>>572467>Microserrations for cutting rope and tomatoes.If you sharpen a knife mechanically, using perpendicular motion, it always has microserrations, even after you polish it. You probably mean sharpening with a coarse stone and skipping finer ones and stropping.
An unfinished edge cutting better than a polished one is a very common myth, it's not true. If your knife does not cut a tomatoe properly, it's because it's dull.
>cutting ropeI don't think you understand how a serrated knife works. A rope is made of hard-to-cut fibers that are tied together. The 'ridges' of a serrated blade can move these fibers and dig in between them. When you move the blade, multiple serrations cut simultaneously.
A serrated bread knife works a bit different way. The crust of a bread is so hard, that the only way to cut through it is breaking it. A serrated knife works better, because it concentrates all the pressure to very small areas. Same thing happens when cutting something with a dull serrated edge. It works better than a dull plain edge because there is more pressure. Really, your knife is just a wedge that you force into different materials using pressure. Tiny serrations in the edge don't increase pressure. On the contrary, it has more contact area and therefore less pressure.
