I want a microscope where I can get a good picture of what the razors edge looks like. A jewelers loupe 60x has been recommended to me. On SRP, the pictures of edges they show are at 200x magnification. I was wondering if 60x magnification is good enough to see if I have a good edge.
Straight Razor Microscope Question
- Thread starter raccoonandbrush
- Start date
I use a hand held one I bought at Radio Shack.. not sure but I think its max is 60x (maybe 100x)and it works fine for checking my edges while honing.
edit: here is a link to what I use http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2179604
edit: here is a link to what I use http://www.radioshack.com/product/index.jsp?productId=2179604
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60 power is too much for a handheld lens. Go for less magnification and better resolution. Get a 10-30x Hastings triplet hand lens. It won't be cheap but don't make the mistake of thinking more magnification without more resolution is better. A large number of the photos you see here are not very good micrographs and there are plenty of threads suggesting that looking at the bevel is not nearly as important as being able to see the edge.
A ten power, high resolution hand lens will show more information about your edge than a 60x plastic cheapy. I have a 10x Eschenbach hastings triplet hand lens that has superb resolution, but it will set you back about a hundred bucks. I wish it were a 20x lens, and I have one around here somewhere but I can't find it. A good 20-30x Bausch and Lomb hastings triplet will cost you about 50 bucks more or less. That is really all you need. Sharp is better than big.
I also have a 60x B and L dissecting binocular scope bought surplus from a teaching lab, but really it isn't as handy during honing and won't show me more useful information. I can see the scratches on the bevel very nicely with oblique lighting, but I haven't figured out what use that is. And I can see microchips better than with my hand lens, but I can see them well enough with my hand lens to know I need to reset the bevel. The one thing I saw with the dissecting scope is that a coticule bevel looks like it has been bead blasted, interesting and consistent with the idea of sharp ball bearings rolling around on it, but not helpful at improving my honing.
A ten power, high resolution hand lens will show more information about your edge than a 60x plastic cheapy. I have a 10x Eschenbach hastings triplet hand lens that has superb resolution, but it will set you back about a hundred bucks. I wish it were a 20x lens, and I have one around here somewhere but I can't find it. A good 20-30x Bausch and Lomb hastings triplet will cost you about 50 bucks more or less. That is really all you need. Sharp is better than big.
I also have a 60x B and L dissecting binocular scope bought surplus from a teaching lab, but really it isn't as handy during honing and won't show me more useful information. I can see the scratches on the bevel very nicely with oblique lighting, but I haven't figured out what use that is. And I can see microchips better than with my hand lens, but I can see them well enough with my hand lens to know I need to reset the bevel. The one thing I saw with the dissecting scope is that a coticule bevel looks like it has been bead blasted, interesting and consistent with the idea of sharp ball bearings rolling around on it, but not helpful at improving my honing.
Whatever scope you get the important thing is correlating what you are seeing with what is actually happening, HHT tests, shave feel, etc. I could say that I can get just about as much useful info from looking at my razor with the naked eye and a very bright light source as I can from my 400x scope. But I wouldn't really know what the one meant without knowing the other as well.
Yeah, you dont really need to go crazy, a decent bauch and lomb is your best bet-I believe that they and Belomo are the cheapest quality loupe makers. You can try those cheap ebay and amazon loupes, but they're hit or miss in my exp, and I don't think that even a cheap 30X is much more than 10X. But in all fairness, I used a cheapy for a while and found it very useful.
I also have a hand held microscope thing. You have to have the delicate razor edge about 5mm from the plastic housing, theres no depth to the image, and its hard to get the lighting right, so I dont find it useful. But mine might be worse than whats sold at radio shack. Its still neat for looking at other stuff.
I also have a hand held microscope thing. You have to have the delicate razor edge about 5mm from the plastic housing, theres no depth to the image, and its hard to get the lighting right, so I dont find it useful. But mine might be worse than whats sold at radio shack. Its still neat for looking at other stuff.
