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I too am a proponent of a tester. I feel it is imperative that we test our blades on a regular basis to make sure the heat treat schedule we are using is really giving us what we think. It's great to get a recipient from a friend and think we should be at a Rockwell 59 but unless we test we don't really know. Testing in general is lacking from new blade smiths, I know I was there too. 😀 I now test on a regularally with both test files and a counter top Rockwell tester just to make sure I'll still where I need to be.
Start with files if that's all you can afford at first, they are better than nothing. I've seen two Rockwell testers on crags list in the past few months go for under 300, so just start watching.
Erik
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