Which Brand has the Hardest Socket? Rockwell Hardness Tool Testing

Today we are at the University of Nebraska heading to the College of Engineering for Mechanical & Material science to use the Rockwell Hardness Tester. We will be testing different brands of chrome sockets that I have laying around to see which one is the hardest. We will look at brands like SnapOn, Husky from Home Depot, Blackhawk, Craftsman USA, GearWrench, Tekton, ICON, Kobalt from Lowe’s, Stanley USA, Napa USA, Harbor Freight, Pittsburgh Pro Impact socket, MAC Tools, and an older SK Wayne socket. We will also ensure that all the sockets are within ASME B107.1 and ASME B107.5M standards. The strength of a material can refer to yield strength, ultimate strength, or fracture strength. The tensile strength can be calculated from hardness and hardness tests—such as Rockwell—are simple, inexpensive, and only a small penetration is performed. Hardness measures a material’s resistance to surface deformation. For some metals, like steel, hardness and tensile strength are roughly proportional (see ASTM A 370-68 Steel Tables)