Not so much for honing, but if you want to study the thing at leisure, a cheap stereo microscope is useful. The real cheap ones usually have 2 magnifications, and maybe 2 sets of eyepieces with different magnifications, and for a bit more money you might get an auxiliary lens for other magnifications. It'll give you a good 3D view of the edge that you can't easily duplicate with any other device except at tremendous cost. You'd need a lens large enough to see through with both eyes, and it's terribly expensive to make those at high magnification with any kind of image correction. Like multiple $1000s expensive. This is where the loupes come in so highly rated. They have really good optics, and a decent working distance (between lens and object), but they're very small, which makes them relatively cheap to make. But a loupe is hard to use for a long time, and it doesn't give a 3D view, which is where the stereo scopes excel. Finally, the stereo scopes usually have a really long working distance, making it much easier to find ways of lighting the edge. Again, probably not ideal for active, fast use while honing (neither is a loupe), but probably the best option for leisurely study. They realistically top out somewhere around 70X, which, according to just about every honer, is plenty. Again, this isn't advice for honing.
For honing, once you get something working, I'd suggest you reconsider what you need, and whether something like a permanent lens at low magnification might help. Either a desktop magnifier or a flip down magnifier (both at around 2-3X) can take a lot of strain off your eyes during a honing session when you're struggling to see the really fine edge, and they're both quick and easy to use. Not popular, but from a vision-health point of view, I wouldn't want to do without one or the other for any really fine task.
One last vision-health point. While it's true that resolution is what's important, not magnification, that only factors in what's available to be seen. It doesn't account for what's comfortable to focus on. So, while you need good resolution (which isn't necessarily cheap) to see more detail, extra (even empty) magnification can make something easier on the eyes. Still, there's a tradeoff here in that "empty" magnification confuses and blurs the picture, so you need to compromise. If you're straining to focus on small details and getting a sort of cross-eyed feeling trying to distinguish two nearby points, and can clearly see them, but maybe not necessarily at the same time without getting "cross-eyed", then additional magnification will help relieve the eye strain. On the other hand, if you just can't make out what the additional detail looks like, additional magnification is actually counterproductive because you're probably already able to focus on details at the limit of resolution, and additional magnification will only magnify the blur, making it even harder to make out the picture--kind of like looking too closely at a Monet painting. The only solution here is better optics. One caveat here is that with really good _low_ magnification lenses that can resolve to the optical limit of light, you probably can't make out the finer detail, so it's not always easy to distinguish between the two conditions above.
For my money, a good quality 2x or 2.5x flip down visor (or better, one with several replaceable lenses) and a modern cheap (but not too cheap) stereo scope at 20X would be my choices. A smart, patient shopper could have both for $100-150us. Both of these give a stereo or 3-dimensional view, and are relatively comfortable for long use and reducing eye strain. The combination is also safer to use than a loupe. You don't have to put the blade anywhere near your eye with the stereo scope, and the visor is good protection form an accident.
I honestly don't see any advantage to higher than 20X magnification for practical honing. (Although I'd love to find a good quality visor or desktop at 4-5X. Good quality being the operative word--I've never seen one at reasonable cost.) For general use, you definitely want a larger range. What you'll get if you spend more for a better stereo scope, aside from better resolution, is more depth of field and better image correction. Both are useful for seeing angles, but aren't critical for honing, so if its just for honing may as well stay on the cheap. You need to establish the angle some other way when you set the blade to the stone, and using a scope to judge is probably the wrong approach, but it could work. If you want to go there, the aberrations in the cheaper scope might get in the way.
For honing, once you get something working, I'd suggest you reconsider what you need, and whether something like a permanent lens at low magnification might help. Either a desktop magnifier or a flip down magnifier (both at around 2-3X) can take a lot of strain off your eyes during a honing session when you're struggling to see the really fine edge, and they're both quick and easy to use. Not popular, but from a vision-health point of view, I wouldn't want to do without one or the other for any really fine task.
