Looking for anyone with any experience with these hardness testers. Cant find much if any info online. I picked up one its very old. Any input on setting it up and what not would be very helpful. I went thru the whole thing and cleaned it up (pics are previous to that) and everything operates smooth. I found instructions on how to do the actual hardness test which is simple enough. There are just some things on dialing it in that I am not finding anywhere. 

 

Thanks.

 

Oh also if anyone had a manual for this particular one that would be super helpful. Patrice on another forum hooked me up with a manual but its a newer model, still helpful but not all the points are the same. 

Quint, what area of Puget Sound are you in? I am just south of Olympia...

Dave

I am up here in the Bremerton area. Not too far. 

Looks like it works like a Rockwell tester. With ours at work you load the test piece into the vee block then raise the table until the point touches the test piece. You then preload the dial 3 revolutions-do not reverse. Rotate the dial to zero the needle. Release the weights, and wait for the needle to stop moving. Once stopped , unload the point by lifting the weights allowing the needle to spin to the hardness measured. You can get calibration pieces from the major makers such as Starret.

Looked at the pictures closer. It is like ours at work. The lever on the right is pulled forward when loading, then moved to the rear to release the proper weight (ours has 3 total), then pulled forward to read the hardness.

Thanks Biggun. Ive got the procedure down. I ordered a test block off of MSC. Hopefully be here soon. 

 

Still trying to figure out where my problem is with it. When testing a piece of stock like 15n20 annealed, I set the preload like you were saying (3 revolutions), release the lever so it goes thru its rotation. Then once the needle has stopped I pull the lever back to release the weights. The needle only moves about 3 HRC, basically it will read everything in the 94 to 98hrc range. Tried a few different hardness metals. 

 

Could be the indenter as well but it looks pretty good actually. 

Got it figured out. One of the guide bushing assembly thing for the plunger rod was stuck. I didnt realize it was suppose to be free floating (no experience with these). Got it freed up and everything cleaned again. Works great now, just waiting on my test block. 

Glad it is working for you.

Forgot to post these over here. Figured since I couldnt find much if any info for this guy online that these videos may help anyone who ends up getting one like this and is looking for information on it. 

 

Videos arent the best but wanted to show what I did to get it working and its general operation. 

 

Couple things, I did grab it a few times and used the arms to help me move it, shouldnt do that. I didnt put alot of weight on them but still should just use the body to move it. 

 

Also dont drive the one V shaped shaft out, just push down on the top lever if you want it to slide out freely. Hope this helps anyone  by chance you find yourself getting a hardness tester from the 20's or early 30's.

 

On Thursday, December 05, 2013 at 5:52 PM, quint said:

I am up here in the Bremerton area. Not too far. 

Me too! I'm by the fairgrounds. We should have a hammer in