Guess what Santa brought me?

Kevin R. Cashen

Super Moderator
Here is a picture of the jolly guy himself with his familiar (at least to knifemakers) sleigh in front of my garage ready to unload my new way too cool toy!
sem1.jpg
 
A heat treating oven of sorts?
I actually wouldn't mind one of those Vans to run a mobile knife making and sharpening service out of ether.
 
Spectrometer? Chromatograph? Early Keurig machine?
Ooh, close, (except for the Keurig, I am a serious tea snob and have almost gagged on what can come out of those things), but you are obviously thinking about my mindset. In the picture that is the Baron himself, Aldo, delivering my SEM (Scanning Electron Microscope). I will no longer be limited to mere light microscopy! With my current metallograph I can get up to around 1,100X this thing has a range from 30X to 200,000X :biggrin:. How many guys get a toy for Christmas that has an electron gun which produces a beam for scanning the surface of samples, and can also detect the back scatter emissions, electrons X-rays etc... to glean even more info. The weak link is the knowledge of the operator:31:.
 
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WOW!! I'm impressed - "weak link" my foot - won't be long before you will know ALL the in's 'n outs of that equip. Congrats

Ken H>
 
dang....your own electron microscope...Kevin, you win coolest tool of the week for sure..
I hope you can share some digital images when you get it all tuned in...
 
dang....your own electron microscope...Kevin, you win coolest tool of the week for sure..
I hope you can share some digital images when you get it all tuned in...

That is the nice part, since the metallography on the unit was via Polaroid pointed at the auxiliary CRT, all I have to do is set my digital in the space and start snapping photos. All my light microscopes involved some creation of adapters. Better yet it has the ability to do a slit screen for different mags and can transpose the magnification and micron scale onto the image with a press of a button.


Everything seems to be in working order, and along with the scope I also got a gold sputter deposition unit to prepare organic/non-conductive samples and a Robison (top of the line) backscatter detector, which opens up many more analysis possibilities to do more than just look at things really closely, (hint- carbon atoms give different intensity backscatter emissions than iron, or chrome etc…:biggrin:). I am reading and reading, but the good news is that there are wonderful resources online to learn electron microscopy, including one that offers a simulator so you can learn how not to blow filaments during voltage saturation without using any of your actual electron gun filaments!
 
Wow Kevin, i'll go on the internet searching for pictures while i'm dying to see yours!!
Merry Christmas!! :)

Stefano
 
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