The honing, polishing, and sharpening of cutting tool edges is most commonly referred to as "edge prep." It is a process that is utilized in those industries that rely on the cutting abilities of their tools, specifically where making the most precise cuts possible is concerned. For instance, precision cutting and edge prep go hand in hand in metal fabrication businesses. Most importantly, a company’s levels of productivity and profitability relies on the edge prep process for honing and sharpening the edges of their cutting tools.

As simple as it may sound, individuals who carve wood for a living are well aware of the importance of edge prep and how their livelihood relies on the sharpness of their carving tools. The tiniest of burrs on a cutting blade or tool edge can cause considerable damage to the piece that is being carved, especially when there is a great deal of detail involved. In most cases, business owners have invested in an edge prep system to ensure that their tools are properly maintained and so productivity and profitability do not decrease.

Furthermore, your overhead is positively impacted because regular edge prep enables you to use your tools longer without having to go to the expense of repairing or replacing them. However, the importance of having this type of system in-house can best be summed up by simply saying that precision matters. The better systems were designed and developed to correct imperfections in the surface of a cutting tool’s edge which could result in irreparable damage to a project.

Then there was also the issue of the one-size-fits-all approach to honing and sharpening not being effective enough and very time-consuming. Additionally, business owners in the past had to rely on in-house edge prep methods that were out of date and extremely costly or they had to pay for an edge preparation service to hone and sharpen their tools. This resulted in excessive downtime and lowered productivity levels which in turn meant a decrease in company profitability.

In closing, the newer devices, such as the MET-1 or MET-2 Universal Edge Prep Systems, are much more cost-effective because they eliminate downtime and reduce company overhead by not having to repair or replace the tools they rely on. Finally, the company that developed these systems knew that the businesses that invested in them relied on absolute precision where the use of their cutting tools and their profitability was concerned.