Tomato Knife Show and Tell

[Donnyboy]

@Donnyboy I've heard mixed reviews about ceramic knives. Everybody seems to like the sharpness, but I've heard they can be brittle. I have 3-4 steel kitchen knives that I keep that sharp and can do without serrations as a result, but I realize that's not an option for everyone. Your pebbled handle comment reminds me of a new material (for the knifemaking world at least) made up of layered G10 and hard rubber. Makes for a nice grippy surface, especially if you bead blast it. I haven't used it yet, but I'm pretty sure it will be standard on my kitchen knives going forward.

My knife is the only ceramic knife I have. I believe every knife is designed for a specific purpose, so I have heavy knives and light weight knives and a pretty good sharpening system. I believe the only problem with ceramic knives is the fact that they are brittle and the edge can chip easily if not cared for properly, They usually come with a sheath and should always be stored in the sheath to prevent chipping. They are also so sharp that I sometimes don't know I've cut myself until I see the blood running. Extra care should be taken when using a ceramic knife.

[Donnyboy]

I made a sandwich this evening with thinly sliced tomato, onion, lettuce; and jalapeno slices. Sometimes, I prefer sandwiches with thick vegetable slices and sometimes I slice the tomato and onion so thin you can read a news paper through them. The ceramic knife is the only knife I own which will allow me to slice vegetables paper thin. I prefer the thin slices when I plan on using a thick stack of meat like bacon. I can adjust the thickness of the sandwich by stacking the thin veggie's without making the sandwich so thick I can't eat it.

[Volvo]

Which of my Thirty or so knives would you like a Picture of , Being a keen Fisherman and offcourse a Knife Sharpener with a simmillar amount of Waterstones to keep my knives Keen especially for clean slicing of Tomatos which is a must.
During the last big Floods through Queensland i purchased a number of filletting and other knives cheap that went under water and werent recovered for several weeks after ..
But Yes a SHARP good blade for a nice even slice of your Favourite Tomato is a must to retain its juices also..

[Volvo]

Knife 02 (2).jpg

Okay heres one which i think is worthy of mention as its been with me know for near fifty years:) .
A Dressing knife and this one has dressed Beasts, Cows, Pigs ,Goats, lambs ,kangaroos , and cant remember what else .
Had a bit of a workout and at one stage near looked like a hacksaw after the Chief Cook and Bottlewasher had a play with it trying to remove meat from a leg of lamb to make Souvlakia!! ..
Has Filletted Certain Fish , and today rests in my garden Shed used for odd jobs such as cutting Cord for Tomatos etc and offcourse slicing through a Tomato which i might like to have a taste test whilst in the Garden.
With my Filletting knives i normally put them through a three stone progression sharpening as shown in the Pic .
A 320 grit , a 1000 grit and a 10000 grit and finish off on a piece of denim strop. This or any other knife in my collection is as sharp or if not sharper than my cuthroat razor used for shaving and slices through my Tomatos with hardley any effort or push whilst slicing as should be for nice Tomato slices ..
The better knives in the collection go through a four to five stone progression when getting sharpened , not that i think its needed but becasue one is always trying to improve or better the last effort .
As can be seen the blade on this has seen some loss of metal but still enough there to still be doing its thing long after im gone lol , if any of the Children adopts it that is..
And heres anothery from the local K-Mart Store out of the Fishing section which was selling for $5 and after putting it through it paces on the stones i went back down and purchased all that were left on the shelf as with Fishing knives on boats one can never have enough especially at the rate guests on the Boats seem to think they are better off in the Briney than on the Boat , so one must have a back-ups and these particular knives after sharpened cut through their objectives like cutting through melted butter .
Few slices shown in the phone book pages if one looks hard enough just with the weight of the knife alone ..

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[worth1]

They have some really stupid knife blade profiles on the market these days.
Totally impractical for anything and impossible to sharpen with a stone unless it is a round stone.
Ones that curve in and out in an S shape are but a few.
Had one guy get mad at me because I wouldn't let him try to sharpen my knife on one of the hand held drag the blade across some v shaped thing sharpeners.
The thing was already sharp as it was.

Remember the can opener knife sharpeners do they still have those?
What a nightmare.
I dont have an electric can opener so I wouldn't know.

[pepperhead212]

[mention]worth1[/mention] I remember those electric can openers w/knife "sharpeners", when I was growing up! I think that's how Mom ruined those knives she had, but wouldn't get rid of (and the reason I had to put some knives in her kitchen, for when I was there).

[Tormahto]

I'm not going to show, and I'm almost too embarrassed to tell.

My tomato knife is, I believe, a Quikut (think Ginzu) knife sold by a hawker at the state fair, about 30 years ago. I use it to cut bread and tomatoes for BLTs. It still cuts as good as day one. Back then I think it was 2 for 10 dollars. I didn't want 2, so I found another person watching the demo to go half in with me.

If I'm cutting meat off a bone, I use a real knife.

[Volvo]

One must have a knife for every occasion lol,

[MissS]

I'm not going to show, and I'm almost too embarrassed to tell.

My tomato knife is, I believe, a Quikut (think Ginzu) knife sold by a hawker at the state fair, about 30 years ago. I use it to cut bread and tomatoes for BLTs. It still cuts as good as day one. Back then I think it was 2 for 10 dollars. I didn't want 2, so I found another person watching the demo to go half in with me.

If I'm cutting meat off a bone, I use a real knife.

My grandfather gave me a set of these knifes when I graduated. My very first Christmas tree needed the end trimmed off and having no saw, I used this knife. It worked pretty well too. And then yes of course being a Ginsu it still cut bread and tomatoes pretty well too. Gosh, I still have that knife. I am going to have to see how it works on tomatoes now.

[Cole_Robbie]

From what I understand, there are samurai swords that are many hundreds of years old, yet contain steel that is superior to anything in the modern world.

I like to browse the antiques at this site:
https://www.thelanesarmoury.co.uk/

[worth1]

They have found carbon nanotubes in the real Damascus steel.
No one knows how they did it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Damascus_ ... _technique

[NarnianGarden]

What is the general consensus now, serrated or non-serrated?
I have my Fiskars chef knife and I love it.. very sharp (of course I could take better care of my other cutting knives too) but they also sell a 'tomato knife' with a serrated blade... and I tend to find serrated knives unpractical and not so useful.

[worth1]

What is the general consensus now, serrated or non-serrated?
I have my Fiskars chef knife and I love it.. very sharp (of course I could take better care of my other cutting knives too) but they also sell a 'tomato knife' with a serrated blade... and I tend to find serrated knives unpractical and not so useful.

My feeling is that if you can sharpen a knife then non serrated.
If you can't then serrated.
The only exception is like the one that I made with a checkering file that has the same bevel on both sides and can be sharpened.
They also have thin slicing knives with the bevel on one side that have to be sharpened in a particular way and you would never use a sharpening steel on it.
These would be like the knives for a wood planer.
The only draw back is you would have a left or right handed knife.
Lastly I don't get too carried away with sharpening angles I just sharpen the things at an angle that comes naturally to me.
This of course to the dismay of the purists.

[Tormahto]

There are left and right-handed one side-beveled knives for tree grafting. I've heard stories of people buying the wrong one.

[TXTravis]

I tend to agree with [mention]worth1[/mention]. I personally like my knives sharp enough to cut my eye if I look at it from across the room, so non-serrated for me. But if you aren't motivated, equipped, or skilled to maintain a sharp blade, serrated is probably going to make you happier in the long run.