Under the microscope

[cubsfan1969]

Hey Clip, didn't see this thred until now. Here's my setup:



I'm limited to 10x, 60x, and 200x. I also wish I could adjust the light, but it is a kids toy. I have a sweet scope, well I should say a family member does, an they won't let me touch it (for now)

[Donut]

Awesome, thank you. :)

[Clip]

You guys are definately getting obsessive with this edge thing. I think it's crazy.

I read this and was going to say, "Isn't that the pot calling the kettle black" after reading about your adventures with Nano-oil, then I read further and understood :)

Cubsfan, if it works it works!

Lag, looks like it'll be beneficial to put that scale bar in microns from now on. I'll see if there's a setting where I can put the popular measurements you listed, but I think I can only do one defined length.

I spent some serious time last night sharpening the M4 Manix from the coarse Lansky diamond to the green strop. This is the sharpest I've gotten my knife yet, should be very interesting to compare to the factory grind. I'll try to get pictures this afternoon, then cut up some cardboard lying around the house tonight.

[Clip]

Got the micros of the edge after fully sharpening the Manix2.

M4 - FFG, Lansky full diamond set, stropped with black and green compounds after. Sharpened to Lansky's 17° on the logo side and 20° on the origin side. Looks like the edge is definitely smoother than factory.

First, a macro to show the visible edge, slightly matte. Need to make a soft box in the near future. You can see at the left side the grind got noticeably steeper and I didn't care to reprofile all the way, but the edge is sharp.



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[jackknifeh]

Got the micros of the edge after fully sharpening the Manix2.

M4 - FFG, Lansky full diamond set, stropped with black and green compounds after. Sharpened to Lansky's 17° on the logo side and 20° on the origin side. Looks like the edge is definitely smoother than factory.

First, a macro to show the visible edge, slightly matte. Need to make a soft box in the near future. You can see at the left side the grind got noticeably steeper and I didn't care to reprofile all the way, but the edge is sharp.



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Great pictures. Thanks to you and others I now know how ugly my beatiful edges really are. :)

I haven't read every post so maybe I missed the reason but why did you put different angles on opposite sides of the blade?

Jack

[Clip]

These were the closest to the factory angles on both the 154CM and the M4 Manix2s. After a year of carrying it with the factory angles, I completely reprofiled the origin side of the 154CM Manix2 so it would be (Lansky) 17° both sides. I'll probably do the same with the M4 after a while, but it definitely takes longer to shape.

[jackknifeh]

These were the closest to the factory angles on both the 154CM and the M4 Manix2s. After a year of carrying it with the factory angles, I completely reprofiled the origin side of the 154CM Manix2 so it would be (Lansky) 17° both sides. I'll probably do the same with the M4 after a while, but it definitely takes longer to shape.

M4 will take a little longer. I love that steel. The reason the angles are not the same on the factory edge is the knives are hand held against a grinding wheel or belt. Maybe not at all factories but one video I saw they used a grinding wheel. Due to human error the angles are a little different once in a while. Doesn't take away from being very sharp though. :)

Jack

[Clip]

I'm definitely not knocking Spyderco's ability to put an edge on a blade. Can't expect something done by hand to be exact on both sides! I don't notice the few degrees difference and there's always a possibility that a little more steel provides (probably negligible) strength.

[Clip]

Taking some more time to compare the M4's factory edge and my edge at 200x, it definitely looks like my coarse stone took all of the factory grind lines out and left some nice deep ones of my own. Next time I'll try and spend a lot more time than the recommended 6-10 passes with the medium and light diamond stones. Also, I'd guess that the lines at ~120° CCW are from the black stropping compound. A compound between the black/green might pull those out a little better.

Factory



Lansky

[Lagrangian]

Hi Clip! Thanks for the micron length-scales! :)

[dbcad]

Fantastic pictures Clip! There's much to learn about edges from your efforts! Much appreciation from all is obviously felt :)

Reading through this thread has encouraged me to go even futher into "the dark side" than the edge of it I've scratched so far. Time to get another piece of leather and a finer grit paste than the 2um I'm currently using.

Keep up the good work :D !!!

