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After reading the discussion here at Microscope yahoo group, I decided to give it a try to the stop filter, and do one myself.

First, a preview of the final results (taken through the eyepiece, with my digital camera):



This ciliate was black/white for me until today!

And that was the process of making the darkstop made of some kind of prototyping plastic (tomorrow I can tell you exactly which kind)

Measure of the filter holder size of my microscope(32.2mm) and drawing with the compasses


Getting a cutter


Cutting the outer circle


Carving with a "multi tool", that will make a lot of dust, so be careful.


Result of carving


Cleaning of the surface


Drawing with a black permanent marker. (I tried without that, but what I got it was a gray background instead of black one)

VERY NICE documentation of a real money saving technique!

Ajo,
Was looking to see what I owed and reviewed your Darkfield stop filter.
Looks good. A hint: I bought a $9 compass with a knife attached which allows me to mark and cut simultaneously. Worked cool when making color filters from colored plastic sheets. Also, consider using thread glued in a cross pattern on the center circle and a drop of glue on the thread on the outer circle to hold it in place.

Hmm, that compass sounds like a nice investment for making filters.

I don't understand the idea of the thread glued in a cross pattern. What do you mean? :-)

nice job
I have made it in a bit different (faster) way, using 1 grosz (the smallest polish coin):








and the effect:


Art.

ArtX,
WOW! Impressive and like your setup.
GEO1

thanks

Art.

Ajo, sorry for this long delayed response! By crossing threads and gluing the ends over the opening in the filter this permits laying varying sized discs in the opening analogous to what you did by leaving the 4 "legs" of cardboard in your fine example but allows for changing the size of the center disc.

I too am using a compass and experimenting with condenser diameter. Debris everywhere.







and the effect:


Art.[/quote]

Nice shoot!!

I used that trick sometimes too, it's faster , and works quite well, unless the coin moves