Abstract:
Good anatomical sections can only be obtained with a perfectly sharp knife. Permanent steel microtome knives are present in numerous plant anatomy labs and they yield excellent results, with the only caveat that they need to be resharpened after use. Automatic knife sharpeners have been especially designed for this purpose, but they require abrasives in their use, which may be expensive and hard to obtain. Here we describe and illustrate in detail an inexpensive, fast, widely accessible technique to sharpen permanent microtome knives using different sandpaper grits. Knives sharpened with this technique have already been in use for over a decade and are suitable for all types of botanical specimens both embedded and unembedded.
Reference:
BARBOSA, Antonio Carlos Franco; COSTA, Gisele R.O.; ANGYALOSSY, Veronica; SANTOS, Tássia C. dos; PACE, Marcelo R. A simple and inexpensive method for sharpening permanent steel knives sandpaper. IAWA Journal, v.39 n.4, p.497-503, 2018.
Access to the Abstract of the article in the newspaper site:
https://brill.com/view/journals/iawa/39/4/article-p497_9.xml#d191216e399
Good anatomical sections can only be obtained with a perfectly sharp knife. Permanent steel microtome knives are present in numerous plant anatomy labs and they yield excellent results, with the only caveat that they need to be resharpened after use. Automatic knife sharpeners have been especially designed for this purpose, but they require abrasives in their use, which may be expensive and hard to obtain. Here we describe and illustrate in detail an inexpensive, fast, widely accessible technique to sharpen permanent microtome knives using different sandpaper grits. Knives sharpened with this technique have already been in use for over a decade and are suitable for all types of botanical specimens both embedded and unembedded.
Reference:
BARBOSA, Antonio Carlos Franco; COSTA, Gisele R.O.; ANGYALOSSY, Veronica; SANTOS, Tássia C. dos; PACE, Marcelo R. A simple and inexpensive method for sharpening permanent steel knives sandpaper. IAWA Journal, v.39 n.4, p.497-503, 2018.
Access to the Abstract of the article in the newspaper site:
https://brill.com/view/journals/iawa/39/4/article-p497_9.xml#d191216e399
