Thread: Close Look

I use a 5 diopter flourescent illuminated big clamp to the bench magnifier - use it for scroll sawing too.

Getting old - going blind - happily married so it's the old age doing it too K

I use a head mounter magnifier ($15 from McJing) which has 4 different magnifications available, but If I want to get serious I use a X40 stereo microscope at work.

I have a 30x loupe which I use to check the plane irons, but its uncomfortable to use, its sort of in your eye and the irons about an inch from your nose. Very high magnification tho, you see lots of things you dodn't want to see. For most stuff I have a 4 x magnifying glass. Much easier to use and kinder to the ego.

Well, I'll be the first to admit I never thought of inspecting my edge tools with anything--so I don't.

I did help write an yet unpublished article [well, not even really finished] concerning the formation of wear bevels as pertains to low angle to high angle planes and the other person used an electronic microsope to take pictures of edges.

But beyond that endeavor? Never have and probably never will. At least as far as planes and chisels and such types of edge tools. I'm getting a wee bit old for filing small saw teeth...

Take care, Mike

I use a geologists' hand lens. Has two lenses which can be used individually or together. Mine's about 25mm dia, which is better than most of those available now - about half that size.

I paid about $100 and bought myself a pair of glasses that I could use for REALLY close work. With these glasses on I can put the item that I want to examine about 2 inches from my face and get a really good, optically correct, view of the object I am examining.
I actually bought these so that I could find cracks in circuit board tracks. ( Works great for that too).
My wife tried mine and (because our eyes are very similar) was amazed at the detail she could see; so she went out out and bought herself a pair for her own eyes. We both use our magnifying glasses all the time.

I inspect my edge tools with shavings. If it's producing a nice clean shaving easily it's sharp. If it's not, it gets sharpened.