Whoops, long time since an update, and a lot has happened in the last 14 months, so this will be broken up in to multiple posts for everyones (including mine) sanity.
Microscope
Microscope
I succeeded in procuring my toolmakers microscope, with it arriving shortly before Christmas 2009, the only issues I have with it after a number of uses, are that it measures in imperial increments, so conversion to metric is needed, and due to the number of measurements needed, the opportunity for errors is increased, also it has only the one set of optics, and the magnification is possibly a little excessive.
View of a Jewel through the Microscope
The scale in the picture is one graduation equals approximately 1/100 of a mm
Tom's Watchmaking Blog 