skatingforums
On the Ice => The Pro Shop => Topic started by: Bill_S on November 04, 2019, 06:55:19 PM
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I purchased a Wissota model 911 deluxe last week. This model includes a pedestal base and dust catcher. I had them substitute the standard skate holder for the figure skate holder for a $50 up-charge. I also purchased an edge level checker, and a 100-grit grinding wheel for figure skate blades.
This thread will be about my experiences setting it up and learning to use it.
The packages arrived today, and the UPS guy needed a little help getting it all out of his truck. After he deposited them curbside, I used my own hand cart to wheel them around the house to the lower entrance closest to my shop. A couple of these boxes are SERIOUSLY heavy.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-4-800px.jpg)
After lots of huffing, puffing and wriggling through to the shop, I managed to get things unpacked. Here is the sharpener itself. It was mounted to a piece of plywood in the bottom of the shipping box.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-54-800px.jpg)
I felt that it's weight would be manageable for a fit fellow to use on a workbench, and then move out of the way when not needed. It's not light and it would be a chore, but doable. However, I purchased the Deluxe outfit with a pedestal base to mount it on. I made room in my workshop for a permanent installation, and I will have dust collection for grinding.
Here's the figure skate blade holder. It clamps onto the stanchions to properly do side-honed, parabolic, and tapered blades. It can't do Revolution blades, and the standard holder is said to be suitable for them.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-17-800px.jpg)
[continued in next post]
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I mentioned previously that I purchased the 100-grit wheel for carbon steel figure skate blades. I exchanged wheels before I attached the sharpener to the pedestal base. The standard pink wheel is said to be suitable for stainless steel blades, especially hockey blades.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-60-800px.jpg)
After buffing rubbing compound on the table surface for a super-smooth surface, I applied some automotive paste wax to it. These steps will allow the felt pads on the bottom of the skate holder to slide with less friction.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-69-800px.jpg)
I mounted it to the pedestal base with no problem. The combined weight is very heavy, and it doesn't budge. The motor runs very quietly and smoothly.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-72-800px.jpg)
Sorry for the cluttered state of my shop, but I don't have many square feet available. It's somehow appropriate that this grinder is on the back side of a table holding a standard bench grinder, plus a slow speed, water-bath sharpener for woodshop tools and knives.
I quit work tonight in the middle of attaching the red dust collection hood to the sharpener. The fit is off, and I'm going to have to re-drill some mounting holes in the hood to get it to fit properly. That's been the only wrinkle in getting this set up.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-79-800px.jpg)
I'll spend more time working on it tomorrow, then move on to sharpening some blades.
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>Here's the figure skate blade holder. It clamps onto the stanchions...
As best I understand it, the stanchions are the thin vertical support elements. Is that what you mean? Or does it clamp onto a longwise element?
Does it clamp onto the blade in such a way as to de-warps it temporally while you sharpen it? If so, that is a big plus.
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"I mounted it to the pedestal base with no problem. The combined weight is very heavy, and it doesn't budge. The motor runs very quietly and smoothly."
Is the unit stable in a free-standing configuration, or does the pedestal base need to be anchored to the shop floor?
"I mentioned previously that I purchased the 100-grit wheel for carbon steel figure skate blades. I exchanged wheels before I attached the sharpener to the pedestal base. The standard pink wheel is said to be suitable for stainless steel blades, especially hockey blades."
Do the wheels interchange readily? That is, any fussing with centering and balancing required?
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An Example of a crude rocker guide that might work, but needs a re-design by someone who has better mechanical intuition than me:
You have already figured out how to trace the edge of a blade onto a piece of paper, to record the rocker profile. Great!
Now do the same thing using an Xacto (or other brand small thin) knife on a flat piece of stiff cardboard, to create a thin guide piece. This will be your "guide". Tape or clamp this piece underneath the blade or blade holder, 1/10" or so back from the edge, parallel to the edge. To verify that it is parallel, use a measuring tool, like a calipers, micrometer, or maybe just an adjustable divider, or nut on a bolt, to verify that the distance to the edge boundary is the same at both ends.
