Science Baby!

I went out yesterday with the kids and bought a microscope.

The one we chose was the illuminated pocket microscope with magnification from 60X to 100X. It runs on 2 AAA batteries which power a small LED.

I got it to inspect my edges but the kids have already found it highly entertaining for everything from looking at the surface of my leather strop to the skin of an orange to the structure of a leaf. Imagine the shrieks when we catch our first bug!

For $12 US, it's a little fidgety but getting the controls sorted out was pretty easy and now I have it set up where I can just set it down on a blade, move the viewfinder toward the cutting edge, and see what I'm doing right and wrong.

I have been trying to sharpen a Sebenza for months (on and off) and never really got it where I was happy with it but couldn't figure out what I was doing wrong. After a quick inspection this morning, I could see the ragged edge and made a few minor adjustments to my technique, a quick strop, and BOOM! now it's sharp--scary sharp.

I couldn't make out the difference in the quality of the edge at 20X with a loupe and the extra light really showed off the ridges still present in the surface of the steel.

Now the edge feels as sharp as I'd expect S30V to feel and it is sharp finally. Now let's see if it'll hold up as well as my Spyderco Paramilitary (also S30V) has.

Thanks for reading,


B