Thread: Scanning electron microscopy and straights.

Originally Posted by kevint

pretty awesome. I hope you wont get into trouble with the thousands of requests.

....Actually guys they already have a machine that could sharpen at the sub-crystalline level. The same one used to polish the lens' of giant telescopes. Which is done by firing ions to "plane" off all the high spots at the near atomic level.

Richard Hammond.

You know what I'm talking about.

Originally Posted by thebigspendur

I sometimes think we can get carried away with all this stuff.

Isn't that what this website is all about???


Bart.

Originally Posted by Bart

Isn't that what this website is all about???


Bart.

+1.

Chris L

I talked to my boss whom owns the SEM and he said that he will be willing to let me use it in order to conduct a few experiments about straight razors. Now I have to find the time to come up on my end.

Let's talk about some Ideas of what experiments we would like to do and our controls of the experiments and what not.

I think that we could continue these thoughts in this thread and eventually make a design for the goals that we want to accomplish and how we will accomplish them.

Ross

Here are some Ideas and volunteered propositions.

Originally Posted by Bart

One big advantage of a SEM is that you can actually see and do measurements on the width and the shape of the bevel tip, a.k.a. the very edge.

This could finally clear up some questions about stropping and how various stropping surfaces affect that bevel tip.
And a whole bunch of other questions, concerning hones and their abilities too.

...shooting pictures fresh off the hone, after the first stropping session on leather, right after the first shave, and after allowing the edge a day of rest), would you be prepared to run them, for the benefit of the whole SRP community?
Bart.

Originally Posted by Leighton

...There is an ongoing debate as to what exactly stropping does and why it works. No one knows for sure, we all have theories. By getting more data on the edge before and after stropping, we can better understand what it is that stropping does.

Does it remove burrs left over from the honing process? Does it actually remove metal and sharpen the very edge? Does it remove corrosion? Does it strip an molecular layer away, giving us fresh metal? Does it realign the bevel?

To the OP: If you need more razors to test, I am more than willing to donate some to experiment on. Same rules as Jimmy, I want them back once the tests are over.

I can even send over razors that have been used x amount of time with no stropping in between and a razor fresh off the hones. Then you can strop it and see before and after pics. But, you'd of course have to post pics for us.

Originally Posted by joke1176

I will send you some slurry from an Escher, a Japanese, a few Thuringians, and a few coticules for particulate comparison... You could really shed some light on the coticules vs thuringians vs Japanese et al debates.

Originally Posted by ChrisL

I'd like to see what an ATS-34 edge that is considered by the owner and contributor to be a great shaving edge looks like in comparison to a vintage carbon steel edge that is also considered by an owner to be a great shaver.

Can anyone else think of unanswered questions that would be great to be answered by the closer look an SEM can provide?

Originally Posted by northpaw

Take the razor in after shaving, snap a few, then strop it and snap a few more. Even better if you could somehow find the same "dot" of blade twice.

Thanks for sharing these.

As said above, please also take the time to throw in a nice new DE blade to see what that looks like.


One of the sharpest and smoothest cutting (for me anyway) DE blades I've used was a Feather.

Looking at it at 200x and 500x was a bit of a surprise, as it does not look all that smooth and sharp to begin with.
Those are the first two pics.

Then there is the Merkur DE blade, which to me felt horribly scratchy and always left my face very irritated. also shown here at 200x & 500x pics 3&4
If my straight's edge looked like that, I'd throw it in the bin!

That last one looked like the surface of the moon. Oddly enough when I used to shave with DEs although I preferred Feathers I was in the minority who got close and comfortable shaves with the Merkur Super.

These hi res photos remind me of what was said about making sausage. If you see it done you no longer want to eat it.

Massive potential for worthwhile experimentation here!!! Just a simple starter that I would like to see would be a scan before and after 30–50 laps on a Tony Miller latigo strop.

George

Originally Posted by ghart

Massive potential for worthwhile experimentation here!!! Just a simple starter that I would like to see would be a scan before and after 30–50 laps on a Tony Miller latigo strop.

George

That will be a problem I believe, as I don't have one of those.

We need to work out an issue. Would it be okay for an individual to send their razor after stropping to be looked at in the SEM? or is that time lapse too long... I think it may be too long as I usually wait until the lather is on my face to stop my razor.

Alright, I am starting a new thread for the experimentation part.

The new thread is located here