Leica Biosystems SP9000 - Manual (Page 21)

21 Leica SP 9000 – Automatic knife sharpener
Abb. 21.1 Abb. 21.2
7. Redressing hone glass plates
In order to eliminate excessive redressing time on the hone plates, it is sug-
gested that users accumulate no more than three or four hours sharpening
time on any plate surface.
The honing action of the knife against the frosted surface of the glass plate
will eventually cause a ,shiny” path to be worn on the face of the plates as
wide as the length of the knife. The number of hours before the appearance
of a shiny area depends upon the type of abrasive most frequently used.
When such a shiny surface exists, time required for proper honing increases
substantially. Coarse honing, in particular, becomes very time consuming.
Also, should one attempt to sharpen a knife that is longer than the worn part
of the plate, correct honing becomes impossible. The ends of the longer knife
will ride high on microscopic shoulders (areas still frosted) and the centre
will not make proper contact on the shiny, worn area.
To economize time, most technicians wait until both glass hone plates re-
quire dressing. In addition, if desired, each side of the two plates can be
dressed during the same procedure thus restoring the frosted appearance
to all four identical plate surfaces.
1. Depress “OFF” button.
2. Remove knife holder from arm (Figure 14) and raise arm approximately
1-1/2". Turn the,Table” dial completely to the left to the ,Coarse/Glass Lap”
position.