Hi Guys & Gals,

I wanted to take a few moments and share some of my past experience with buying used hardness testers. Just maybe I can help you from making a few mistakes that I( have made in the past. Let's face it, having a hardness tester cuts out any and all doubt on whether or not you have heat treated your steel properly. Now, I can personally tell you I have watched my share of YouTube videos on how to heat treat a knife properly or a certain steel properly, and at first hey I heat treated many knives with a torch or by heating the carbon steel until it does not stick to a magnet and then quenching. Does this work? well sure it does and your knife will harden, but here is the kicker guys and gals. After I got my tester and rebuilt it and got it certified and calculated to the method of ASTM E-18(basically just someone who certifies and holds standards in Rockwell calibration), I was amazed at how off I was when heat treating just plain carbon steel such as 1075 & 1095. Yes, you can complete a spark test and determine by the color and spark size to see that you have a hardened steel. But what I found by doing this is rockwell 45 and rockwell 55 is very close in color and in spark. In fact unless you are in a room with no light and have been heat treating for many years you could easily mistake the two. Now what does this mean? So what right, well I can tell you that 45 and 55 can meen a huge difference in what that blade can be used for. If you are building a machete or hatchet mid forty's could be OK. But if you are building a hunter or a EDC that needs to have great edge retention this could meen a whole lot!

Well enough with the babel and on with the tips!

1st. Check out ebay for used rockwell testers, find one with a price you can live with and chances are you may be one of a very few bidders because there just isn't a lot of people who feel comfortable buying this online and for good reason you could get burnt!

2nd before bidding make sure that you can get the model number and trace down the company and give them a call and check if they still have parts available for your model.

3rd Order the manual to the machine and also order yourself a certifeied hardness standard. Also order a new diamond penatrator, one from the company that made the machine( this is the tip that will pierce the steel) make sure that you order one for Rockwell C. Do not order a superficial penetrator, this is for a different test . You want a Rockwell Diamond Cone penetrator.

Ok so this so that is the main tips to hopefully help a little, I'm not perfect by no means but this is my experience and it helped me buy a great tester for about a 16th of the price they are asking for a new one. The guy selling the machine I bought on ebay had purchased this machine from an auction and did not know alot about it, he had told me the handle was stuck and did not turn, well I rolled the dice and came out great. When I got the machine I quickly traced it to a dirt doubler nest that was built in the top of machine, they had built there little nest around the cables that lead from the handle to the dial, after I relocated there next to somewhere in the woods behind my house, I just oild the cable a little and I had a working machine. Theses old machines are not very hard to work on specially if you get the manual and take your time to read a little. I honestly have had to put together toys that where more difficult for my kids.

I bought this tester and had it shipped to me for 250.00 dollars the diamond tip was 100 bucks, manual was 25.00, and I bought oil for the machine(dash pot Oil)that was 10.00 dollars. I spent and hour sanding it down I followed the service manual on how to drain oil from dash pot and refill correctly. I then tested it and it was off by 2 on the rockwell scale based upon the hardness standard( a piece of metal that has been heat treated properly and tested by professionals to give you a standard to calibrate your machine), they sent me that was certified. Then I just followed manual on how to adjust machine.

If you take your time you can do it!! You can save some money, and also guarantee to your customer that the heat treat is right. When building a knife for someone else I personally feel responsible to make sure I'm giving them the best I can.

Thank-you and enjoy the before and after pictures I have included! If I can help anyway I will I wish I could spend more time on this but I have got to go make knives, I do plan on doing a real en-depth video in the future on this and How I built several other items such as my mini- press and Pid controlled heat treat oven.

Your friend and fellow apprentice smith, Jonathan S. Johnston