Why *not* a six inch serrated tomato knife?

Richard338 said:
Don't overthink it. You enjoy making knives. If you have any urge to try it then do so. Worst case it doesn't work as well as you hoped. You will still learn something and improve your skills. I have made several serrated knives and they cut very well.
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I'm much less diplomatic- I'll tell you the only heretical thing is giving a shit what anyone thinks. Make what you want you don't need anyone's approval. If every innovator cared what the visionless masses thought about their ideas we wouldn't be having this conversation. Or any conversation. Take that to the bank!
 
Lol … richard, dimitar, weo, and lorien … thank you for your comments. I would only say… don’t take me too seriously. In a way I am just trolling the forum against what I think might be ingrained biases. That said, I am pleased that there were *not* a bunch (or even a few) people saying “are you crazy…”. 😊. Actually, I think a number of really good ideas and perspectives came out.

I think I find myself mostly thinking about *how* to cleanly make serrations (just because it would be interesting to try). as it seems this is just not common - so I will likely try it just to see if I can do it😊.

Re an earlier question : 6” or 8”? Not sure … where is the boundary between a serrated tomato knife, and a short bread knife? 😊
 
Went on a similar quest for making a dedicated tomato knife.
Started with thin stock aeb-l, 6" blade with a bit of rocker, full length serrations. The serrations predictably punctured the tomato skin for an efficient initiation of the cut. Continuing through the initial cut felt less effective with full serrations because I needed to keep sawing the blade or it would tend to crush cut (which i assume is due to the increased surface area of the serrations when compared to a clean edge).
The end of the cut required the same saw cut but now on my wood cutting board. Which caused unnecessary wear on both the board and the points of the serrations.
The knife worked but felt terrible in practical use. It shined in the initial puncturing of the skin.
The second Tomato knife I put serrations on the first 2 or 2 1/2" from the tip, the rest of the blade was ground down to zero-ish and then sharpened. Pure performance. Easy initiation, easy slicing and easy on the board and knife. One motion for one cut. Efficient. Tomato eviseraction achieved.
 
The idea of grinding said serations hurts my head, so I would probably try an aggressive toothy sharpen on one knife.

Kiwi guy on YouTube playing with polishing one side and keeping the other at a very low grit (400 ish iirc) that seemed to show promise for abrasive sive cutting tasks so could be worth a look
 
Is that the sound of the tomato knife police I hear?
 
Nick-D said:
The idea of grinding said serations hurts my head, so I would probably try an aggressive toothy sharpen on one knife.

Kiwi guy on YouTube playing with polishing one side and keeping the other at a very low grit (400 ish iirc) that seemed to show promise for abrasive sive cutting tasks so could be worth a look
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I agree - grinding serrations so they are uniform in depth, angle, and separation gives me pause. If that is not done, they will just look sloppy. That is why i am mulling over the idea of using the mini mill pre heat treat ... but then you have scale clean up to deal with. I guess one could use a carbide endmill on hardened steel ... but that would put side pressure on the mill and i would be concerned about snapping the thing...

Interesting thought about a really coarse edge ... what - 120 or even 60 grit?
 
Earthcrack.Knives said:
Went on a similar quest for making a dedicated tomato knife.
Started with thin stock aeb-l, 6" blade with a bit of rocker, full length serrations. The serrations predictably punctured the tomato skin for an efficient initiation of the cut. Continuing through the initial cut felt less effective with full serrations because I needed to keep sawing the blade or it would tend to crush cut (which i assume is due to the increased surface area of the serrations when compared to a clean edge).
The end of the cut required the same saw cut but now on my wood cutting board. Which caused unnecessary wear on both the board and the points of the serrations.
The knife worked but felt terrible in practical use. It shined in the initial puncturing of the skin.
The second Tomato knife I put serrations on the first 2 or 2 1/2" from the tip, the rest of the blade was ground down to zero-ish and then sharpened. Pure performance. Easy initiation, easy slicing and easy on the board and knife. One motion for one cut. Efficient. Tomato eviseraction achieved.
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Now that is an interesting idea. Im thinking it would be more functional though if the serrations were adjacent to the handle ... that way you could start the cut with the serrations, then finish it with a draw stroke towards you with the tip of the blade angled down and in contact with the board?
 
weo said:
How are your tomatoes?
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Mostly Romas, but the occasional large tomato (especially when the really good ones are in season in the summer.

Like I said above though - above 6 inches in length the thing starts seeming more like a bread knife (which from experience works just fine on tomatoes also :) ). So I figured 6 inches for everyday use, and when I get the nice big ones, I will just again reach for the much longer bread knife!
 
Duh - it turns out there are Chamfer End Mills that will likely allow creating those serrations nice and cleanly and uniformly.....

(can you tell I am not a machinist???)
 
Ok - a very first and rough attempt at a proposed profile. 6" heel to tip. I was after a pretty flat edge tip to heel, but I think with that the straight spine ends up looking somewhat clunky. Maybe make that spine more upswept from handle to tip, and have the edge follow that upwards curve? (Height of blade is 0.75").

Thoughts?
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I looked at my Global tomato knife today as well as my cheese knife. Both allow for knuckle clearance on the board...
 
Cushing / Guys
the thought of making serrations is very simple!! if you put O rings/Rubber bands around a contact wheel holding them in place
with blue tape you get raised ridges on your wheel yea?? now you can put many close together if you want and work the different grits up to your height
and contentment level of happy!!!
only other options are a tapered carbide burr in a mill with the edge facing up and every ?? rotations of the length of blade you make a serration
the big thing with the 2nd option is how are you gonna clean up the burr cut ??
Last option is using GBN type of wheels custom made to your design (Very Expensive to do)
i swear sometimes people overthink things and are not willing to just try it for fear of loosing a piece of steel to test the theory of if it will work or not!!!!
im going to go back to work now,,, good luck and ENJOY what you are doing..
 
Pinoy Knife said:
Cushing / Guys
the thought of making serrations is very simple!! if you put O rings/Rubber bands around a contact wheel holding them in place
with blue tape you get raised ridges on your wheel yea?? now you can put many close together if you want and work the different grits up to your height
and contentment level of happy!!!
only other options are a tapered carbide burr in a mill with the edge facing up and every ?? rotations of the length of blade you make a serration
the big thing with the 2nd option is how are you gonna clean up the burr cut ??
Last option is using GBN type of wheels custom made to your design (Very Expensive to do)
i swear sometimes people overthink things and are not willing to just try it for fear of loosing a piece of steel to test the theory of if it will work or not!!!!
im going to go back to work now,,, good luck and ENJOY what you are doing..
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I have been aware of the o-ring around the contact wheel idea - but a couple things about it have concerned me. One, is the difficulty of getting the o-rings really accurately spaced, the second is that is strikes me that o-rings under the belt will produce pretty "washed-out" boundaries around the serrations.

It turns out that I *do* have a mini-mill, and right now am leaning towards using chamfer end mills to create the serrations. If you think about the geometry, you do not need to do this holding the blade vertically - you can just as easily clamp the blade flat on the table and come in from the side to create the serrations. With the indexing (or dro) on the mill, one should be able to get the serrations pretty consistent....
 
I don t like the part where the blade extends into the handle ? Sharp and ugly transition ?
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