V shaped blade vs Straight blades in mandolins?

[teoni]

I'm looking to get a mandolin mainly for slicing ginger and radish paper thin. I notice you can either get a mandolin with v shaped blades or straight blades and I'm just wondering what's the difference between the two particularly each of their pros and cons.

Thanks in advance for any help =D

[ferret]

You might want to get a specialized mandoline for smaller items, a lot of the standard sized ones aren't designed well for smaller items like garlic or ginger (or radishes) and won't give you consistent "paper thin" results. I have a small mandoline that works great for small items (about a third of the width of a typical mandoline) but it's been years since I bought it and have no idea who made it. Look for garlic slicers, they're probably a better bet.

[ecclescake]

There's another thread discussing the differences here http://chowhound.chow.com/topics/723276 perhaps you'll find what you're looking for there.

[scubadoo97]

I've never used a V shaped but between a straight or angled blade I would go with an angled blade. This would be better for softer items. I'm a big fan of the Benriner mandoline. I wonder how the V blade works for smaller things like a radish?

[kaleokahu]

Hi, scubadoo97:

Years ago a friend from Germany gave me a small, inexpensive, plastic V-shaped mandoline. It does a *far* better job of basic slicing than my big $$ angled one. As Chem has pointed out, round things like radishes get centered and sliced equally on both "sides", not pushed or crushed like non-V designs. It has stayed wicked sharp and still makes me laugh at how big a pile of perfectly sliced potatoes I can make in a minute. If you're interested, I'll try to see if I can make out a brand.

My only gripe about my V-shaped one is that the blade is fixed, and you vary the thickness of the slices by reversing the "floor" of the mandoline. This works great, but the only problem is you only have two choices of thickness. I wish there was one thinner and one in-between setting.

Aloha,
Kaleo

[scubadoo97]

Thanks for the feedback Kaleokahu.

I don't use my mandolines Bron/Benriner as much and usually just use my knife skills which I'm trying to hone. When uniformity is a high priority the mandoline is pulled out

[Chemicalkinetics]

There are actually two kind of the straight blade ones. The perpendicular design and the titled design. The V-shaped one has a centering effect.