I know this will not be the same kind of tools that we discuss in this sub-forum, but these are tools that I work with at my shop. Last weekend I hooked up my cargo trailer and set out for New York state to make a huge advance in the capabilities of my metallurgical lab. My current scanning electron microscope is admittedly older technology, otherwise a private citizen, and particularly a Bladesmith, could never afford to own one. My concern was always where I would get parts in the future. But since the day I got the machine my dream was to equip it with an EDS system that would allow microanalysis. Waiting for me in New York was another SEM that had an EDS system, so it didn’t take me but a second to be on the road.

For those who aren’t familiar with the technology I am talking about, obviously the SEM (scanning electron microscope) is one of the most powerful microscopes there is. Rather than magnifying and focusing light, it uses a beam of electrons that is controlled with electro-magnetic lenses, rather than glass, and scans incredibly small sections of a sample to produce an image that is on the order of thousands of times magnification. But in the process the sample being bombarded with electrons gives off energy as well. Some of this energy is X-radiation and as it turns out, each chemical element has its own unique x-ray scatter pattern, and this is where the EDS comes in.

EDS (energy dispersive spectrometry) reads the X-ray signatures and gives an indication of the elements being scanned by the electron beam. So, what this means is that while I am looking at a section of steel at 10,000X magnification and I see and interesting structure, that I am curious about, I can engage the EDS system and get a readout of certain elements that may be present. It is my way of getting around the fact that I could never afford to own a dedicated spectrometer and, in many ways, it is even cooler than that.

I will be months just figuring this stuff out, and it is a gamble as to if I ever will be able to Frankenstein it all together and make it work, but it is definitely worth it. But to add to the cool factor of my trip to NY, I arranged some time with more ancient swords, this time I was going real old and studying blades from the 4th century B.C. to the 4th Century A.D., some very similar to these in the British Museum:

What could be better than advancing my metallurgical studies beyond my wildest dreams AND expanding my intimate knowledge of ancient swords? That beats the heck out of Disneyland in my book!