Tape or attach a "stop" on the flat surface on which the blade holder slides, next to the grinding wheel, but 1/10" back. It can even just be a piece of thick tape, stuck onto the surface. The thickness should be chosen so that the piece of cardboard, or whatever, touches it and is stopped by it, and never touches the grinding wheel, but the blade holder or blade passes over it.
Thus you can slide the blade or blade holder on the table against the stop. It will follow the established profile, and allow the wheel to grind the blade in the same rocker profile it already had.
Actually, you should reverse the order of attaching the guide and stop. Attach the stop first, and leave it there, then position and attach the guide, using the measuring instrument, to make sure you will only remove .001" (or whatever amount you want to remove) of metal.
Can you figure out a way to make that more practical? I admit that cardboard would wear out too quickly to last very long. Are there soft plastics, real or artificial leather, or some other material, that would retain their form, yet be easy enough to cut precisely?
Also, is there a practical way to cut it with a modified shape, if you wanted to modify the rocker profile? E.g., could you grind the edge of the guide, instead of the blade, to the shape you want, until you have it just what you want? I'm fairly certain that cardboard wouldn't hold up to that without distorting, but maybe one of those soft plastics or other materials would.
Another plausible way to create a modified profile: There are "Cricut" brand automated fabric cutters, which follow a computerized pattern, available in fabric shops.
https://cricut.com
The idea is to have it cut the guide, instead of using a hand-guided knife. I've never used one. I'm not sure if you can create your own pattern for Cricut machines, and whether the pattern can be curved. I'm also not sure if they can cut a thick enough piece of reasonably stiff material (e.g., real or artificial leather) to guide your blade against the stop. But if they can, that would be a very neat way to do it.
If you are really ambitious, let's try to modify the toe pick: When you cut the guide, cut against the toe pick shape too, so the guide includes the toe pick profile. Tape or attach another stop on the table-like flat surface on your bench grinder. Use that and the guide to cut the toe pick. I can't figure out how this could work with cross-cut toe picks, but many blades don't have them.
However, there are problems with re-grinding toe picks: the existing teeth (picks) are at an angle, which means that when you grind off the material, you are left with thinner teeth, because part of where the new teeth would be has already been cut away. If you care, you might need to modify the toe pick shape in some way.
Anyway, I leave it to you guys with real mechanical intuition, to figure out a better way to do these things. I admit it is very crude, and I'm sure you can think of something better.
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Query:
1) If I were to dive into shaping a blade, I'd template-route a pattern into Masonite using a desired blade as the master shape. Look up template routing on the web - it is easy to do and very accurate.
2) The original holder would be better for holding a blade straight while sharpening. It grabs the skate by the runner, but of course, it can't to tapered, parabolic, or side-honed blades. That holder is said to be the one to use for Revolution-style blades. The figure skate holder that I have will probably straighten less. I might get a handle on this later with some measurements.
tstop4me:
1) The base has rubber feet from the factory, and doesn't appear to require bolting to the floor. However they warn that hanging accessories off of the side of the machine could cause an imbalance and require bolting. It would take a heavy accessory to require that. So far, I haven't bolted it down and the rubber feet are supporting the assembly. If I push against the machine firmly, then the rubber feet "squish" a bit and the top will move. That's quite a push though, and the ounces of pressure used to move the skate holder won't even come close.
2) Changing the wheels is very easy, and someone could do it in 2 to 3 minutes tops. Unscrew the two red knobs that hold on the top, and lift it off. Unscrew the nut on the arbor, and swap wheels. Tighten the arbor nut, replace the top and tighten it. The wheel dress will center the wheel. There is no balancing step needed.
