Best stainless steel and grit for cutting tomatoes and peppers

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Would fine grained ginsan, fine grained R2, or a steel with carbides like 19c27 work best? A toothy edge is our friend here, which kind of steel and what grit edge would get that for us?
 
I love ginsan and cut lots of various veggies with it. I like to finish on a SG2k with some light stropping. I don't know if it's the best, but it sure works for me. :)
 
Interesting question. In theory s125v would probably be the best with a toothy edge, so 1-2k maybe or even lower grit. My thinking is that if tomatoes and peppers are it then toughness and hardness are not all that important and wear resistance is king. Just a mental exercise since I don’t really know. Out of your choices R2 would probably last the longest. 19c27 and ginsan are basically the same steel, so any difference you would see between the two would not be due to steel.
 
I've not found steels with a lot of carbide like D2, SDL, S35V, S90V to be toothy in a way that gives them an edge over no carbide steels for things like tomatoes.

A way of thinking of it is like this.

Take two knives, one made from AS carbon and another from S90V. Both sharpened to 6K.

The AS knife will be a little keener right of the stones but if the S90V was done on diamond laping film, not by much.

Assuming equal harnesses, as you use both, they will dull at a relatively similar rate to a point where the vanadium carbides in S90V start to factor into the exposed edge at which point the rate of dulling will slow for the high carbide steel.

Here's the problem. By the time the high carbide steel reaches a point where the carbides start slowing the dulling, the knife already needs sharpening IMO.

Speaking of sharpening, where steels like D2 and SDL can be sharpened on pretty much any stones because their carbide load is chromium carbide, high vanadium carbide steels cant. Well they can, but you will end up with a funky edge.

Vanadium carbides are harder than aluminum oxide or silicon carbide used in most sharpening stones. Given this, when you sharpen high V steels with regular stones, once you get high enough in grit where the grit isn't removing enough steel to be taking carbide with it, you start abrading the steel around the carbide leaving it a little exposed. They don't fall out or anything but the "toothyness" that results isn't really a great toothyness for things like tomatoes. Nice for cutting carboard, not so much for food.

IMO, if you want a good long wearing tomato knife, you would be better off getting a good hard low or no carbide knife, 65 Rockwell plus, and sharpen it in the 2K grit range.
 
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Lately for my line knife (Mac Molybdenum) that I use on a lot of cherry tomatoes, I have been doing the majority of the work on a bester 1.2k (de-burring and most of my stropping) and then finish with just a couple light stropping strokes on a SP2k.
I quite like the edge I get from that for these tasks.
 
I prefer to use my knives with Ginsan or AEBL. I use an R2 or Heiji semi-stainless occasionally. The first two are 240 and the R2 and Heiji are180 so that may account for the usage patterns.

I am at home so I am not doing cases of acidic fruit, but I find the duration of the edge on the AEBL and Ginsan both to be far superior to carbon.

I can get a fine toothy edge with a 6k diamond (Jon’s from JKI) or a 4K glass. Occasionally I will strop with a natural.

The main difference for me is the use of the stainless.
 
Dafox. Try Bigbbaillies suggestion. Once you learn how to dial them in, hybrid edges are seriously amazing.
Ya, I'm doing that now, recently sharpened a Takamura R2 on a SG 500 and then not too much on a SG 3k, yet to buy some tomatoes to make salsa and check it out, compare it to my current favorite for tomatoes, SP 2k.
 
Imanishi 4K and Morihei 4K leave an interesting bite for a fine edge. Getting at the skin is easy, but flowing through the whole thing is then easier.

I like a combo Imanishi 1200/SP2K also for something a bit rougher - usually Moly steels.

I find Konosuke HD2 to be quite responsive to any type of edge and finale. Allows most my stones to express their true nature very very acutely. Would like to know what its made of.

Ginsan does not refine nearly as good as AEB-L - keeps a good tooth out of SP2K and once I left it at that, but within my stone choice nowadays I think I'd still go with either of the aforementionned 4K.

Mind you I tend to prefer finer edges than a lot of folks it seems, probably because I'll never dedicate one knife to peppers and tomatoes only.
 
For optimum rending of tomato and pepper skins, I would highly recommend a grit between 400-1200. As someone else posted, it's possible to attain a sub-micron apex from an atoma 140 and pass the HHT. So your deburring skill and sharpening skill will dictate the width of the edge apex, and the grit size will dictate the toothiness of the cut. the type of abrasive and deburring method is going to dictate the final toothiness of the edge. silicon carbide will be less toothy than aluminum oxide. diamond more agressive than stones.
 
I like the edge from sp2k & cerax 1k for pepper & tomato
 
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