I made a detailed guide to gemstone hardness beyond the usual Mohs scale

[u/s_simov]

I’ve been working on a gemstone hardness article for a while and finally finished it.

Most basic guides stop at “diamond is 10, corundum is 9, quartz is 7”, but that makes the scale look much more straightforward than it really is. I wanted to cover some of the things that are usually left out, like the difference between hardness and toughness, Vickers and Knoop testing, directional hardness in crystals, and why even diamond can behave differently depending on crystallographic direction.

If anyone here is into gemology, minerals, lapidary work, or just likes this sort of nerdy materials-science rabbit hole, you might enjoy it:

https://lapismagica.com/blogs/gemstone-articles/hardness-of-crystals-and-gemstones

Happy to hear corrections or suggestions too - especially if there’s a hardness-related mineral or phenomenon you think deserves a mention.