Here are a couple of photos that I made while changing the grinding wheels that show this area closely:
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-41-800px.jpg)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-62-800px.jpg)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_setup-66-800px.jpg)
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1) If I were to dive into shaping a blade, I'd template-route a pattern into Masonite using a desired blade as the master shape. Look up template routing on the web - it is easy to do and very accurate.
OK, at first glance that does look like a better method to create the guide, provided you have the router, which I assume you do, than my idea of tracing the original blade with a knife.
On these pictures: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Masonite it looks like the edge of Masonite is pretty rough - will it be ground smooth enough by the router bit to make a good template for a blade? Is it's smoothness a function of the grain size, which looks pretty large in those pictures?
Also, unless the router bit can cut the hardened steel used in figure skate blades, without being significantly ground away while processing the blade, you still need to use the guide and sharpening machine to transfer the profile to the new blade, or to shift its position by .001" or so on the current blade, because you need to remove that much steel to make the new edge. Plus, the sharpening machine is still needed to grind the hollow.
Is the method I proposed for using the guide to guide the blade against the sharpening machine OK for doing that? I admit it seems pretty clumsy and slow, because you have to measure and shift, measure and shift, over and over again, until you have the guide precisely parallel to the old edge, then tape or clamp it in place. The major reason to use a powered sharpening machine is to reduce the time to sharpen blades.
2) The original holder would be better for holding a blade straight while sharpening. It grabs the skate by the runner, but of course, it can't to tapered, parabolic, or side-honed blades. That holder is said to be the one to use for Revolution-style blades. The figure skate holder that I have will probably straighten less. I might get a handle on this later with some measurements.
I'm not sure the part of the blade that is clamped by the holder is the part that is tapered, parabolic or dovetail cut side honed. In particular, though I may be wrong, it may only be the "chrome relief" zone at the very bottom that is ground in that way. If so, the holder may be able to hold all of these blades without any issues. Even if I'm wrong, if you attach compressible foam sheets to the parts of the holder that grip the blade, I think that might handle those blade shapes. I have never measured the thickness of one of those blades in detail, and don't know what parts of the blade are actually shaped that way. It might even differ by brand or blade model.
Any way - good luck on your experiment! Because you have good mechanical intuition, you may be able to learn to do a great job as a self-taught machine sharpener. All the local discerning skaters may come to YOU to get their blades sharpened.
I assume you still intend NOT to learn machine sharpening on your own good blades, but to start with someone's throw-aways. A lot of rinks throw away old rental skates and blades after a while, and pro shops also get peoples' old discarded blades that they might give you free or cheap. Or maybe another skater has a few they don't want anymore. If you can't get them free, many thrift stores and used sporting goods stores have a few worn out skates and blades fairly cheap that you can practice on. Even though you obviously have good mechanical intuition, I think you will find the initial learning curve very steep on powered sharpeners.
Though I admit that I've only spent an hour or two trying, and wasn't satisfied with the results. The biggest problem I ran into was that I used a blade holder and machine that wouldn't let me adjust the height, and therefore the centering of the grinding wheel, against each end of the blade, in a gradual measured fashion. I had to loosen it, shift the blade by hand, and re-tighten it, then place it against the grinding wheel, over and over. Even if you use precision calipers to test the blade position, that is a super-slow way to center the wheel on the blade. Does the Wissota holder or table adjustment have a better way to level and center the blade on the wheel?
Based on your pictures, there isn't a good way to protect your eyes from the steel filings, abrasive particles, and sparks that will fly off the blade and wheel. If there isn't one, you may want to get some really good eye safety goggles, or even a welding mask. Or add some sort of Lucite or similar material sheet that blocks your eye from being hit. You may even want a way to protect your hands and arms, though that would hard to do - I guess gloves are very dangerous things to get near a rapidly moving part. How do you deal with these things on a bench grinder?
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I intend to get a handle on plain, old-fashioned sharpening first before any reshaping experiments.
