Best surface & hardness testing tools according to redditors

it might not be wise to take that entire bar somewhere to be tested. if that's any type of precious metal, it's big enough to tempt others to steal it. humans have been murdering each other over shiny rocks for as long as anyone can remember. be safe, OP!

also, you can buy test kits online. here's the first silver test kit that came up on amazon, there are probably others also, if you just google "how to test silver" there are several ways involving magnets, ice, and other non-harmful tests. it would be worthwhile to slowly and closely examine the entire surface looking for any markings that might have faded/worn off, because any kind of metal should have a stamp/designation that proves what it is. if you do take it somewhere to get tested, do not take their offer to buy it, they will lowball you. good luck!

10 troy oz Johnson Matthey 1985 Statue of Liberty .999 silver round.

As of 07/27/2017 10:23pm CST the spot price of silver is $16.60

Therefore the asking price of the round is 166.00 USD.

Twenty years ago the highes price per oz for silver was 6.38 USD, meaning that the most your grandparents would have paid for that round was approximately $63.80 before inflation.

This value does not account for premium, which will be dictated by the rounds rarity and the general demand for it. Silver patina, called toning in this case, does not devalue silver. Removing patina from old silver rounds like this will destroy any premium and collectibility the round carries, however it will always be worth its weight in silver, cleaned or uncleaned.

If you want to sell it you are likely to get the best value by visiting /r/Pmsforsale. You can sell it to a gold & silver dealer or a pawn shop, however they're more than likely to buy well under the current price per oz.

Silver is a dimagnetic material, meaning that an applied magnetic field will create an induced magnetic field in the silver oriented in the opposite direction, causing a repulsive force. If you have a strong neodymium magnet and you try to stick it to the coin, you should feel a very slight resistance if it's real silver.

Silver purity can be tested with nitric acid. High purity silver will turn brown in solution with nitric acid. Sterling and lower will turn a bluish green in solution with nitric acid. Test kit available here.

While less reliable, you can test silver with the ping test. Pure silver will resonate harmonically, like a bell, when struck. Example here.

Visit /r/silverbugs if you want to learn more.

Rex Pocket Durometer

Used to test hardness on materials.

There are maps like this, and you'll see mineral deposits where water evaporates like on pots and pans, or around the faucet. As well as test kits.

All three can be had for cheap from amazon, which is where I got all mine. Check out the links below... It's the setup I have for even cheaper than I paid (closer to $15). Acid is pretty standard and you can't really get "bad" acid (Gerry Garcia may say otheriwse). The scale has been awesome to me (the reviews on amazon are good too). The loupe is pretty cool and has been pretty helpful. It's just a magnifying glass. As such, it's hard to fuck up.

Acid Test Kit

Scale

Loupe

>When accepting a commission, do you take any sort of deposit up front?

Deposits are the number one reason why a maker gets into trouble. A deposit creates an unrealistic expectation of commitment between you and the customer and adds a slight burden of financial management.
Unless you are paying for a material to create a knife that you think would not sell to another buyer on an open market, i dont see a reason to take a deposit.


>How do you agree on a price?

You set a price and the customer agrees to it. If they dont, they walk away.

>What is your return policy?

How am I feeling on the day

>Do you itemize a bill for the customer?

I will list materials used on a reciept but mostly as a record that they can look to if they forget those details. This can be done with cards also

>How are your knives priced? I see a lot of makers charging 200+ for a knife.
Do you sell any knives for under $100? If so, what type and size are they typically?

A <$100 knife for me would be less than 5" long overall and have no scales.

>Do you send your knives off to get rockwell tested for hardness? If so, is it done so that you can advertise the hardness in the description of the knife? If not, do you even bother worrying about what the HRC is as long as it can pass the file test?

I have my heat treating done professionally. I can get them tested when I pick them up but i've had no reason to doubt the results since I started using them. Sending out purely for testing would not be cost effective.
If youre doing the hardening you should have some idea of rockwell hardness just for your own purposes. Get some rockwell files.
Frankly if youre selling at flea markets, talking about rockwell is a waste of time.
If someone who actually know wants to know they can ask and you can answer.

Remotely diagnosing "bad" tasting water is not easy, but not impossible. Lets err on the side of caution and assume that in a wealthy county of Texas you don't have a well contaminated with nasty stuff.

It sounds like you have what is called "hard" water. There could be other trace impurities too, such as sulphides or alkaline ions.

Hard water just means there are a lot of dissolved minerals, such as calcium and magnesium. You can purchase some filtration systems depending on the amount of water you want per day.

The main issue is you will get a lot of scale buildup in your pipes. That is bad, especially in a new build if you don't have a total house filtration system.

