I need to know how you rate the hardness of steel any ideas?
Find your portable hardness testers from our latest collections thats for sure having the ability to test hardness of metal alloys and plastic by applying some amount of pressure on it. All our evaluators can evaluate in Brinell, Rockwell and Vickers machines.
For the backyarder to rate hardness, you do a file test. If a smooth file will not mark the steel, it's around 60+RC (Rockwell C scale). If it will mark it with difficulty, the hardness is probably around 56- 58RC. If it will file easily, it's mild steel or is in annealed form, if it is a hardenable steel.
There's an instrument called a hardness tester. It has a stylus which is pressed into the surface of a sample of steel with a calibrated amount of force. The distance it penetrates tells you how hard the steel is. (This is sometimes called 'indentation hardness'). The most common scale is the Rockwell Scale. Actually it gets a little complicated because there are several scales, one for tungsten carbide (the hardest man-made material), one for aluminum and brass and soft steels, and one for hardened steels. Another scale for indentation hardness is the Brinell scale. It's a little less complicated, with one scale to measure the hardness of wood, plastic, etc. as well as steel.