I did take a photo of my skate in the figure skate holder. There is leeway where to clamp, and it's shown clamped closer to the blade's edge in this photo.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-43-800px.jpg)
I spent a lot of time yesterday attempting to fit the dust hood to the machine. It had problems that would prevent someone without many tools from mounting it properly. Part of it interfered with the base where the motor mounted.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-13-Edit-800px.jpg)
In that area, I ground some of the hood away using my bench grinder, but that cut away the fold of the doubled metal edge. That might weaken the part, so I put in pop-rivets to hold the metal flap in place..
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-31-Edit-800px.jpg)
It still wouldn't mount properly. The bottom of the dust hood should be below the table of the sharpener, but the mounting holes were too low. That made it impossible to be mounted flush with or below the table. I marked positions and used a Roper Whitney Jr. sheet-metal punch to put new holes above the original ones to allow the hood mount properly. A little work with a file blended the two holes into a slot when I was done.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-25-800px.jpg)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-26-Edit-800px.jpg)
It finally mounted correctly, and is now sitting about 1/16" below the table surface so the skate holder won't bump into its edge.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-36-800px.jpg)
The next challenge with this part is to provide a vacuum port suitable for a real dust collection system. Wissota installed a sink drain instead of a real dust port.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-20-Edit-800px.jpg)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-21-800px.jpg)
The flow area is small, so the sink drain will make a lot of wind noise with my shop vac. I suspect that they chose this part to work with smaller shop vacuums. It's a strange substitution especially because a plastic dust port for a larger vacuum like mine plus a reducer for smaller vacs would probably be cheaper than what they used. I am going to drive to Parkersburg for a $4 part to adapt my own vacuum. I'll enlarge the existing 2" hole in sheet metal to 2-1/2" to mate with the new part. I believe that I have a 2-1/2 chassis punch somewhere around here to do that.
The dust collection hood needs some serious redesign! Wissota, what were you thinking?
If you aren't handy with tools, don't buy this component.
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I ran into another issue with the sharpener itself. It's not a show-stopping problem, but not ideal.
A new grinding wheel has a flat edge. You use the diamond wheel dressing feature to put the radius on it. Before I dressed the wheel, I swung the dressing rod up and down, advancing it slowly until it just touched the wheel. To my surprise, it touched the bottom edge of the wheel, but when swung upward, still had a way to go to reach the top edge. The illustration below shows, from top to bottom, 1) the situation I encountered where the dresser touched the bottom edge first, 2) the offset crown that would result, and finally, 3) a properly setup diamond dresser.
[Click to enlarge]
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_diamond_dressing_offset.gif)
If not extreme, an offset crown could still sharpen skates OK, but getting even edges on the blade will be more difficult to achieve.
There is an adjustment that is factory-set for the pivot height of the diamond dresser. There is no mention of further adjustments in the instructions. The adjustment mechanism is a plate that rotates around a split pin. The plate is slotted on one end for a locking bolt and has a recess on the other end for the diamond dresser arm pivot. (Note that the photo below shows the mechanism itself, but I had already fixed it and dressed the wheel. I was too busy troubleshooting to photograph it when I first discovered the issue.)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_setup2-44-800px.jpg)
The factory setting was incorrect for centering the dressing arm pivot on the wheel. I loosened the bolt and swung the adjustment plate to lower the pivot height, then attempted to lock it in approximately the correct position. That's when I discovered the probable cause of the misaligned plate. The bolt used was one with a serrated underside like this...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/serrated_head_bolt.jpg)
The bolt serrations would grip the plate and rotate it back out of position when tightening it. It needed a washer underneath to reduce that tendency. I added one, tightened the bolts, and gave the new wheel a proper dressing. It worked!
The choice of bolt and the lack of a simple washer in the construction led to this. I can think of a number of possible scenarios that led to the decision to use serrated head bolts and eliminate washers, but that inadvertently caused this particular problem.
If you think that this is a problem with just Wissota sharpeners, you're wrong. Every complex tool that I get into the shop gets a good inspection, and you'd be surprised at how many things that I've found that need to be corrected.
