Thread: Microscope

Originally Posted by Piet

My veho 400x USB microscope gives similar images as Brighty83's

Your image seems a little more clear, mine seems blurred... or maybe that's just my poor honing

I cant remember what i finished my blade on but i know it hasn't been freshly stropped because i used it last night, i 'think' it was finished one of my Thüringen stones...

Here is one more, finished tonight on a new stone but i don't know what the stone is, some green grey quarts stone off eBay lol

The first blade was covered in oil as i grabbed it straight off the shelf, the second is straight off the stone.

I tested that blade tonight and even though it looks better then the first photo the shave was only satisfactory

A very telling use of a microscope is to help determine the cutting speed of a stone. The way I do this is to hone razor with a lower grit stone like a 6,000 using diagonal strokes, then I use the same length of strokes, same hand pressure but with straight on (or the opposite diagonal) strokes on my finishing stone. After 5 strokes or 10 I will go to the microscope and see how much of the 6k scratches were removed. It might take 10-20 or more strokes to fully and totally remove the diagonal scratches with the fresh new finer straight perpendicular ones, and this is what I take note of as an indicator of cutting speed. Some stones take 30 or more strokes, and some stones have a hard time removing any scratches at all and the blade just gets burnished. Scratches do represent sharpening actions. Alx