The History of Wood Hardness Tests

The purpose of the article is, to review the relative and absolute hardness tests with relevance for the wood industry. It will be seen, how these hardness test methods were developed or almost forgotten, what are their importance. It will be shown, what kind of advantages, disadvantages they have and the situations, it will come into sight, in wich cases their applicability is recommended or rejectable. We present in this article the history of the currently practiced static hardness test methods from 1860 till nowadays, considering the applied tool geometry and the definition as well as calculation of wood hardness.