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It's bizarre that they saved a fraction of a cent on the washer, but installed a more expensive drain fitting. I'm glad you were able to repair the hood yourself, and didn't have to ship it back. The defects are disappointing, but no one can carp about shoddy Chinese manufacturing in this instance. :-)
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True.
There are issues, but the unit has nice "bones" from which to improve. That motor in particular is a wonderful unit. It's a Leeson motor. I used those (and Baldor motors) in industrial designs back in the 80s.
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I did some quick calculations for consumables when sharpening. Consumables include the grinding wheel plus the diamond wheel dresser.
Rough estimates from Wissota's claimed life of parts (200 pairs of skates for a grinding wheel and 400 pairs for a diamond dresser) show about $0.25 for the wheel and $0.13 for the diamond dresser when doing a pair of skates. I included shipping charges into the estimate.
I'll set aside a "tip jar" and put in $0.38 for each pair of skates that I sharpen.
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I'm rather disappointed that your new machine needed some work to make it work. I guess Wissota is pretty near the bottom of the line in terms of machine cost, unless the Chinese ones I pointed out to you earlier would actually work.
Ummm. I did some calculations a while back and concluded that one of the most expensive part of sharpening of good quality figure blades can be the metal (and therefore lifetime) you take away from the blades. Let me update prices:
I estimated that you substantially alter the properties of the blade when you remove about .1 inch, because you get a somewhat different interaction with the toe pick - and that's assuming you carefully trim the toe pick down near the end of life. So, on a $500 blade pair (the approximate cost, discount mail order of MK Dance - and that doesn't allow for potentially returning warped blades), every .001 inch you remove is $5. I had been told that a very good skate tech would remove about .003 inches, which is $15. However, I have started to think that even with machine sharpening, a really good tech, using a fine grain wheel, can often get away with somewhat less than .003 inches - at least on figure skates, so maybe it isn't that bad. Also, you have chosen less expensive blades than that.
As you know, you can frequently get away with just removing .001 inch of metal with a hand sharpening, because to some extent you are reshaping the metal at hand sharpening speeds, rather than just grinding it away. It was very easy to calculate that sharpening your own makes sense on an economic basis, if you are willing to learn.
On top of that, it seems like a typical very picky figure skater drives 2-10 hours round trip to their favored skate tech to get their skates sharpened. If you assume that is at an average of 50 miles/hour, and $0.50/mile (including incremental cost of maintenance, repairs, depreciation, accidents, insurance...), that works out to $50 - $250 / sharpening. So, if, as assumed, you aren't happy with the skate tech at your favored skating rink, driving is even more than the loss of metal - and it applies even if you use somewhat less expensive blades. (On top of that, many skaters feel they need to buy a skating session local to that to verify that their tech did a good job on their blades.) Also, some figure skaters carpool to their skate techs, or send their skates with their coach, who brings other skater's skates at the same time.
Needless to say, it was easy for me to show, if I included driving costs, that sharpening your own can make even more economic sense. Despite that, I have convinced very few skaters that sharpening their own makes sense. Most don't believe they can learn to do that, or that it requires very expensive tools.
Of course, since you are sharpening your own, the driving cost completely goes away, whether you do it by hand, or with your Wissota machine. I hope you end up happy, despite having to make modifications. Alas, in your case, you were already sharpening your own by hand, so the cost savings is hard to argue here. But I guess you could argue that you love working in your shop, and that you may actually enjoy figuring out how to make the Wissota work, so all this may just be extra play to you, and may be worth the cost.
Does the exact position of the crown matter? In the end, you end up adjusting the height of each end of the blade, so as long as the wheel is significantly wider than the blade, how would the position of the crown make a difference?
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Yes, you can sharpen skates with an offset crown. It would probably require a few more test "touch" cuts to adjust the skate holder to the proper height.
