First off, you make beautiful tools. It shows attention to detail, plus your skill in running a machine.
As for the people who try to run you down, don't sweat 'em. They're probably jealous that you make functional works of art, and all they can make is chips and chatter-marked scrap.
Pardon my crudity here for a moment....
Nobody pops out of their mother's hoo-ha a master machinist. Or a master of anything, except crying, suckling, and pooping.
I'm a network and systems administrator by profession. I've been using computers for 29 years, and I'm only 37 on Dec 2nd. I've been at the same job for 15 years, and computers come naturally to me. When I was a kid I was called a geek, a nerd, you name it. But, I didn't let it bother me. I continued doing what I loved, and I have a job doing what I love to do. Yeah, I make it look easy. I have decades of experience. If you had configured countless servers, databases, designed networks from scratch and upgraded them, you could make it look easy too.
That's what you do with your tools. You turn out tools that look like they came from a name-brand factory (with obsessive-compulsive QC), and they show it. I don't know how long you've been running machines, but you do it well. And you make me look like a complete noob. Because I am. Hopefully one day I'll be able to make tools that at least belong in the category of "nice", but that day isn't here yet. Functional, yes. But still seriously amateur.
Don't sweat the jealous idiots who give you crap. They ain't worth the effort to do anything but laugh at 'em. You don't have to prove a dang thing to them, because your work speaks for itself. Loudly. Extremely loudly.
You got an entire board of people behind you. Some on here make parts that are aerospace quality. Some of us barely know what a lathe *is*, and everywhere in-between. And every time I make a chip, I learn a tiny little bit. Each successful part is a little better than the last, and even the horribly wrong parts teach me something.
So smile, relax, and go make some chips. Twiddling handwheels is therapeutic as heck. :thumbsup2: