is there a 'bush mechanics' way of testing steel hardness

[clinton miller]

is there a way to find out the approx rockwell hardness of steel without lab equipment?

i'm getting some spring steel off a mate for making trade points and i'm wondering how hard it is.

[rodlonq]

Gidday Clinton,

If you have some other objects that you know the hardness of (and you don't mind scratching them), use a flat smooth file to file your spring steel and then the reference objects. You should be able to get a rough idea from what you see, hear and feel during the process and make a comparison. Finding sacrificial objects of a known hardness could be difficult though. Another method is to hang the reference objects and a test piece of your spring steel on pieces of string and tap them with a light hammer. The tone will be different but this is very dependent on the size and shape of the objects.

Are you going to forge your points?

If so then the initial hardness is almost irrelevant as you will exceed annealing temperature of the steel in the forge anyway and it will have to be rehardened and tempered. It will almost certainly have enough carbon in it to be hardened enough to hold a decent edge.

If not then be very careful not to get it too hot while grinding it as the hot spots will loose their temper anyway. To find out if the steel is suitable, sharpen a small section and put it to work. If it doesn't loose its edge too fast then you are on a winner!

Hope this helps.....Rod

[clinton miller]

thanks rod.

[kimall]

Put the steel up to a grinder and have a look at the sparks thats come off it.
If the sparks are single and just die it is low in carbon and as you get higher and higher carbon content the sparks start to have secondary explosions as they are leaving the steel.Does this make sence for you.?.It wont tell you the RW figure but it will tell you if it worth making knives from it.If you search on spark test on one of the knife forums you will find pics that explain it better.
Cheers KIM

[jindydiver]

The spark test can give you some idea of the potential hardness that piece of steel can attain, but it cannot tell you how hard that piece of steel is.