# Bread Knife Patterns



## Dave Martell

These are the popular bread knife serration patterns....

_*Note - These are NOT tracings, just crude drawings. If I can I'll do some tracings and scan them in here instead of the crude drawings._


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## Dave Jacobson

I've often wondered what would be the best way to go about grinding teeth like that into a hardened blade without making a mess of it.


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## CompE

Dave Jacobson said:


> I've often wondered what would be the best way to go about grinding teeth like that into a hardened blade without making a mess of it.



The first post of this thread covers the "Traditional Pattern".

For the Tojiro ITK pattern, the common wisdom is to sharpen over the edge of a sharpening stone. The same has been suggested for the MAC, but I don't think that would hit the inner corners very well.


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## Korin_Mari

You can hone the edges and straighten it out for the MAC bread knives, but I wouldn't call it sharpening.


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## bkdc

There is one huge benefit I see of the scalloped pattern over pointed teeth. You can safely use it on wooden cutting boards without shredding your cutting board apart. The pointed teeth ones are far easier to sharpen.


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## hobbitling

I wonder if you could make a custom serration wheel much like turning on a lathe (or maybe exactly like turning on a lathe) from an existing grinding wheel, using carbide tools, or maybe make one out of wood, and apply abrasive compound.

It's probably a bit like sharpening woodworking tools with curved edges, like gouges or molding planes. Woodworkers often use a "slip stone" which is a stone ground into a curved convex or concave shape, often times custom made for a particular tool. A variation is to make a curved wooden form and cover it with sand paper, or use a wooden form with an abrasive compound applied.


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## kartman35

In another recent bread knife thread, a couple of photos were posted which included close-ups of the Tojiro ITK and the Mac Superior SB-105 bread knife.

Here's the page

http://www.kitchenknifeforums.com/s...270-bread-knife-vs-Richmond-Artifex-270/page2

The serrations of both knives seemed to be close to identical, having semi-scalloped blades. A visit to the Mac website shows three bread knives all of which seem to have semi scalloped blades. Perhaps there's an older discontinued Mac that has true scallops?


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## ChefCosta

I've been able to replicate the Tojiro pattern, more or less on a left handed Wusthof Super Slicer that I had essentially turned into a conventional knife with years of "honing" on a diamond steel. I rounded the corner of the 1000grit grinding wheel on my Tormek T-3 freehand using the diamond flattener that it came with. I ground the knife basically flat again and marked the new pattern that I wanted with a Sharpie. Executing the grind freehand requires some serious hand eye coordination and is was not easy to deburr but I was able to get an effective cutting edge. The result on my first go-round was messy but given what I learned from it I'm confident that the next one will be better.


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## Bill Burke

If I wanted to do this I would buy a stone for sharpening chainsaw chain with the thickness corresponding to the size of the serations I want. then set up a table with a stop and regrind the serations.

these wheels come in sizes from 1/8th to 3/8ths


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## fizamalik

You shared very good information. I get help from your this posts.
Thank for your sharing


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