The folks at Microplane came out with their first woodworking tool, a hand-held rasp, in 1990. The cutting edges are chemically etched in the hardened steel, not punched, a process the manufacturer says makes the edges sharper. Since then they’ve offered cutting blades for handplanes, hacksaws, and drills.

Recently, they introduced a new product: stainless-steel sandpaper, available for 5-in. random-orbit sanders or -sheet finishing sanders.

I tested a medium-grit disk with a hook-and-loop backing on a random-orbit sander, and it cut hardwood more aggressively, but conventional 100-grit aluminum-oxide sandpaper left a smoother surface.

The disks come in three abrasives: coarse (40-60 grit), medium (100-120 grit), and fine (180-200 grit). The manufacturer claims one disk will last as long as 30 sheets of regular sandpaper.

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