Thread: What do I look for in the Micscope when its done?

OK, I went and bought the RS microscope and looked at my edge. It is currently HHT but when I looked at the edge under the scope, it looked like the flat edge of a file along the bevel. the edge itself is straight with no places that look like nicks or valleys. This is at X60


Does someone have a picture of what a honemeister's edge looks like when they are done?

Its hard to find it when you don't know what you're looking for.

A microscope is not the final arbiter of when a razor has reached that point of perfection. It is just another tool and there are better ones like shaving. If you razor has passed the HHT I would think its time to shave with it. To me the scope is great when your honing away and your having trouble passing the tests and you don't know when to stop honing. The scope will tell you the physical state of the edge whether you have gone too far or there are microchips or big chips or the edge is uneven.

I think people here make too much of this microscope thing. remember hundreds of millions of men have used straights and I would say probably less than a hundreth of a percent ever had a magnifier of any kind and if they did they wouldn't of known how to use it or what to look for. They just honed and did the old time tests and shaved.

I agree. I rarely use the microscope - it's just a tool to help me figure out the problem if I'm beating my head against a wall. All our tests are just proxies for the shave test, but it doesn't matter what tests it passes if it doesn't shave well, and it doesn't matter what tests it fails if it does shave well.

I use my RS microscope to help me look for any nicks. I have found nicks on Ebay blades that the naked eye was unable to see. On the other hand, the thumb nail test has also verifed the presence of nicks that the eye could not see, so once again, the Big Spendur is right about not needing the microscope.
-Fred

Nothing in the microscope will tell you its done. Only shaving will tell you that. You have a good bevel now. The sharp edge will be smooth. So smooth it will reflect no light, off angle. Off angle it'll look like "black ice" which is an optical illusion only. But thats what you see. There are several photos if you look in SRP/Home/UserGallery, when I looked there was a good one in Korndogs photo file. Not great, but good.

I use a microscope at work at work to follow my progress on the razor I am currently restoring.
And this is not an el-cheapo scope either. It's a 4000 euro olympus that can magnify 1000 times. The max I used is 400 though.

While it is nice to see so much detail, it told me nothing that I could not detect by watching how the light of a strong lightsource / the sun reflects on the edge as I slowly rotate the razor.

Of course, I only know this because I had the opportunity to do a side by side comparison. But at this moment, I would not spend even 50 euros to buy a cheap microscope because now I know what to look for when holding a razor under a light source.

of course, If I could buy that olympus for 50 euros I would of course

Kimo,

Here are some of the questions I keep in mind as I'm looking at an edge, along with an explanation of what they indicate:

--How straight is the edge? At 60x, the edge should look dead flat. No chips or irregularities. Of course, this is the ideal, but a razor will shave with some minor irregularities in it.
--How even are the scratch marks? The scratches on the bevel should look all the same size and run in the same direction. They should also extend all the way down to the edge, not stop short of the edge.
--What size are the scratch marks? Different grits leave different sized scratches, and you want to work your way from coarse to fine.
--How does light reflect from the bevel? You need to shift the Radioshack microscope around to different angles for this. One angle will illuminate all the scratch marks, so you can check their size and consistency. Another will bounce the light away from the microscope lens, so you get that "black ice" look others have described. From this angle, you shouldn't see a bright line running along the edge. If you do, that's a wire edge--bad, bad, bad. It should black and even all the way to the edge. You may also be able to see different colors on the bevel. That means that you have a double bevel, which could result from too much pressure during honing.

Those are some of the things I look for. Any questions?

Josh

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

Kimo,

Here are some of the questions I keep in mind as I'm looking at an edge, along with an explanation of what they indicate:

--How straight is the edge? At 60x, the edge should look dead flat. No chips or irregularities. Of course, this is the ideal, but a razor will shave with some minor irregularities in it.
--How even are the scratch marks? The scratches on the bevel should look all the same size and run in the same direction. They should also extend all the way down to the edge, not stop short of the edge.
--What size are the scratch marks? Different grits leave different sized scratches, and you want to work your way from coarse to fine.
--How does light reflect from the bevel? You need to shift the Radioshack microscope around to different angles for this. One angle will illuminate all the scratch marks, so you can check their size and consistency. Another will bounce the light away from the microscope lens, so you get that "black ice" look others have described. From this angle, you shouldn't see a bright line running along the edge. If you do, that's a wire edge--bad, bad, bad. It should black and even all the way to the edge. You may also be able to see different colors on the bevel. That means that you have a double bevel, which could result from too much pressure during honing.

Those are some of the things I look for. Any questions?

Josh

Very nice explanation. I also like to lay a flashlight on the table I'm working on to get some extra light under the microscope. The radio shack bulb doesn't quite do it for me.

You might want to check the batteries on your microscope. The light on mine is actually brighter than many flashlights as long as the batteries are fresh. I also use NiMH rechargables, which I think have a slightly higher output than regular alkaline batteries.

I noticed you're in Pittsburgh--what university are you attending?

Josh

Originally Posted by JoshEarl

You might want to check the batteries on your microscope. The light on mine is actually brighter than many flashlights as long as the batteries are fresh. I also use NiMH rechargables, which I think have a slightly higher output than regular alkaline batteries.

I noticed you're in Pittsburgh--what university are you attending?

Josh

Yeah...I could check the batteries...I've only used the ones that came with it so they might not be that great.

I'm at CMU...finished my undergrad here and now am a 1st-year grad student.