Hardness can be defined as a material’s resistance to permanent deformation. In the coatings industry, hardness measurement can be used to determine the resistance of the coating to scratching from general wear and tear and also if a coating is fully cured.
Depending on the requirements, there are various methods for testing hardness. Some are dedicated to characterise coatings and others are more suitable for testing bulk materials such as metals, plastics, rubber or elastomers.
Scratch Resistance: To assess a coating’s resistance to scratch there are a number of different instruments that can be used: Pencil Hardness Tester (Wolff-Wilborn), Sclerometer, Clemen Apparatus, Scratching and Shearing Instrument.
Resistance to Indentation: There are many instruments available to assess the resistance to penetration. For coatings in particular, there are three common methods where the depth of penetration of a weighted tool is used to show the coating’s resistance to penetration: Buchholz Hardness Tester, Barcol Impressor Hardness Testr, Shore Durometer.
Hardness can be defined as a material’s resistance to permanent deformation. In the coatings industry, hardness measurement can be used to determine the resistance of the coating to scratching from general wear and tear and also if a coating is fully cured.
Depending on the requirements, there are various methods for testing hardness. Some are dedicated to characterise coatings and others are more suitable for testing bulk materials such as metals, plastics, rubber or elastomers.
Scratch Resistance: To assess a coating’s resistance to scratch there are a number of different instruments that can be used: Pencil Hardness Tester (Wolff-Wilborn), Sclerometer, Clemen Apparatus, Scratching and Shearing Instrument.
Resistance to Indentation: There are many instruments available to assess the resistance to penetration. For coatings in particular, there are three common methods where the depth of penetration of a weighted tool is used to show the coating’s resistance to penetration: Buchholz Hardness Tester, Barcol Impressor Hardness Testr, Shore Durometer.
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Produces automatic, repeatable and consistent scratch resistance tests.
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A robust manual tester used to evaluate a coating’s resistance to scratching.
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Ideal for soft materials, produces hardness values in Shore Hardness Units.
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A series of 14 pencils ranging from 6B to 6H hardness values with a stand.
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Designed to maintain a constant 45° angle when testing coating’s hardness.
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Simple to use, pocket size hardness tester available in four scales.
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A conical diamond tip scratch tester applied to a rotating sample.
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A simple instrument to test coating’s hardness using the indentation method.
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Provides a numerical hardness value based on the penetration of a needle point.
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A scratching tool used for preparing samples for the salt spray and cyclical tests.
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Supplied with interchangeable carbide cutters used for preparing samples for corrosion tests.