Craftsmanship in Wood

Have any of you used the Peak pocket microscopes?

I'm looking at them and wondering what they best magnification and range of view might be for chisels/plane blades in practical use.

I dont think I need a stand up microscope, so I'm thinking that the 'wide view' ones might be nice. I have used a jewelers loupe on occasion but find them annoying to use.

Thanks gents.

i have the Peak 200x with clear stand. It seems like a good product - no complaints.

That one is looking pretty sweet. Do you have the pen light attached as well?

Yes, it has the pen light.

if you want to examine plane blades, you will need to build a small stand to mount the blade, and which will allow the microscope to travel on top, as close as possible to the viewing surface, without deforming the stand. I made one from wood and aluminum.

~C

Thanks Chris, if you don't mind my asking, did you setup the jig so that the microscope rides flat on the bevel or so that the bevel is angled away from the blade?

Can you also view the back of the blade under the scope with this jig?

I feel that I don't always fully remove the wear bevel on whrn refreshing on a finish stone, Do you find this setup useful for ensuring the wear bevel is fully removed?

Edited; my post rambled on a bit.

Yes, your experience is familiar to me as well.

In recent months I've gone to a coarser initial stone when I resharpen a tool - #600 - and work the bevel on it a little longer to create a larger wire edge, maybe removing the wire edge along the way on a finish stone so as to keep it a manageable size.

A worn edge is jagged after working on the wood and some of the 'jags' travel further up the bevel than others. You can work the bevel on a coarse stone and produce a wire edge, which will seem continuous but really isn't, without fully taking off the worst of the jags, and after polishing the blade out you are likely to end up with a mostly sharp edge with little chips out of it, the remaining bits of a jagged edge. So you want to be thorough in producing that initial wire edge.

I have a microscope stand which holds the blade slightly angled away from the lens. I'm not entirely convinced it is the right way to do it, but it was the design Kunimoto-san shared with me.

Ahh, I'm probably doing myself a disservice by simply refreshing on a finish stone after heavier work.

I'm noticing that when I view the back it will reflect partially and I presume that to be persistent minor damage, it takes some decent time on a finish stone to remove this and as you mention it probably is not fully removed even when I think it is.

I may have to alter my approach so that when the chisel can no longer be restored by stropping I should return to a full re sharpening rather than attempting to drag things out with a finish stone.

Thank you as always!

I recently got a second hand Olympus metallurgical microscope, it was a bargain and the image quality is amazing. I also need to make a stand for it to angle the blade in relation to the lens. I was considering the Peak before I found this one though.
Chris could you share a picture of your stand? I have been considering different setups and yours might inspire me to build something decent.

For clarity sake, a metallurgical microscope has a strong light source which is projected through the lens. This is an ideal solution to illuminate objects that are not transparent. I would have never thought to find one that was affordable but got lucky. You might want to keep your eyes open or look online. Here they are rather hard to find but maybe this is easier in the US.

I have couple of pictures of the stand I made which should give you the general idea:
There's a platform at each side, one for holding the blade so as to examine the bevel, and one for looking at the ura.

Thank you for posting those pictures that is helpful.

At first I was considering a usb microscope since it easy to take pictures. But I have recently learned that with the help of a very simple piece of adjustable tube which you slide over the eyepiece, you can use a digital camera to take picture of the enlarged object.
I use two pieces of pipe the smallest wrapped with tape so the larger one fits over it snugly. Slide the tube over the eyepiece and insert the lens of your camera at the other side. Adjust the total length, in my case the distance of the camera lens to the eyepiece is about 20mm. Focus the digital camera and snap the shot. I imagine that this will work with the Peak microscope as well. (Or any other microscope you guys are using.)