Metal Hardness Tester - Portable Hardness Tester Kit with Test Block,Pen Type Richter Hardness Tester,Rockwell Metal Hardness Meter

I learned how to do Rockwell hardness testing while in school to get my CAD/CAM degree. I have been looking for an affordable electronic hardness tester ever sense. This one appears to do a good job, although I need to study up more on how it works. It says it can measure the hardness of 20 different kinds of metals that are at least 3/16" thick. So far I have been having fun testing anything I can to see the differences. It comes in a nice case with a large chunk of steel to use for calibration. It also says other probes are available but I haven't figured out what they are or how you could order them yet. Maybe they are interchangeable between brands?

I have some concerns that I'm either not using this correctly or it isn't working correctly.I work with different alloys of copper (bar stock, not sheet). I wanted to see if I can determine the alloy of copper based on hardness. In theory, I could measure hardness of a known copper class, and use those measurements to try and determine copper alloys of unknown class.The concept of this tool is pretty simple; it drops a little hardened ball bearing onto the measured surface and tries to determine how high the ball bounces back (actually I think it uses rebound speed).In practice, the manual for this tool offers technical background about hardness testing, but is light on hands-on instructions for first-time users.The kit comes with a gauge block, like a calibration block where you can test and calibrate the tool. The instructions for calibrating the tool are weak at best. For example, I was unable to translate the results into any knowable or familiar hardness measurement (like Rockwell B or C hardness). The instructions say you can switch the tool to read Rockwell, but that option does not present itself when I cycle through the optional measurement units available. There are also a number of measurement units that are unfamiliar to me (I have a BS in Mech. Engineering).I removed one star because I wasn't able to get consistent measurements in whatever hardness scale it's reading.I removed another star because I wasn't able to figure out what measurement scale it was using.Someday, given enough time and effort, I will sit down and read up on international hardness measurement standards, try to figure out how to cross reference these into some known quantity, make copper samples of various alloys with smooth polished surfaces for consistent measurements, and try to make some Order of Magnitude sample data of various copper alloys... but I don't have time for that now.

This is specifically a Leeb hardness tester. (I was unfamiliar with Leeb until I got this unit.) There are readout options on the device that will show you estimated hardnesses in other scales (Rockwell, Brinell, etc.), but they are estimates at best.The way the test works is that a hollow probe is held against the test material, and an internal weight freefalls onto the test material and the probe measures the rebound. One of the drawbacks of Leeb testing is that the test material is supposed to be at least several kg in mass. Without the inertia provided by a significant mass, the device is unable to accurately determine the rebound of the test weight. This makes it not very good for measuring the hardness of hand tools, which is what I wanted to use it for. I have gotten what I think are some reasonable results by holding the small item I want to measure against a heavier item in such a way that they can only move as a single mass. I imagine the more direct the metal to metal contact is, the better that works. It feels like tape or glue would absorb some of the shock. I'm sure that this is still not very accurate, but it might at least be an internally consistent measurement?The probe weight is probably the weight of a coin, but it does have a point. I've found that steel is generally unmarred by testing, but aluminum consistently gains a tiny but visible indentation.The unit comes with a hardness-calibrated steel test cylinder. Measuring the test cylinder comes within a percent of matching the calibration value.There's an included manual that seems like it should be sufficient, but somehow I found it very difficult to understand.Ultimately, if you, like me, wanted to measure tool hardness, this probably isn't the right thing.

This hardness tester is fascinating. I picked this up to use as an aid for selecting metals for welding. This is a great tool to use in the field or on site. Because it is battery powered, it can be taken anywhere. In a quick walk around the farm, I found a dozen different items to test. All readings came out as expected. One word of caution, be sure the find a flat horizontal surface to do the test on. It is hard to believe that this test was just discovered in 1975. A great test kit.A A