Re: Purchasing a student microscope

Sorry about the delay in replying - my hard drive crashed, and "it's been utter chaos down here" (apologies to Mel Brooks). Now all that's left of the old system is the case & the floppy drive (sigh).

There isn't much to comment on my stereoscopes. Most of them came from an auction at the QC Lab of a spark-plug plant where my son was working as an intern (he was a ceramics engineering major at the time). I bid on every one, hoping to get at least one winning bid; I got the entire lot for cheap. (Apparently there is little interest in microscopes in the Deep South; the granite surface plates went for big bucks.) Most were pretty old AO/Spencer era fixed 10x. A few of those had been removed from their bases and remounted on purpose-built bases. There were 2 of the B&L Stereozoom 3 - I sold the prettier one to a local geology museum. I have a very nice Nikon 10x, and an older AO zoom as well.

I prefer the zoom scopes, as they are more versatile. The B&L are a better fit, so I prefer them over the AO, although I do like the zoom control on the side (a la the AO), rather than on the top. I believe that Leica bought the B&L design later on. I carry mine around to various micromounting events, and while I take pretty good care of it, it does get its share of bumps (and I bet it got worse treatment in its previous incarnation), yet the alignment hasn't suffered. Ruggedness is a very desirable trait in something that will travel to the field frequently.

I commented (rather redundantly) on the slides in a separate post.

Joe

Too_Many_Tools wrote:


If you don't listing them, I would be interested in what stereoscopes
you have and what you like/dislike about them.

Also what do you recommend for someone who wants to buy prepared slide
mounts that are of good quality?

Thanks

TMT

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