Different view of my favourite knife

C

Cadman2008

Joined
Apr 20, 2010
Messages
111
Needing a good magnifying glass for inspecting some soldering at work, I found that USB microscopes are all the rage now! So thanks to ebay, I bought one for only around $50 US, and it came in today...

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My beloved tanker grey BWM, close up! She has done a LOT of chopping of green wood around my property due to fire breaks needing to be finished in a few months, and still looks fantastic. No sharpening done, still with factory edge, at somewhere around 20 x magnification

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Closeup of cutting edge at around 400 x magnification. Can see some discoloration from my poor cleaning of resin I think. Will need to do better... Even with the resin in the cutting edge, still does a great job of shaving hair.. No pics of that tho...

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Whoops.. Hit a rock. Several times. :( Steeled it out though, only a tiny imperfection.

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Until you look at it at 400 x magnification! Can see where the steel has pushed the rolled edge back, but it's not noticable even when slicing rather than chopping.

She still works beautifully, despite her small battle scars. Thanks Busse Combat :)
 
Hi. Those pics are great! It reminds me our laboratory classes at secondary technical school. :thumbup:
 
Cool pics that's what i need with my eyes getting worse as i get older. :( Now where the heck did i lay that knife...ouch oh there it is. :D I'd like to get one of those you can really see the edge good. Now then all i'll need is something to help me remember where i'm at. :eek::D
 
Very cool. Some of the pics look almost like crystal:eek:
 
Those images looks great. Tell us a little more about the scope... do you capture images from a real time datastream, or is the a "shutter button"? Is focusing difficult? Is that done with ambient light or auxiliary? Is this a technique you could use while sharpening the blade, to check on the progress?

You might post this over on the Maintenance forum, lot's of good discussion over there.
 
You need to use it more - that looks like the factory edge with a little chip on it.

Also, I'd get a leather strop wheel and polish that thing up a lot with some compound. It makes any edge last much longer.
 
resinguy said:
Those images looks great. Tell us a little more about the scope... do you capture images from a real time datastream, or is the a "shutter button"? Is focusing difficult? Is that done with ambient light or auxiliary? Is this a technique you could use while sharpening the blade, to check on the progress?

You might post this over on the Maintenance forum, lot's of good discussion over there.
Click to expand...

Yes, Inquiring minds want to know.... At $50- I am interested!
 
That would be helpful for edge work. Let you know what areas need more attention|
 
This is the exact one that I bought:

http://cgi.ebay.com/8x-LED-20x-200x...290?pt=LH_DefaultDomain_0&hash=item3cafb047da

But I imagine they are all about the same. The instruction manual and the adjustment both say 20 -> 400 x magnification, which for all I know is just rubbish. They are great - you can record video of them at lower resolutions, and take "screen shots" at up to 1600x1200 resolution. Problem is due to data transmission down the usb cable, it's a bit choppy when you move the microscope around at that resolution, smooth as at 800x600 and lower. Pretty easy to use after a little practice, and you're right - would be great if you are looking to get the perfect edge!

Software is pretty easy to use, but the odd thing is there are only really 2 focal points - 20x and 400x ish. Not fully up on my high-school optics anymore, but that probably would have made sense 15 years ago...
 
Oh, and the LED's are adjustable - the camera automatically adjusts to light conditions, but at high magnification it needs a lot of light to be clear. The LED's are a great addition to the idea. Mind you it took a few minutes to figure out it had a clear lense cap on it :)

Good tool, and very interesting looking at other things around the house at high magnification. The canvas micarta looks pretty cool at low magnification, but at high it is hard to get a focus due to the sensitivity of the focal length, and it's bumpiness :)
 
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