Thread: What am I seeing under magnification?

I'm working on a beater that I bought to learn on. It's an "Improved Eagle" that had some rust and pitting. All of that is gone and I'm on the 1k hone setting the bevel right now. I've gotten a couple of other razors shave ready and have started to figure out what the edge should look like. this one is showing me something I'm not sure about.

I can see a clear bevel, including a defined starting point where the blade goes from flat to angled (I'm sure there's a term for this). beyond this I can see the scratches made by the hone, angling to one side caused by the x-stroke. Beyond that I can see a bright line...I know this is a good thing. BUT..beyond the bright line is a rough gray area. Kind of hard to describe that...looks almost bubbly, like styrofoam.

Is the bubbly area a wire edge? Are those microchips? I assume not the latter, because they do not look serrated.

I'm also assuming (there's that word again) that all of this means more time on the 1k to get rid of them and to get to better metal. Oui? Non?

TIA

Goog

Hopefully the edge has not melted.. Some of the more experieced hone- meisters can tell you. But that's why we experiemnt.

If it has that porous swiss cheese effect it may be rotted steel or inclusions(air pockets) keep honing until this crap is gone and then move up the progression. Each step of the way keep checking for more of this as the steel is abraded away, hopefully sooner or later you will get to good steel.

I don't know if I would call it swiss cheese. More like a layer of fine material. Unfortunately, I cant' photograph with my radio shack microscope.

Goog

What magnification are you at????

It may be that this is an edge that is just a bit out of focus.
In an ideal world you want the surface of the bevel
to be perpendicular to the optics.

Try racking the focus up and down a smidgen. It could also
be a bit of a burr rolling up. If you think it is a burr check both
sides. If the bevel is uneven you could have a burr on one
side then the other...

Find some micro pictures and compare. There are some in the archives and on Tim Zowada's website.

Originally Posted by gssixgun

What magnification are you at????

100x

this line added because the forum told me that "100x" is too short a reply. Maybe I should have said, "100x, dammit?"

Goog

Originally Posted by AFDavis11

Find some micro pictures and compare. There are some in the archives and on Tim Zowada's website.

Do you mean Zowada Custom Knives ? I looked there and didn't see any.

Goog

I hate to state the obvious, but pics would really help me here.