I picked up this cute little guy for a very reasonable price this week. It seems to be reading a little on the soft side - I have a nice old Wilson file that was registering about 59 HRC - so it might need a bit of calibration. It's a nice, heavy German machine that's in top notch shape but is oddly branded 'Frank'. Magnus
The hardness tester may need to be calibrated. If you look up NDT supply places many are set up with calibration facilities and they can supply a calibration block as well. Calibration blocks should be within a few points of the expected hardness you will be looking for
Thanks, John. The tester is pretty close, the company I bought it from had calibration block and they figured it was with +/- 2HRC. That could have changed during transport but I've ordered an HSS lathe tool blank (advertised as 60 to 62 HRC) to keep the tester honest. This won't be as accurate as a calibration block but it's good enough for me, for now. (those calibration blocks are pricey!)