[Lagrangian]

Hi Clip,

There was a discussion about ceramics and abrasives in general in the WEPS forums, and I was thinking,"Hmm.... it is difficult to get good pictures of what the surface of a ceramic stone looks like, because they are rough and it is hard to focus on their surfaces..." Then I though,"Oh yeah, Clip!"

So if you have a chance, maybe you could use your microscope to take pictures of ceramic, diamond, and SiC stones? And with a micron length scale, plus Komitadjie's Grand Unified Grit Chart, it would be quite interesting!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

[jackknifeh]

Hi Clip,

There was a discussion about ceramics and abrasives in general in the WEPS forums, and I was thinking,"Hmm.... it is difficult to get good pictures of what the surface of a ceramic stone looks like, because they are rough and it is hard to focus on their surfaces..." Then I though,"Oh yeah, Clip!"

So if you have a chance, maybe you could use your microscope to take pictures of ceramic, diamond, and SiC stones? And with a micron length scale, plus Komitadjie's Grand Unified Grit Chart, it would be quite interesting!

Sincerely,
--Lagrangian

I'm interested in this also. I've been using ceramic stones (Spyderco of course :) ) for a while now.

In addition to stones I'd like to see pictures of ceramic knife edges. I ordered the Ceramic knife/peeler from my TV. My TV sure is greedy. :) They came and the knife was VERY dull. I was surprised because my TV said they were sharp. I used diamond stones and got it sharper but you talk about time consuming.

So, Clip, I'm sure you won't mind quitting your job and never spending time with your family so you can take pictures for us. :D I was just wondering what ceramic blade edges look like under high magnification. If you don't have any ceramic knives I bet your TV sells them. :D Seriously, I'm sure everyone appreciates the time you spend providing the pictures. I know I do.

Jack

[Clip]

You guys are in for a treat tonight! I've got pictures of the ZDP Caly 3 (without microbevel I'm about to add to it), a quarter (!), and my Lansky stones (very interesting).

It'll take me a little bit and several posts to put them all together, but I think the pictures are worth it.

A note about the ceramic materials and SiC stones, as well as the Lansky black hard Arkansas stone I'll be putting up tonight. The pictures will still be viewable, but won't be as sharp and bright as metallic/reflective materials.

[Clip]

First up: quarter.

I figured I'd throw this up there with a micron scale to give a better sense of what we're looking at. Maybe you all have eyes that are better calibrated than mine, but this helps me visualize some of the measurements better!

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63x - 'D' next to scale bar



63x - 'R' next to scale bar, also measured (I've got this ability and lots of others I'm playing with)



50x - 'P' Philadelphia mint



100x - 'P'



50x - artist initials (Washington state quarter)



100x - artist initials

[Clip]

Quarter continued:


200x - artist initials

[Clip]

Onto something more interesting! This one I'm excited about because I could see evidence of chipping on the edge, and also thought to use the measurement tool to get values for the chips and also the scratch patterns.

ZDP Caly3, sharpened at the 17° setting with Lansky diamond stones.

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1000x - annotated

[Clip]

Now with micro bevel!

Caly3, ZDP, 17° setting primary bevel with 25° setting micro bevel. Tonight I dropped this down to the 20° setting for kicks. I couldn't get pictures at 500x and 1000x because of the knife's orientation for light to catch the micro bevel. Hopefully I remedied some of the chipping seen earlier as I worked the micro bevel with an extremely light touch.

The black marks are leftover marker from where I was looking at the bevel without magnification.

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[xceptnl]

Chris, that last photo gives some great perspective. Thanks for all your time. This has continued to evolve into a great thread!

[Clip]

Next up, the series on Lansky stones. I didn't quite know what I was looking at here, so I blundered through it until I found what I'm guessing is a diamond particle. This led me to assume that the diamond particles are embedded in a soft metal matrix that wears away to continually expose diamond.

Here's the coarse stone. I took pictures all the way to 1000x before I realized that the little bit of reddish light must be reflecting back from a diamond, so the last picture is a detail.

The details of these stones aren't as clear as I'd like, but I think they get better as I get to the finer grits.

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50x - unused portion at the end of the stone where the blade doesn't hit (guessing the metal matrix is covering the diamond here)



100x - a good deal of red light here



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200x - here's what caught my eye and what I'm guessing is a diamond particle half covered by the matrix, also a bluish green reflection could be a particle in another orientation