't know, LITERALLY, the only difference I have
found in the regular and artisan grades of tools are the finish on the
metal. I have bought both regular and artisan, and being lazy if it
is within a couple of bucks I will spring for regular, but if more
than that I buy artisan.

Some tools are very well worth making; to me, a bowl gouge isn't one
of them.

Robert