But if the crown is centered, then you can eyeball the blade against the center of the wheel and be very close. And if you just do your own blades repeatedly, set it and forget it.
However I may be switching between thinner dance blades and regular freestyle blades. That always requires some adjusting of the skate holder. The clever magnetic dials on the Wissota skate holder elevation screws will help with switching, and I will create a chart for settings to use for various blades.
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The dust collection hood is now ready for usage.
This photo shows the new dust port that standard 2-1/4" Shop Vac hoses fit into. Also in the photo is the chassis punch tool that I used to enlarge the hole in the dust collector to 2-1/2" to fit the port without choking any airflow.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-3-800px.jpg)
Chassis punch in the original hole, and being positioned...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-9-800px.jpg)
...and the hole is now enlarged.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-19-800px.jpg)
The port had four mounting screw holes, so they were marked for drilling into the hood. I attempted to punch the holes with the Roper Whitney, but the 2-1/2" diameter hole was too small for that tool to fit through. I had to drill them. Drilling sheet metal is a pain, but to make it go a little better, I clamped a small wooden backer-block underneath. The holes aren't as clean as punched holes, but will certainly work. They are underneath screw heads and washers too, so it matters little.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-24-800px.jpg)
I mounted the new dust port to the hood, then attached it all to the sharpener. Top view...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-37-800px.jpg)
Bottom view, with an elbow added...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_port_mod-36-800px.jpg)
It's ready for operating now.
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I used my old skates that I bought in 1977 to practice with. They were in pretty bad condition, so there's nothing to lose using them for practice. One blade had TERRIBLY uneven edges that you could see just sighting down the length of the blade. And to think that I used to skate on that!
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_1st_cut-4-800px.jpg)
In this photo there are two magnetic pieces. One had the magnet positioned to be attracted to the edges themselves, the other has a magnet that attaches to the side of the blade. If edges are uneven, then top of the edge piece doesn't align parallel with the engraved lines. You can see for yourself how bad this sharpening was. That's the stuff some people pay for!
The steel blade showed its age too.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_1st_cut-30-800px.jpg)
Onto the sharpener!
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_1st_cut-1-800px.jpg)
I have a toe pick protector fastened onto the pick in this photo. It loosened and fell off after a while, so I proceeded without it. That's when I discovered how easy it is to nick a toe pick. I paid very close attention after that!
After I got the hang of it, the sharpener did a marvelous job. It's very, very smooth in operation, and that keeps chatter on the blade to a bare minimum. I got some of the smoothest edges I have ever seen, even when compared to my hand sharpener. Excellent!
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_1st_cut-10-800px.jpg)
Learning to set up the skate holder for even edges takes some careful thinking. I have to visualize the geometry of the cutting wheel in relation to the blade, and make small adjustments to the skate holder. I have to stop and think about it each time so far, so I am going to make a small chart to show directions for adjustment to save time later on.
I spent about an hour experimenting, but by the end, I was presented with this...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_1st_cut-33-800px.jpg)
The sharpener's maiden voyage went better than expected!
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Congratulations, Bill! Did you use sharpening wax on the final pass? If so, did it improve the surface finish significantly?
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Congratulations!
Obviously, you could have used duct tape instead of creating a custom dust port fitting. But I guess the advantage of the way you did it, is that you can rapidly remove and reinstall your shop vac from the sharpening tool, and use the shop vac for other things the rest of the time.
I have rethinked the suggestion I made that you could have adjusted the heights of the blade to create a centered scratch (if you scrape the wheel against the blade when the wheel isn't turning) instead of recentering the tool. I'm not quite right. Being able to make a centered scratch doesn't guarantee that the exact center of the ground hollow arc is exactly along the centerline of the blade. Not only would missing that centerline mean that the edges were of slightly different heights, but they would be of slightly different shapes. I'm not certain how important that would be, and I'm not even sure how to measure the position of the arc center with inexpensive tools.