One last vision-health point. While it's true that resolution is what's important, not magnification, that only factors in what's available to be seen. It doesn't account for what's comfortable to focus on. So, while you need good resolution (which isn't necessarily cheap) to see more detail, extra (even empty) magnification can make something easier on the eyes. Still, there's a tradeoff here in that "empty" magnification confuses and blurs the picture, so you need to compromise. If you're straining to focus on small details and getting a sort of cross-eyed feeling trying to distinguish two nearby points, and can clearly see them, but maybe not necessarily at the same time without getting "cross-eyed", then additional magnification will help relieve the eye strain. On the other hand, if you just can't make out what the additional detail looks like, additional magnification is actually counterproductive because you're probably already able to focus on details at the limit of resolution, and additional magnification will only magnify the blur, making it even harder to make out the picture--kind of like looking too closely at a Monet painting. The only solution here is better optics. One caveat here is that with really good _low_ magnification lenses that can resolve to the optical limit of light, you probably can't make out the finer detail, so it's not always easy to distinguish between the two conditions above.
For my money, a good quality 2x or 2.5x flip down visor (or better, one with several replaceable lenses) and a modern cheap (but not too cheap) stereo scope at 20X would be my choices. A smart, patient shopper could have both for $100-150us. Both of these give a stereo or 3-dimensional view, and are relatively comfortable for long use and reducing eye strain. The combination is also safer to use than a loupe. You don't have to put the blade anywhere near your eye with the stereo scope, and the visor is good protection form an accident.
I honestly don't see any advantage to higher than 20X magnification for practical honing. (Although I'd love to find a good quality visor or desktop at 4-5X. Good quality being the operative word--I've never seen one at reasonable cost.) For general use, you definitely want a larger range. What you'll get if you spend more for a better stereo scope, aside from better resolution, is more depth of field and better image correction. Both are useful for seeing angles, but aren't critical for honing, so if its just for honing may as well stay on the cheap. You need to establish the angle some other way when you set the blade to the stone, and using a scope to judge is probably the wrong approach, but it could work. If you want to go there, the aberrations in the cheaper scope might get in the way.
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It all depends how far you want to push this.
I have a 60x. I see things I can't see without it. If I would have a let say 600x, surely I would see other things. It's up to you on what you want to see. I think that 60x is enough for me and I'm happy looking at my edge with that.
I have a 60x. I see things I can't see without it. If I would have a let say 600x, surely I would see other things. It's up to you on what you want to see. I think that 60x is enough for me and I'm happy looking at my edge with that.
I agree with this. I have a Bausch & Lomb (Hastings) 10x that is great. I also have the Radio Slop 100x (***). I recently got one of these cheap-o USB microscopes (up to ~230x) that produces dang good images - at least good enough for me to see details of bevel topography, scratch pattern, and edge minutiae that I couldn't see otherwise. It's all relative...
If all you're interested in doing is seeing that which will affect your shave a quality 10x is all you need. Most of theses 200x types have very poor resolution and you really can't see much anyway and really don't need to.
This is a good discussion of the pros and cons. This question is a lot like a beginning audiophile saying "I want to buy a stereo, how many watts should I get? Should I get the expensive 50 watt one down the street or the Acme special at Wally world that has 500 watts per channel". There is a trade off between resolution, magnification, working distance, depth of field, brightness, and cost and you can't have them all at once. As the old hot rod shop sign used to say "speed is expensive, how fast do you want to go?"
I have a USB microscope and it is fun to sit with the kids and watch pond scum writhing around on a slide but the image is, in a word, fuzzy. It is true though that a hand lens has a short focus distance, you will have to hold the blade a half inch from the lens and your eye close to the lens. For me that is an advantage, I can brace the hand holding the lens against the hand holding the blade and against my cheek and hold the whole thing steady. I can scan the whole edge by sliding the lens along it quickly, focussing in and out quickly as I scan.
I would never want a clumsy light attached to the lens. As other threads have pointed out, the image you see is largely dependent upon the intensity and angle of the light. With my hand lens I can stand in front of the high intensity light on the range hood in my kitchen and with slight rotation of my fingers look at a sharp image of the edge in profile, look at the scratch pattern on the bevel with oblique lighting and look at the mirror reflection of the bevel with a slightly different angle. 10x is not quite as high mag as I would like, I'd recommend 20x for routine work. The Hastings triplet uses multiple lenses to correct for distortion and will be a more expensive, but sharper option.