A simple test kit like this Hach unit will help you start to diagnose the problem.

Can you answer these questions and we will try to remotely diagnose your problem.

• Have you noticed any white solid starting to form on the heating element of your kettle or coffee pot?
  
  
• Does your soap or shampoo not foam up the way it should?
  
  
• If you put an open-top jug of tap water in the fridge overnight, does the taste change?

My father used to work for the city water department and this is one of the ones they used regularly. http://www.amazon.com/gp/aw/d/B008FM7WLU/

Ping test isn't Accurate at all. Acid is much more reliable and is not expensive. http://www.amazon.com/Silver-Testing-Acid-Liquid-Stone/dp/B004CNFUIS If the scrapings turn dark/blood red its real.

I use an in-tank filter, but also have softened water so I rarely need to recharge it (I do a hardness test monthly with this to make sure).

Daily routine is three water-only backflushes.

Once a week I do a Cafiza backflush.

I descale once a quarter.

I agree that reliable info is hard to find. Chris Coffee and WLL give different opinions on what is right, but this is what I've settled on.

Get a real hardness test first. Money well spent.

Hach 145300 Total Hardness Test Kit, Model 5-B https://www.amazon.com/dp/B008FM7WLU/

Then get a water softener. Put it after your filters. They are easy to install if you have done any plumbing work. I got this one, it’s great (edit: size your water softener based on your hardness test! I had 19 grains hardness. You want to run a week between regen, give or take, with a 20% buffer. 19 grains x 4 people x 75 gallons per day x 7 days x 1.20 buffer is 47,880. I got a 48,000 grain softener):

Metered water softener with 3/4" Fleck 5600SXT control, 48,000 grain capacity with by-pass valve https://www.amazon.com/dp/B000GBZ2P6/

My water was quite hard, around 19 grains. The softener fixed that, but made it taste like mud.

So I got an RO system and plumbed it to my fridge only. That was easy too. Took me a couple hours total.

I got this one:

iSpring RCC7 High Capacity Under Sink 5-Stage Reverse Osmosis Drinking Water Filtration System and Ultimate Water Softener- WQA Gold Seal Certified https://www.amazon.com/dp/B003XELTTG/

It’s been a trouble free year now with great tasting water. The showers are a bit slipprier, yes, but my kids are less itchy, and gross shit doesn’t grow over every water source in my house any more. Worth it.

Once you get the softener working, you can check how well it's softening with these test strips: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B007QQZL0U/. The resin that's in those tall tanks can eventually wear out and stop working that well, so I use the strips about once a month to keep track of how much water I use before the water starts getting hard.

I ordered a hardness testing kit. When it gets in, I'll maybe post some results.

I normally use Rectorseal Calci-Free for flushing. Pretty sure that stuff is muriatic acid. In my opinion, it works better than vinegar. This last time around, I ran it through the heater for about 45 minutes. Probably should have run it longer.

If you can take this guy apart, please let me know how you did it.

I doubt doing that would be very helpful.

What makes the SRAM ebike gear is 'ebike' is has wider ratios then typical cassette. So you can get the same range of speeds as a normal cassette, but with less shifting. It may be harder then normal cassettes, but that just means you'll blow through chains faster unless they are a matched pair.


If you want to eliminate the guesswork... You can do file tests to check the steel hardness. You don't need those special files though.. a regular file can tell you if the steel is hardened or not. A file will 'skate' over hard steel... were as with regular mild steel making deep marks is easy.

The problem is that bicycle drive trains are completely inadequate to handle the torque from DC motors. Throwing money at the problem isn't going to change the physical dimensions.


The reality is that cheap cassettes are the way to go because you are going to blow through them anyways. Usually more expensive in bicycle-land is just buying light weight. Light weight is the opposite what you want. You want as big and clunky and heavy as possible.

Even on children's motorized bikes they don't use 8-speed bicycle parts. They use 420 gears, which are the same pitch as bicycle gears, but significantly beefier.

Probably the best thing you can do is just to make sure that you replace your chain at the same time you replace your cassette.

A worn cassette will wear out a chain quickly. A worn out chain will wear out cassette quickly.

So always buying a new chain when you buy a new cassette will lead to longest life.

Yeah, a superhard boron-nitride coating on metal would make it bounce even higher. Regular optical grade glass would probably be similar as well.

Get one of these and just 'ping some stuff around your house to see how hard stuff is....

1. Yes we sell to a refinery. No we do not sell to walk in customers. We do not sell to customers for a few reasons, the main one being that selling anything requires a different license in TN. Also dealing with inventory would be hell.
   
   
2. We have quite a few customers coming in to sell their coins and bullion. The idea of gold bars are far beyond the general public due to price. The majority of our customers however, sell scrap jewelry.
   