You learned much faster than me (in fact, after an hour or two on an old Blademaster, I still wasn't happy). If the Wissota has good height adjustment, that would have helped a lot. There was no way with that very old Blademaster blade holder to make small adjustments in a controlled fashion. It was trial and error, every time.
I'm guessing that all your experimenting took off far more than the .003" or so of metal that many high end skate techs say they remove with figure skate machine sharpening tools.
One question is, if you were to do it again (e.g., by deliberately dulling the blades, measuring them, sharpening, and measuring again), how much would you need to take off to do a good job?
Also, have you measured how consistent a rocker profile you managed to create? And what shape and placement rocker-transition-point (which I have previously called a sweet spot, but tstop4me has possibly convinced me that is too ambiguous) you created? I know this is a completely unfair question - you have just gotten started, and you may want to get more practice before testing such a complex thing. Many "professional" skate techs don't even get the edges even, and have a poor idea of maintaining or creating a desired rocker profile, after years of work, and you have already beaten them out in a mere hour on producing even edges.
Also, do you by any chance have a microscope (or even a very high power magnifier) that lets you see how ragged the edge is at a small scale?
If you have a "Roper Whitney" tool, with cutting devices added, your setup goes significantly beyond what I think of as a "wood shop", in the direction of a (metal-working) machine shop. This somewhat confirms to me the observation I have made that the best skate techs tend to have had extensive previous shop experience to draw upon, in part because it has been so difficult to get good instruction on how to be a good skate tech. I once asked Mike Cunningham whether he would be willing to train me as a skate tech. He said that he wouldn't be in business long enough - that it takes at least a few years of training and experience under a master to learn to do it well. Of course that is partly adapting to various people's anatomies, and figuring out what people need to learn specific skating skills. Nonetheless, you are making very rapid progress. Maybe pretty soon you can hang out a shingle with your shop logo, and become the premiere skate tech of your own multi-state area!
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tstop4me: I did not use the sharpening was at this point in my experiments. Once used, the wheel needs to be re-dressed before the next pair of skates. I'll try that later, but the fresh metal is very smooth even without it.
query: My shop vac (+ Dust Deputy cyclone separator) gets passed around to the table saw, the band saw, the router table, and sander, plus I attach the floor sweep gizmo for after a day's work is done. I must have a way to move the hose around, so using duct tape or even hose clamps wouldn't work out. As a bonus, I get a larger opening for debris in the sharpener's dust hood.
I quickly realized that a simple "touch grind" would not work if a blade already has uneven edges. I made the mistaken assumption that the old skates, ground "professionally" would have even edges. I was getting very odd contact points at the front and the rear of the blade, and it was during that period of head-scratching that I took a look down the blade. What I saw was astonishingly uneven to the naked eye, without any edge checking devices. The severely high edge made contact first even though the blade was centered on the holder. I was furiously cranking dials for the first few minutes even though I set up the holder with a set of measurement calipers. The light went on after a few passes with odd results.
I'm sure that I took off more than 0.003". However judging by eye, it's less than I expected for so many grinding passes. I should have measured first to see how much was actually removed, but that's water over the dam.
Measuring rocker profiles (as opposed to tracing) takes over an hour of labor for each blade tested. Having a new toy, I didn't want to take the time to measure old, junk blades. That doesn't completely forgive not tracing them though.
I'll see what I can do for an extreme close up of an edge. In the meantime, I want to work on a modest chart or system to quickly adapt to different blade thicknesses for centering on the crown. I'll bet a dollar that's where most sharpening techs struggle.
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Here are some close-up photos of the freshly sharpened blades. I used a 60mm Nikon macro lens for the close-up, then cropped in on the photo to show the area of interest.
