Thanks! Wow. I hadn't realized a .00001 inch precision was possible in a mechanical instrument. Defintiely a couple cuts above what I find at Harbour Freight. Though odd that it jumped .00004 inch units in your tests.
I assume you take special precautions to keep water from dripping down the sides of the blade and getting underneath the mounting plates. Is that correct?
I seal the mount-to-boot interface, and the outsoles in general, with Sno-Seal. (I really should try Silicone.) After all, skating makes blades and the bottom of boots wet too.
And if I don't skate immediately afterwards, I dry off the blades, mounting screws and boots after sharpening, just as I would after skating.
But you make me wonder - should I wax or otherwise seal the tops of the mounting screws too? Because even good quality stainless steel screws eventually rust. So I will in the future.
I still haven't tried your idea of using a knife "steel" instead of the Pro-Filer in between sharpenings, to further increase blade lifetime.
It would be so cool to have a good enough microscope to see what actually happens during sharpening. The good ones are too expensive just for curiosity. I guess a good quality optical comparator with a length scale, or maybe an inspection microscope, could show me a lot more than the cheap microscopes I bought. If I put identifiable reference marks near the edge before sharpening, it might be a much better way of seeing what was going on than using a micrometer.
Of course, I would need a lot fancier equipment to measure the effects of sharpening, e.g., drag, noise, skid-resistance, and predictability, while moving on the ice.
But this is way off-topic. Loops probably just wants to sharpen well - she doesn't need to know edge nanostructure, and she is probably a good enough skater to be able to feel the effects of good vs poor sharpening, without the need for objective measurement.