A simple and inexpensive method for sharpening permanent steel knives with sandpaper

Abstract

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 re-sharpened 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.