Bad cleaning that just happens to make the letters way more visible than they were. Hmmm.
I suspect that the actual surface was removed/lowered to make the letters look like that.
It may be technicality, but to me that it the distinction. Removal of stuff above the original surface is cleaning - alteration of the original surface/metal is tooling. And I think this one crosses the line, or at minimum is sitting on the fence having a laugh at us all.
SC