Thin Slicer, cannot cut tomatoes/skin

To cut a tomato, you either need a “toothy” edge or high performance edge – done right. A less than perfect coarse edge will cut, but a less than perfect small, highly polished edge will skate off the tomato skin. More than likely, its' dull, rounded, or not apexed (nice term). A jewelry loupe, magnifier glass helps a lot.
 
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On a soft French stainless I had this same problem. Please note that traditional European sharpening used to be done on SiC stones with a lot of pressure and deburring with a grooved steel. Not exactly what we would call a fine edge.
My solution was to use coarse P120 sandpaper, deburr on felt and strop on a J800 stone. Done in a few minutes.
And, just for the record: make sure the very edge can be taken by the steel. You may thin as much as you want, but with a soft steel, a very edge with an angle under 15 degree per side just won't work. Do me a favour and don't ask how I know...
 
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Used the mediums until they needed cleaning. Little improvement, snags the odd hair as before. These stones left the edge with more bite, it still feels smooth though. I found out im sharpening at just under 20 degrees. Also, my Dovo razor push cut the cherry tomato frighteningly easily.
 
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Rider675, Try a few swipes over a Norton Fine india stone, it will put micro serrations on the edge to give it some bite. John

i work in a kitchen and the diamond hone i use while working does exactly this. and i only need to re-hone for excessive veggy cutting. the skin on the tomato is strange, i have a military thats ridiculously sharp, it will make the hair jump off your arm but i need to saw the tomato to get through the skin. but the micro chipping that occurs with the hone i use makes the chef knife i use turn into a laser beam....yet after a quick hone job it won't cut the hair on my arm.


so don't worry about the tomato skin
 
Im just trying to get it sharp really (for me), the tomato thing is an example as my other knives have no problem with them.
 
Rider:

I'm going to guess that you aren't familiar with how to check for a burr and how it relates to sharpening. If you're going to be successful at sharpening, it's a concept you will have to master. This is an excellent tutorial covering all the basics of sharpening. It's long, but fairly complete. If you skip to Section Four: Sharpening Basics, you'll find a decent explanation of the burr and how to detect it.

You should *really* try using a sharpie on your edge. It's one of the most revealing techniques I know. Color the edge bevel of your blade on both sides with a colored marker. Then do some strokes on the sharpmaker. After a half dozen strokes, look at the edge bevel. Marker will be removed where the stone hits the blade. If it's not going all the way down to the edge, that would explain your lack of sharpness.

I suspect you'll see marker removed at the shoulder and close to the edge, but not all the way down. Try it and see for yourself!

Report back your findings here and we'll try to help you get that edge sharp once and for all.

Brian.
 
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