Spencers Sledge microtomes are designed for cutting large blocks of paraffin and resin embedded material for light microscopy. The knife holding clamps allow the knife to be offset to the direction of cut, a major advantage when sectioning large, hard blocks.

The microtome, which is very heavy for stability and not usually subject to vibration, can also be used to cut materials from various industrial applications (wood, plastics, textile fibres) with a feed range of 0 – 20 microns.