HRC table

B

Bo-dacious

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Aug 13, 2016
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Hey guys, I was wondering if anyone has a steel hardness (HRC) chart or table. I have looked and looked and looked on google and I can't find anything. All I find are hardness conversion tables and thats not what I want.
Can anyone help me out?

Thanks guys,

Bo
 
What exactly are you looking for? A quick search brings up ton of rockwell stuff online. What do you want to the chart to say?

The one in the metrology lab at work shows the different rockwells, and has the cross over info, like a given brinell hardness would be xx hardness in rockwell c scale.
 
What are you hoping this chart will tell you?
- max as quenched hardness
- max usable hardness
- average hardness used

There are plenty of questions that a chart can't answer.
52100 can be hardened anywhere from mid 50's to 64ish. Not only that, but how it is tempered and the actual HT protocol changes how the alloy reacts in some aspects. Things like Martempering and Austempering are two different forms of the same end result, and both will yeild a hardened blade with a "HRC" reading.

Busse's SR101 is a modified 52100, but most will agree that Busse has an impressiveHT that can take more sheer abuse than many other 52100 blades at a similar hardness and geometry.

Hardness should be tailored to to the intended usage and geometry tailored to the hardness and task at hand.
 
Not all companies put the same hardness on a steel as others.

You probably need to list the knife manufacturer and steel.
 
A bit off topic, but dont just chase HRC numbers.

As an example you can have M390 both at 61HRC but with significant different properties.

That being said. I would like such a HRC table, an extremely detailed one but would be a lot of effort and time to compile.
 
Fanglekai said:
The hardness doesn't tell you much about the microstructure. It's a quick way to check if the heat treatment was done right but that's about it.
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Well, it is a quick way to tell that a Heat Treat was done, but you can't tell if it is done right unless you use the knife or destroy the knife.

Just having an HRC of 64 for a CPM 4V blade will not tell you whether it will shatter or slightly chip when you pound it through an 18D nail...
 
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Well i guess I want to know how hard a steel is with regular quenching? Like the average hardness... I also want it to know how much work it will take to sharpen as I'm looking to start a sharpening business one day, and I just want to know to know. I will look for that site.

Thanks guys,

Bo
 
Between the Maintenance Forum and the Knife Steel Chart app, you should be set to learn about the characteristics of the different steels and how they react to sharpening. I've learned that the HRC is not as important as the alloys in the steel. There's a thread about S110V that I've been following and it has some good information on that steel. Most of the things I've learned has been right here on BladeForms.
 
Bo-dacious said:
Well i guess I want to know how hard a steel is with regular quenching? Like the average hardness... I also want it to know how much work it will take to sharpen as I'm looking to start a sharpening business one day, and I just want to know to know. I will look for that site.

Thanks guys,

Bo
Click to expand...
Practice and knowledge will tell you about the sharpening aspect. Start sharpening and trying different steels. Don't practice on customers stuff. Try the right stones for the job. When you get good and experienced then move fwd to your business aspect. Try different blade profiles and grinds. Use the right stones for the steel. Etc.
Keep a notebook for notes for future reference.

As for hrc chart and quenching etc. Look up the steels datasheets. For instance Google cpm s90v datasheet. Download the pdf and read. It will tell you what temp to heat it up to and quench at for the desired hrc. It's different for each steel. each manufacturer will heat treat differently so the same steel from different brands will likely be different too . There is no single chart for this for all materials. But most steel has a datasheet. The blade Smiths forum here is amazing to see what people are doing for their heat treatments cause a lot of them are different.
Check out some youtube videos on different ways to heat treat knives

None of this is going to be easy.
 
Last edited:
NJBillK said:
Well, it is a quick way to tell that a Heat Treat was done, but you can't tell if it is done right unless you use the knife or destroy the knife.

Just having an HRC of 64 for a CPM 4V blade will not tell you whether it will shatter or slightly chip when you pound it through an 18D nail...
Click to expand...

HRC testing is useful when there's an established heat treatment protocol and all you're doing is checking to see if the steel got near what it was supposed to. If you get a final hardness of 53 when it was supposed to be 60, something was off. When I said "done right" that's what I was referring to. Obviously without looking at the microstructure and further testing there's no way to know for certain if it's completely spot on. Hardness testing is a quick check and that's all it is, which is why I said it doesn't tell much about the microstructure.
 
Bo-dacious said:
Well i guess I want to know how hard a steel is with regular quenching? Like the average hardness... I also want it to know how much work it will take to sharpen as I'm looking to start a sharpening business one day, and I just want to know to know. I will look for that site.

Thanks guys,

Bo
Click to expand...
Well, a knife straight from quench would be at peak hardness.
What you want is a chart that shows what the average working hardness is. Still this varies a lot, 3V can be ran at 59-60 for toughness or up to 62 for some more edge retention and sacrificing some of that toughess.

Just a hardness number won't tell you how difficult it will be to sharpen.
1095 or A2 won't be near as time consuming to sharpen as S90V when both at 61 HRC.
 
Oooh okay. I'm learning a lot guys, thank you. It's a lot to take in, so I'll have to come back again but thanks again for the tips!

Bo
 
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