Thread: What mircoscope(s) are everyone using???

I have just watched episode (No. 32) of Mythbusters on the Discovery channel, and they were putting the myth of the pyramides on test. Tory puts his face on the line for this myth by shaving each day with two razors - one kept in a pyramid, and one kept out of the pyramid. He shaves the right side of his face with the pyramid razor, and the left side with the other. Ofcourse, at the end, they were both dull the same amount, and they viewed the razors under electrone microscope with (IIRC) 12000 power. The pics were awesome, showing details I have never seen before. The edges looked like they were made from dry grass(?) bunched together...

Probably just needed to be stropped...lol. Where is my spare honing pyramid anyway?

Thanks Joe, you always present interesting, pertinent points.
Do you think the QX5 would be good enough to show a wire edge, nicks to the edge, two bevels on an edge, rust craters on a bevel and the differences in scratch patterns between a 1000,4000,8000 and 12000 grit hone?

In other words, if we want to put together a file for the newb's showing these items will the QX5 do the job?

Thanks,

Originally Posted by Joe Lerch

I have a QX5 and the radioshack. I mostly use the radioshack. I was hoping to use the QX5 for some studies, but its resolution is just not good enough.

I really wanted to see the microserrations and how they change when you work on a razor. It looks to like it would probably take 1000x with good resolution to do that. I can still learn a lot with the QX5, and I like that I can take and store pictures to study later. The focusing and lighting issues are a challenge.

I've definitely found a connection between keenness and edge smoothness at 100x. The keen edges are always smooth, but the smooth edges are not always keen. I suspect there's something going on with the microserrations that I can't see at the resolutions and magnifications available.

Originally Posted by randydance062449

Do you think the QX5 would be good enough to show a wire edge, nicks to the edge, two bevels on an edge, rust craters on a bevel and the differences in scratch patterns between a 1000,4000,8000 and 12000 grit hone?

In other words, if we want to put together a file for the newb's showing these items will the QX5 do the job?

It should be good enough to show everything but the different scratch patterns. You'll need to play with the focus and lighting, though.

The QX5 shows a scale in which 200 microns occupy about 1.5", so 20 microns occupies about 1/8". 4K is 6 microns and 8K is 3 microns so you can see that the spacings are getting into a range where you won't see a difference. Since your photos would be even smaller I don't think there's much of a chance of getting useful results with 200x. If you had good resolution you could blow it up, but QX5 really doesn't.

On the other hand if your bevel is about .5mm, it would occupy 2-3 inches in a full screen photo, so you have plenty of magnification to illustrate the edge effects you mentioned.

Thanks Joe!