   
3. Diamonds are tricky. Small diamonds ( smaller than sift 11 ) are payed at gold weight. The diamond market has been flooded so we typically advice customers to hold on to diamonds that are smaller than a full carat.
   
   
4. Our average customer only returns 3-4 times. Yet we do have customers who buy and sell on the side, we consider anyone who is selling more than $500 per visit a dealer and they receive a better price.
   
   
5. All customers are required to sign a waver saying that everything is theirs to sell. We also are required to take all customers information ( DL info) and keep it in a data base. We also must hold all product for 30 days and report everything with a description to the law enforcement.
   
   
6. The percentage is usually the same except for platinum, it is always purchased at 99.9% ( we never make money on PL ). For the average customer selling less than a $250, we offer 65% to start.
   
   
7. Fraud is a major part of our business, we are well aware of this. We us both an electronic gold tester and an acid kit So needless to say, we weed out the majority of the fraud, but not always.
   
   
8. In TN ( laws vary by state ) people are not required to report anything that they sell to the state.
   
   I hope I answered everything well enough lol

this is the one i have:

Hardness Tester Meter,Shore Type A/O/D Rubber Tire Durometer Hardness Tester Meter 0-100 (Type O) https://www.amazon.com/dp/B074SDNGYF/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_NYsNDb0BEG0Y2

it is very accurate surprisingly and has been really fun to poke all my toys with. it’s sadly not digital but i have come to like the sensitivity of the analog dial :3

I bought this: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091GUNYM/ref=cm_sw_r_other_apap_KgAV3nkiBSRaU

Haven't opened it yet, plan to when I'm done. If the results are off the charts, I might call someone. But I'm expecting to just do some light remediation myself. Cheers.

There are a couple options in your budget, but the cheaper options won't be as precise or accurate. Might be good enough for what you need though.

https://www.amazon.com/Fowler-Warranty-52-760-000-0-Hardness-Diameter/dp/B00B5HQYAM

The other one I had in mind, I can't seem to find it. It uses a starrett center punch, and an optical tool to measure the diameter of the divot that's been punched. I'm sure you can find it with some more digging

Edit: Another option, dirt cheap, but you'll need some known samples that you can probably get from mcmaster: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUpape0XgVs

https://www.amazon.com/Hach-145300-Total-Hardness-Model/dp/B008FM7WLU

if water it hard, try posting water softener info and pics to terry love water softener forums. smart group of guys there that know about varies valves, etc.

Like these.

https://www.amazon.com/Scale-Hardness-Collection-Diamond-pcs/dp/B00L9GENYI/ref=sr_1_8?ie=UTF8&qid=1500510102&sr=8-8&keywords=Mohs+hardness+testing+kit

https://www.amazon.com/Deluxe-Hardness-Mineral-Identification-Wooden/dp/B00Q26ODKY/ref=sr_1_4?ie=UTF8&qid=1500510102&sr=8-4&keywords=Mohs+hardness+testing+kit

Judging by how the Shore scales overlap, you probably want to be using D anyway: http://www.imperialrubber.com/images/03-numerical-comparison-of-shore-scales-for-measuring-hardness.jpg You can always convert into another scale if you really want.

Here is the same meter that you found for less money and ships from Amazon: https://www.amazon.com/Digital-Durometer-Rubber-Hardness-Display/dp/B01ET0E2UA/

I would just buy that and try it out. The reviews you posted seemed mostly positive aside from one asshole who left one star because he's an idiot, one guy that got a defective unit, and another guy who said it isn't accurate (no idea what he was actually doing with it).

Buy it from Amazon and return it if it isn't working.

You aren't going to get exceedingly accurate readings with a device that isn't a piece of actual lab equipment. This is serious business. We're talking very precise tip geometries, forces/springs and measuring equipment (think micrometer or dial indicator). https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shore_durometer

I would buy the cheap meter and then a calibration set: https://www.amazon.com/Mitutoyo-64AAA590-Calibration-Included-Mahogany/dp/B007FFTUGI

You can determine a correlation between your readings and known values. Plot the three points in excel to generate a best fit line and equation, plug the values from the cheap meter in and bingo. You will still be under $250 and you can buy a the right used shore tester when it pops up on ebay.

There is no "common setting." You need to figure out how hard your water is. I'd recommend this kit since it's very accurate and not too expensive: https://www.amazon.com/Hach-145300-Total-Hardness-Model/dp/B008FM7WLU

Otherwise, your municipality probably has a water report that you can lookup online or request from them that might have hardness information.

If you just want the softener to work, set it to 50 and see if you end up with any hard water before it regenerates. If so, adjust up as needed. If not, adjust down until you find the right number. A higher number won't hurt anything, it will just waste salt.

