I’ve been trying (since shortly after Michael’s death) to get my supplier to provide a good photo (or ANY photo!) through the new scope — unsuccessfully. I have managed to take a ‘decent-enough’ photo through the reticle. If you’d like a higher-resolution version of this photo, please let me know.

A week or so ago, I met for a couple of hours with a microscopy expert and he is helping me find a company that will manufacture microscopes to my specifications. I’m hoping to go back to a scope as close as possible to the ones we used a few years ago, which were of higher quality and had finer/better reticles. (Remember these?)

That means (if I can find a good-and-affordable mfg, which this expert thinks I can) that Micro-Metrics will be going back to using the metric-only-marked reticles (i.e., 20-microns between hashmarks) for customers who want them and English-marked reticles (at 0.1-mil per hashmark) for the others. It is my plan, depending on how much the new scopes turn out to cost, to offer a reduced price to the folks who’ve bought the current “universal” scopes, for them to send their gauges in and have the universal scopes swapped out for the new scopes. (And yes, that’s a staggeringly huge job (which I will have to schedule so as not to be swamped by several hundred gauges at once!) — but I very much want to get the so-called “50-micron / universal” scopes out of circulation!)

I am also hoping to be able to have made scopes with a 75X magnification and hashmarks at 0.0005″ (for customers who may desire that fineness) — however I will not be able, at this point, to consider making those scopes in a metric version. (Design and set-up charges, ordering quantities, and pricing, you know?) I do not know if the finer-measuring English version would be desired in Europe (and other metric locales), but an English-version at this level is a possible next step after (or perhaps while) replacing the “universal” scopes.)

I welcome comments and suggestions and information about your microscope needs. I know getting to the ‘old-scope versions’ back in place will go a pretty good way to making Tooke Gauges more useful. But I want to make Micro-Metrics responsive to customer needs.