Metallurgists Ted Clarke shows how he converted an inexpensive student microscope into a fully functional polarized light universal microscope. It also covers a number of other projects that show a microscope is just a bunch of parts waiting to be assembled. Included are a Koehler lighting system and a darkfield condenser that projects a dark stop larger than 1.0 N.A. Links or copies of most of Ted's publications are available as well.6-30-2003

Nikon CoolPix Cable release bracket that uses a standard cable release and flash bracket. David Coles has a great project here. One I wish I had thought of.For high magnification work on microscopes at long exposures epoxying a brace to square the box should make the bracket less prone to vibration problems. Not something he was concerned about.- Gordon

Electronic Flash as a Light Source for Photography through the Microscope This page not only shows how to build an electronic flash but is a gold mine of information on micro photography. I have written the person hosting the page for his name so I can give him the credit he deserves.

John Moran shows how to build a jig to sharpen microtome knives and plans to build a slide ringer on his Balplan Microscope site. He also has an  excellent piece on maintenance and cleaning microscopes.

I stumbled into a work in by CORD (Supporting the Development of Photonics Technicians in U.S. Community and Technical Colleges). I has many broken links but this page seems to access all they information just open the directories and click on the html files. It has some very intersting information on xenon arc lamp power supplies, lasers and such. Happy hunting.10/14/02

A search on http://www.biotech.ufl.edu that brought up a method of making Ralph knifes from glass slides. Search for Ralph knife.10/14/02

Cheap Home-Made Glovebox, by Jeff T. Suri Journal of Chemical Education Vol. 78(11), 1513 (2001). 10/14/02

Brian Ford's page on building van Leeuwenhoek's microscope and single lens microscopes in general.