You can get some clues from knowing the hardness of the material, using a hardness file set:

https://www.amazon.com/Flexbar-Hardness-Testing-File-Set/dp/B001CTI7TE

That's my thought too. Might be either to soft, or to hard (if it's to hard it takes a lot more effort to sharpen). What kind of stones are you using? Natural or diamond?

I know of a way to test hardness, there's special rockwell files. But sjeesh, $110...

Not too bad

https://www.amazon.com/TTC-Surface-Roughness-Comparator/dp/B0057PP1HK/ref=zg_bs_401601011_10/137-9450167-6861061?_encoding=UTF8&psc=1&refRID=DSVVGVVJZHTT2XYMPBZJ

Your best bet is to buy water testing strips off Amazon and test your water. Then adjust based on that. Don't just assume your Brita is doing enough. When you spend that much on an espresso machine ensure the water is good.

Test Strips

Water Quality Tester

Anti Scale Pouch

Edit: Formating

This is the water hardness test kit we use: https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008FM7WLU/ . It's slightly more expensive than the test strips, but it's a lifetime supply.

That seems suspicious to me. How was he going to level it?

Once the face is hardened, you need some pretty high end cutters to remove metal on a milling machine. Otherwise the cutter, not the anvil, will lose.

If he is skipping the mill and leveling it with a surface grinder, that suggests to me that he thinks it has been hardened.

Anyways, he should have access to a real hardness tester. If not a scientific rig, at least a set of these.

https://www.amazon.com/TTC-HTF-6S-PIECE-HARDNESS-TESTER/dp/B005701LAG/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1526341257&sr=8-1&keywords=hardness+test+files&dpID=617qYnT03XL&preST=_SX342_QL70_&dpSrc=srch

This is the guy that I bought. Any good?

You can do a test at home if all you are looking at is hardness. I've seen this recommended. If you are on municipal water there should be water quality reports available.

Use this, then:

https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0091GUNYM

I think you misunderstood my original statement - I only said that if the OP decided to have it polished that they should be on the lookout for any sort of hamon or evidence of differential hardening. That said, there are more smiths outside of Japan that have traditional polishing skills than you might realize. I can think of two off the top of my head that are in my state (Oregon) and have apprenticed under Japanese swordsmiths and become recognized master swordsmiths themselves, and one of them I know personally. I'm not sure what they would charge for polishing a wakizashi blade as shown above, but last I asked it was around $1000 per job.

That said, I'm still 95% certain that the tsuba is some form of sand cast iron as wrought iron would not exhibit that surface texture before or after corrosion from rusting. Wrought produces a banded structure as it rusts, not a pitted structure as was indicated in the photos.

It wouldn't take much in terms of specialized instrumentation to determine differential hardening due to a hamon. Either a RHC tester or a set of calibration files would give that answer readily. A good set of sampling files usually runs around $100.

As for monosteel vs tamahagane steel, I agree that it's hard to tell from the photos and the condition of the blade. I am inclined to think it is monosteel as the rusting patterns don't seem to follow any sort of grain structure that would be naturally present in forgewelded steel construction.

You’d need a Rockwell hardness tester. Not cheap. Fowler Full Warranty 52-760-000-0 Hardness Tester File Set, 0.157" Diameter, 7" Length, Set of 6 Files https://www.amazon.com/dp/B00B5HQYAM/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_zUUrDb9GVM9AR


You can put a hidden tang handle it won’t be easy but it’s possible. I wouldn’t bother with it

I’ll see if we get anywhere with the testing kit and actually turning the softener on. If it works, I’ll see about getting the other information you specified to see if it’s set close to where it should be.

Based on this test the hardness is 30 before running the softener.

We do have an iron filter in line ahead of the softener and the tank was just replaced a month ago or so due to it being close to full and a recommendation of the previous homeowner to replace it in 2015 (we found an old invoice for that).

It's very likely that he used a hardness testing file to decide if the piece had been hardened.

The files have different hardnesses so you start with the hardest one and go until the file no longer makes a mark which tells you how hard the piece is.

Why do you care?

But to answer your question, this kit can indicate the material hardness; ceramic is way harder than metal.

You could also test it's reactivity with acids, ceramic is pretty much inert.

> Tl;dr: Worried my knife's steel tempering might have been messed up. Any way to test for sure?

Yes. Hardness testing file. E.g., https://www.amazon.com/Flexbar-Hardness-Testing-File-Set/dp/B001CTI7TE If the 50HRC file bites into the steel at the edge, the edge is softer than 50HRC, etc. Not very precise, but easy and, as far as hardness testing equipment goes, cheap.