We should be able to use top-tier materials to craft basics with a durability boost

[kindred current]

I'm in the late game in terms of skills and crafted gear, and I keep finding myself wishing I could craft or repair, say, car parts, with hi-grade aluminum ingots as well as the standard ones. It's beginning to feel redundant and tiresome to craft low grade, high grade, reinforced, etc., to only be able to use those materials for one tier of crafting, respectively.

Unless there's like a realism thing going on here where the basic materials and hi-grade materials are too different, I think it would be cool to get a nice little durability boost if you were to repair/upgrade your axe with hi-grade iron ingot, for example.

[tame garden]

There is a real world analogue. In forged steel tools/Weapons, the smith would often use different properties of metals to construct something. Carbon steel might be forge welded to be only used as the cutting edge, while low carbon Iron might be used for the main body of the rest of an axe, for example.

[kindred current]

good to know, thank you!