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Meet the Couple Photos: Elements of Our Wedding: Outline Logistics: Registry |
Analysis of Six Layer Billet It is very important to inspect your mokume billet at this step, while the sides are very smooth. Every bit of surface on the sides must be checked over for evidence of cracks. Inspect your billet in a microscope, or with a loupe or magnifying glass if you can't use a microscope. I used our lab's fancy Zeiss metallograph at 50x:   Cracks in mokume billets can sometimes be
too small for the naked eye to see. Remember that cracks are stress concentrators, and the finer the
crack, the more stress it generates. In fact, an "infinitely thin" crack (realistically 1 atom wide)
would generate an immense amount of stress! You have to make sure that you can't see any cracks in the
sides even under magnification before proceeding. If you find any, keep grinding them away until they
are gone.
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