Rockwell Testing

colu41

colu41

Joined
Dec 24, 2014
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Now that my oven is up and running, I will be finally building blades from steel other than 1084 :rolleyes:. I do have 3 CPM154 blades coming back from heat treat now, but, I'm excited to do it myself
Question is, when I do treat and cryo myself, I would like to get the first few Rockwell tested, just to make sure I'm doing it right. Im not going out and spending a grand on a Rockwell tester. Is there any type place locally that can do it? If not who could I ship to?
 
A good Machine Shop should have one.
 
I paid $400 for mine, used. They're out there, just have to be patient and look. I've done a few hundred stainless blades, and there's no way I'd do stainless without a tester unless I could buy steel by the hundred pound lot. Buying one bar or two of stainless at a time, there's enough variation in composition, anneal state, etc, that I sometimes have to vary the temper a bit.
 
The key is look at major cities of manufacturing there should be some listed on Used Machinery pages. I have found them but they all require "local Pick Up" so shipping is out of the question and I live in the High Desert no factories out this way....The "Bay" usually has quite a few listed as well....Beware that the Diamond Point can be wasted and they are quite expensive...due diligence and ask before purchase.
 
HGR industrial surplus has a dozen or so. Some under $200. They turn products rapidly tho.Good luck,Lu
 
Daniel Rohde said:
That's a great deal!! how did you find them?
DR...
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I just started looking and asking around. The Wilson I bought from another maker 3.5 hours away, it didn't work, just needed a good cleaning and freeing up the moving parts. The green one from a used machinery dealer 2 hours away. Bought another there also, but it was a superficial model that read in N scale and got scraped. Came real close to buying one off Ebay, lot of testers posted there!
 
I bought the Ames Model 1 shown in the photo below for around $200 on Ebay. They are very accurate, easy to use and nicely portable. I called every machine shop in my area when I was trying to avoid buying a hardness tester and none had one. Now, I can't imagine why I thought I'd be able to get by without one anyway. If you do heat treating, it is an essential piece of equipment.

Bob

Untitled by Bob, on Flickr
 
RangerBobTX said:
I bought the Ames Model 1 shown in the photo below for around $200 on Ebay. They are very accurate, easy to use and nicely portable. I called every machine shop in my area when I was trying to avoid buying a hardness tester and none had one. Now, I can't imagine why I thought I'd be able to get by without one anyway. If you do heat treating, it is an essential piece of equipment.

Bob

Untitled by Bob, on Flickr
Click to expand...

And here I thought you needed to spend $800-$1000 for a hardness tester.

I've seen the Ames testers before on Ebay but I wasn't sure if they worked good for C scale. Every hardness tester I've seen in knifemaker's shops has been the big bench top models like Don posted. Is there an advantage to the large bench top models over the Ames?
 
If you want to make a few "coupons" from your steel using your heat treat regimen, then mail them to me, I'll test them for you. Just P.M me.

-Adam
 
I have read from experts those portable hardness testers are not as accurate as the big bench mounted testers. Grizzly has their tester for $750 plus $79 shipping. It's the one that many of us use and seems to be good. BUT - with the price of the Ames Model 1 that are showing up on ebay right now I'd sure think seriously about one of those. There's one for $325 shipped with "buy it now" . My concern when I spent the money for the new Grizzly tester was if used, was I didn't know anything about hardness testers and wouldn't have any idea how to make it work if it wasn't working out of box. Also, many times used my have "only ball" and not the diamond tip required for Rc scale and those can get expensive. So, I spent (and cried once) and got new.

"IF" a person has any idea what he's doing with testers, used can be a good deal.

Ken H>
 
I took a chance with the used testers I bought, but was fairly confident I could fix almost any machine. The superficial tester was just a screw up and a $250 loss, was the first one I bought and didn't know anything about em. When shopping just make sure it reads in C scale and you get a good diamond point and weights. The Grizzly tester is a very good one for the price new!
 
Here's my take on the accuracy of the Ames portable versus other testers on the market. Warning: Tool snob ahead! The Ames is an American made product designed for industrial use and I can send it to them to have it serviced and calibrated/certified. If I spend my money on a Grizzly tester, I get a Chinese knockoff (of a industrial quality product) made and imported to be sold to home shops. I have read several posts on the machining forums that these testers are not serviced or certified by any U.S. standards testing companies. I personally, would question the true hardness accuracy of any test block that came with a Chinese machine. Now, if I had the chance to trade my Ames for a Wilson that needed a little work, I might consider that because I know I can get it repaired/certified locally and it is a device that is truly made for industrial use where accuracy matters.

Bob
 
Bob, while I agree with everything you say, I must admit - so far - and from what I've read from other users of the Chinese knockoff's of the Rockwell tester, they do seem to be pretty good. I've checked my Grizzly tester on several different blocks of steel where I knew "about" what the result should be and the tester always came within 1 Rc point of what it should be. The specs on the Grizzly tester are only 2 Rc points (±1 Rc point).

There are some really cheap Chinese knock offs out there, but the Grizzly tester seems to be one of the "decent' knock offs. The results are very repeatable - since it's repeatable, that means it can be calibrated to a correct reading. If checking the same block gave wildy different Rc readings, then it would not be calibratable.

Ken H>
 
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