A good dissecting scope is great, but expensive for good quality and slow to used compared with a hand lens. I don't see a stereo image as hugely important for looking at an essentially flat object, but it doesn't hurt. You could get a decent used one for a few hundred dollars, but would it really be worth it? I only have one because I am a biologist and I wanted to show my kids cool stuff under rocks and logs. We've had fun with it, and looking at the tiny world beneath our feet is a rewarding experience, so if you think you'd use the scope for entertainment along with honing it might be worth buying.
A good light source for a dissecting scope is essential, and that will cost a bit of change. I am using some high intensity LED lights I made for a caving trip that allow me flexible orientation, but that took some time to build. At work we have fiber optic, goose neck lights that allow multiple lighting from any angle you want, but I couldn't begin to buy something like that for personal use. There must be something out there on Ebay or a used optic shop that would do, but it has to be pretty bright.
The magnification of x30 I have found fine.
I can't speak for loops but for hand held microscopes the light is a real problem, the Natural history Museum one (UK only I guess?) I have found to perform far better compared to a Carson one just because of the light.
I can't speak for loops but for hand held microscopes the light is a real problem, the Natural history Museum one (UK only I guess?) I have found to perform far better compared to a Carson one just because of the light.
+1
I have a 10X and a 30X jeweler's loupe. I use these to check the edge during honing
I also have a 400X Veho USB scope that I use to check the scratches of my bevels. This was used to see what different stones do to the bevel.
For edge assessment, a 10-30X should be enough.
All of this talk got me thinking, so I just bought my first loupe -- a 10x "Belomo", which seems to get pretty nice reviews.
One question about magnification. Just about every seller offering these loupes says that, unless you absolutely, positively know in advance that you need a higher magnification, get the 10x. They seem to say, using different words, that a 20x is pretty dang hard to use because (1) the depth of field is so limited and (2) the focal plane is so close to the lens that you have to hold everything within fractions of an inch from your eye. (They also seem to say that 30x is just too much magnification for any handheld loupe, but let's not get complicated about this!)
So why do so many here recommend 20x or 30x, just out of curiousity? If you are using a 20x, did you start with the 10x and find that it just didn't provide enough magnification? Did you find that you needed any special skill or practice to use the 20x. Personally, I find honing to be difficult enough, so if using a 10x is easier than a 20x, I don't see much down side. Thanks!
One question about magnification. Just about every seller offering these loupes says that, unless you absolutely, positively know in advance that you need a higher magnification, get the 10x. They seem to say, using different words, that a 20x is pretty dang hard to use because (1) the depth of field is so limited and (2) the focal plane is so close to the lens that you have to hold everything within fractions of an inch from your eye. (They also seem to say that 30x is just too much magnification for any handheld loupe, but let's not get complicated about this!)
So why do so many here recommend 20x or 30x, just out of curiousity? If you are using a 20x, did you start with the 10x and find that it just didn't provide enough magnification? Did you find that you needed any special skill or practice to use the 20x. Personally, I find honing to be difficult enough, so if using a 10x is easier than a 20x, I don't see much down side. Thanks!
Good points, so I'll clarify.
If you're patient there are some good deals. People often buy a cheap Indian scope for maybe $130-200us, get bored, and sell it for half on ebay. I bought a cheap stereo scope NIB for $48us shipped that came with a usable stand and both top and bottom lights. It's sufficient for honing, but has aberrations that distort the image. I also bought a Meiji (excellent quality) fixed turret scope for $140us shipped with a boom stand and a gooseneck light that's worth that by itself. You do need to figure out your needs and match with the limitations first. For general use, you might end up spending a lot more. I've sunk about $2500 into a Meiji zoom scope and additional parts, and would happily spend more for additional lighting options. Yes, it's a lot better than the others, but you can get a lot for $50-100us if you're patient and know what you need.
The rest of my post is directed at ease of viewing. The key point for comfort is more to do with using both eyes than having a stereo image, although distortion is important, too. That's why I prefer the combination of desktop magnifier or flip down visor along with a stereo scope over a loupe. Certainly slower than a loupe, and probably a lower quality image, but the image should still be workable. Time isn't an issue for me, so these are viable alternatives or additions to a loupe.
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