Who all hardness test their knives?

tkroenlein said:
I use a tester at work. So, it's pretty impractical for me to do every blade. BUT, I do test several of each heat number, and buy the biggest piece and as much as that heat that I can afford. So it's pretty easy to test half of the knives out of each heat.

I'd simply LOVE to have one at home for testing HT schedules. It's a pain to start a new steel or batch without it. I'm open to suggestions for testers. The Grizzly is the cheapest I've found.
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Scour local craigslist, facebook marketplace and even Ebay. I found my Wilson M-51ST portable tester on Ebay. Excellent condition and only $425 shipped! Deals for them are out there just gotta be patient and ready to jump when one pops up.
 
I don't think that the guys that don't test will jump and say that they don't. I just got the oven and I am a hobby maker, I bought the file set for hardness testing (80 Eur shipped from Japan).

I will get someone to test my blades in the beginning and have an eye open on local classifieds/ebay.
 
JTknives said:
Multiple times after every single temper cycle for every blade we heat treat for each customer.
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I just got back my knives from your heat treating process and wanted to say I was very impressed and satisfied. I will be a repeat customer!
 
I test all my blades after the final temper, to make sure I hit the hardness target.

My recipes are well known to me and have been tested extensively, but you never know if something is off in the process steps, so it makes me feel comfortable to test every single blade. I surface grind both sides of the blade and test them at five places along the cutting edge.
 
Stromberg Knives said:
I test all my blades after the final temper, to make sure I hit the hardness target.

My recipes are well known to me and have been tested extensively, but you never know if something is off in the process steps, so it makes me feel comfortable to test every single blade. I surface grind both sides of the blade and test them at five places along the cutting edge.
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hi Stefan, what you write is interesting. Can you tell us how you do the test along the cutting edge? I know that with a traditional durometer the inclination of the bevel influences the measurement and consequently the test is carried out on a flat surface perpendicular to the axis of the diamond indenter.

Thanks
 
mknife said:
hi Stefan, what you write is interesting. Can you tell us how you do the test along the cutting edge? I know that with a traditional durometer the inclination of the bevel influences the measurement and consequently the test is carried out on a flat surface perpendicular to the axis of the diamond indenter.

Thanks
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Sorry for the confusion, my wording may have lead you astray. What I meant was that I measure my blades on the flats parallel to the edge (where the edge will be after the bevels are ground). So no fancy specialty measuring of any sorts.
 
I guess I'll be the person to say that I don't.
I'm a hobbyist: i make knives for fun and do a deliberately low tech process because i find that more enjoyable. I do a lot of grinding and hand sanding after heat treatment, so i know if they are unacceptably soft. Sure, i could make changes to my process to "get the most out of the steel" but that gets towards a process that doesn't interest me.
It's the same reason I only work with simple carbon steels.
 
Allow me to chime in on this thread with a related question:

Where would one normally test? Probably on the blade near to the edge, I would say but then what about the indent? Is it not to deep and will be ground away or doesthe indent remain as a token of quality?
 
with traditional durometers it is necessary to carry out the test on a flat surface perpendicular to the axis passing through the tip of the diamond indenter. I prefer to hide the grooves made by the diamond, so usually the measurement is made where I then put the guard or bolster.
 
Dan512 said:
Allow me to chime in on this thread with a related question:

Where would one normally test? Probably on the blade near to the edge, I would say but then what about the indent? Is it not to deep and will be ground away or doesthe indent remain as a token of quality?
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As stated the blade has to be flat when tested so if it is done on the actual blade of the knife anywhere near the edge the indent which is very shallow will be ground away when the bevels are ground in.
 
The average depth of a hardness test is around .003 so it easily is removed with any grinding.
 
Alex Topfer said:
I guess I'll be the person to say that I don't.
I'm a hobbyist: i make knives for fun and do a deliberately low tech process because i find that more enjoyable. I do a lot of grinding and hand sanding after heat treatment, so i know if they are unacceptably soft. Sure, i could make changes to my process to "get the most out of the steel" but that gets towards a process that doesn't interest me.
It's the same reason I only work with simple carbon steels.
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I am confused by your statement. Most of us do the majority of our grinding and sanding after heat treat. You can increase the quality and results of your heat treat but it’s not fun? What process are you speaking about? I know we all make knives differently and have different tools available to us. But generally all knife makers share the same ideology of doing what ever we can to make The next knife better then the last.

Anyone reading this; It’s ok to be held back because of a lack of tools or equipment. We have all been there before and understand it takes time to build up a decent knife shop. Hell I started profiling knives buy using a hand drill and drilling along the sketched profile. Then used a hacksaw and file to clean up the edges. Used an electric stove burner and a torch to heat treat and quenched into mineral oil. I was damn proud of those knives but I knew I wanted more. To me making knives was The fun part. It wasn’t the hours and hours of manually removing unwanted steel that was fun. It was fun to create something from nothing but I knew that I needed more if I wanted to make better knives. I enjoyed every step of the way from then till now.
 
JTknives said:
You can increase the quality and results of your heat treat but it’s not fun? What process are you speaking about?
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A heat treatment will be more precise and repeatable if you send it to someone with a high end vacuum furnace and precisely controlled oil (or other) baths, right? But i think that's less fun that playing with my forge and quenching it myself.
You can get more precise and repeatable bevel angles if you design it in CAD, get jigs milled and then surface grind the blades with the jigs. But i spend enough time talking to computers.
I enjoy the process of making things with my hands, and I'm willing to sacrifice the precision to get that. I don't claim this makes them better, just more fun for me.
Better, worse, quality are value judgements, and that's something each maker and customer has to decide. I want to use my hands and my senses.

The point about grinding post heat treat is that it gives you some idea about how hard the steel is.

There are approaches to making something other than the ultimate precision, scientific style. (Interestingly I remember having this same conversation about homebrewing :P )
 
Yikes! :D

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