Just a Random question about steel

S

Sharp_newbie

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Aug 12, 2007
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My father, not a knife maker, said that to find out if steel is nicely hardened after a quench you can hold it up on a string and "ping" it with another piece of steal (kind of like tunning forks) is this BS or is there some truth behind his words? im just asking out of curiosity.
 
really, Mark?

you could always file it.

It depends on the size of metal if you were to hit it.
 
I can hold two pieces of the same steel in my hands that look identical, and I can tell them apart if one is hard and the other not.
 
Ordinary sound is still used as a check for various things . A soft piece of metal handles vibrations differently from hard metal. Such tests also are used to detect cracks in the metal.
 
Just be careful hitting a fully hardened blade with another piece of metal before tempering. The steel can be very brittle at that point. I've done it on accident before with a thin fully hardened blade and got a "ping" sound accompanied by several hours of effort breaking in half.
 
Yes, the sound will be higher pitched and have more resonance. That still will not tell you anything about the steel type, or the degree of hardening. The test is only useful if you have a piece of steel and you aren't sure if you have hardened it or not, and are comparing it to a piece of the same size and type steel ( perhaps a blade you find on the bench and don't remember if you have done the HT or not?)
A quick pass with a file would be a simpler and safer test.

Stacy
 
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