Kevin,
I was reading some metallurgy resources last night, and hardness was defined as "the ability of a material to resist plastic deformation." Does "scratch hardness" fit into this definition, or is what you're describing more akin to wear resistance?
I was a political science major and physics isn't my strong suit, so I'm still trying to wrap my brain around the different physical properties and stuff.
Josh
It does fall more into abrasion resistance, which can be a bit complicated, however due to widely used and accepted tests, even in standard industries, it also has to be dealt with under hardness. The majority of precise standard tests that measure hardness work off from some form of deformation, but industry still uses things such as the file test and sometimes even the Moh scale on many materials so we are forced to deal with it in talking hardness as well. But it is worth noting that under the strictest definition files don't measure hardness or strength much at all.
But the file test is one of the better methods that many bladesmiths use, too many tests I have seen are the equivalent of determining the length of something by setting it on a set of scales
and then telling the guys with tape measurers that they dont need that fancy equipment since scales work better and are all that you need. Of course to complete the analogy you would then tell the tape measure boys that there measurements are wrong since your scales said it was 3.6 poun
err, I mean inches, not the 2 and 6.75 inches those silly tapes said it was
Now that is actually a good analogy since if you already have the height and the width and know the exact material, you could get within an inch of determining length by measuring the weight of the object, but if you do not have all if these other precise bits of knowledge you are just guessing and living on wishful thinking.
One can ask why we need all this metallurgy just to make knives. You see bladesmithing is a different kind of business. In industry if you have millions of dollars on the line and your heat treat can mean the difference between voluminous business or a series of lawsuits, you buy the proper equipment and then hire a guy like mete to make sure the equipment is doing its job for you. Detailed analysis is done on the product and the process is fined tuned so that any slob you hire on can be trained to work the gadgets even though he doesnt know squat about metallurgy, as long as guys like mete are there to tune the process. If we want to be anything more than blind squirrels running to the highest branches to cheer about the one acorn shaped object we managed to find, we had better educate ourselves. If we are going to adhere to sole authorship shouldnt we practice a just a little
serious analysis of our process and product? Right now there is no reason for the rest of industry to view us as anything more than a curiosity or amusing throwbacks, however if bladesmiths practiced sole authorship that included that analytical knowledge, we would be a force to be reckoned with.
