Thread: Popular double edge blades under the scanning electron microscope (SEM)

Today I am going to treat you to something real nice. Due to my current employment status I have access to a scanning electron microscope.The SEM is capable of extremely high magnifications up to (theoretically) 1.000.000times. Naturally the SEM I am using is not so much state of the art but still capable of tremendous magnifications.So far I have been able to produce images up to 5.000x magnification (Verhoeven^[1] maxed out at 3.000x). The magnification of the image is listed under SEM MAG:Up to today I have taken sample images of different popular double edge blades.The first set of pictures is a fresh Feather stainless steel blade.The blade has not been cleaned and came fresh out of the box. The blade has been gold coated via sputtering^[2]


Please click on the pictures for full image size






It is clearly visible that the blade is pretty dirty.
I made a second set of images, cleaning the blade prior to sputtering.
The Feather has been exposed to xylene steam, a highly effective organic solvent.This is what the Feather looked like this time




The next set of pictures shows a fresh Personna (red) blade. The blade has been untreated, uncleaned and sputtered.







[1] Experiments on Knife Sharpening. John D. Verhoeven, 2004
http://www.bushcraftuk.com/downloads...nifeshexps.pdf

[2] Sputtering produces coatings of gold only slightly bigger than a couple of gold atoms.
The gold makes the surface more contuctable and improves the resolution of the image.

Here are some samples of a Derby blade.
The picture on the left shows the derby sputtered and untreated.
The picture on the right shows the opposite side of the blade but this time it has been corked five times with no pressure




Now for some experimenting.
On the left side of the image you see a very well used Feather stainless blade.
On the right side you see the opposite side of the blade treated with 0.5µm diamond on felt.
The blade has not been sputtered but cleaned





I hope you enjoy these pictures.
Remember these are merely pictures and can be misread.Please to not distribute or use these pictures without my permission

Here is an example for the manufacturing process of a Derby blade.
The blade shows at least three different angles with a coarse primary bevel, a secondary bevel and a completely polished tertiary bevel

Thanks for the pics, I had no idea what my Feathers looked like under the scope.

How thick is the sputtered gold, I typically do 5nm and that is not visible on the sample with those magnifications, you will be seeing it when you get in the x30K range or higher
Images look great.

wow, thats crazy. those feather blades look terrible compared to the derby's...the derby's seem to have a much neater and cleaner blade thanks for the awesome experiment

Like with straight razors a great LOOKING blade doesn't always translate to a great Performing blade.

Great pictures, thanks.

Thank you for taking and sharing the pictures. Edges get a bit intimidating at that resolution.

would love to see a side by side of 6-8 different blades all new at the same resolution across the columns and then after 1, 2, 3, 4... shaves down the rows

Thanks for the images. Reminds me of my uncle when i was a kid though. He worked in a sausage factory and told me the old cliché was true ..... if you see how it is made you wouldn't want to eat it..... Sort of my reaction to the feather images ..... after the gillette swede that was my go to blade when I shave DE.