[Click to enlarge the photos]
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_cu-19-800px.jpg)
This one shows a fine "wire edge" partially detached from the blade edge. One wipe and it's gone.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_cu-1-800px.jpg)
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Cool picks. Pretty high end lens and camera. But at that angle, you can't really see the edge, though the wire off to the side is interesting. I think you see it better in shots taken from one end, almost parallel to the edge, so you almost see a cross section, like the bottom picture in
https://scienceofsharp.com/page/5/
And you can see the raggedness of the height of the blade in shots from the side, like the side view shot in
https://scienceofsharp.com/page/13/
(Those are electron microscope pictures, at a higher magnification than your macro lens can manage, but I hope you get the idea.)
But maybe this is too early to be showing close-ups of your edges. I'm sure you will get even better with time.
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In the meantime, I want to work on a modest chart or system to quickly adapt to different blade thicknesses for centering on the crown. I'll bet a dollar that's where most sharpening techs struggle.
Yeah, a couple of skate techs have let me watch, and I've seen several videos by skate techs on YouTube. Surprisingly, they don't use measuring instruments. They eyeball settings, perhaps put ink on the blade, make test cuts, check results, make adjustments on the skate holder, and iterate.
None of them approach the process the way a machinist would. If you center the crown on the wheel as you have, measure the thickness of the wheel, and measure the height of a reference surface of the wheel above the flatbed, you can determine the height of the crown above the flatbed. Then if you measure the thickness of the blade (and perhaps some other measurements depending on the specific blade geometry), you can calculate the target height of a reference surface of the blade above the flatbed such that the central longitudinal axis of the blade aligns with the crown. Also, by checking the heights of the blade above the flatbed at several points along the blade (depending on the specific blade geometry), you can set the tilt adjustments of the skate holder to align the blade properly.
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Here are some close-up photos of the freshly sharpened blades. I used a 60mm Nikon macro lens for the close-up, then cropped in on the photo to show the area of interest.
This one shows a fine "wire edge" partially detached from the blade edge. One wipe and it's gone.
Other than the stray wire edge, there were no burrs along the edges that required removal with a honing stone?
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Edit: tstop - your second post above arrived while I was typing this one referencing your first post. I'll add another post about burrs.
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Well, I did essentially that today. I thought through the process and made some notes along the way. The repositionable magnetic scales in the height/tilt mechanisms are attached to 1/4-28 screws. Each turn of a dial then advances or retracts the holder 1/28th inch, or 0.036". The dial has 1/16 divisions around it's circumference. That means that each division raises or lowers the blade 0.0023" (0.036"/16).
I made a chart with that information along with which direction to make adjustments based on the reading of the edge level checker.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_adjustments-28-800px.jpg)
It's now taped to the dust hood until my memory kicks in.
I had zeroed the magnetic dials for my old Riedell skates.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_dials-3-800px.jpg)
The blades for the old Riedells at the clamping area (close to the stanchions) varied in thickness from 0.149" to 0.152".
In a moment of optimism, I elected to sharpen my current Ace blades that I currently skate on, but their thickness at the clamp area is a thicker 0.161" - 0.163". That requires an adjustment of the skate holder to accomplish even edges. The difference between the two blades was approximately 0.010". Half that amount is required to keep the blades centered, so I dialed in 0.005" downward into the holder. After two cutting passes with no further change in the holder, I saw this wonderful result...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_adjustments-1-800px.jpg)
Hallelujah! The math worked! I was over the top with joy! Boy, am I having fun!
When previously deciding which sharpener to purchase, I did a little scale diagram to see how far back from the pick that I could sharpen with the Wissota's 7 inch wheel. The diagram in this thread http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8357.0 (http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8357.0) predicted a 0.7" dead zone where I couldn't sharpen. Here's what I got today...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_adjustments-19-800px.jpg)
Good heavens, the prediction was right on!
I use sharpening wax on one blade to compare to the other. When wax is applied, it is suggested to cut in the same direction as the cutting wheel, moving slowly.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_adjustments-21-800px.jpg)
I could see the wax was melting near the cutting area. It made a very slight difference on my blade. It's so slight that I probably won't use it. Usage requires re-dressing the wheel each time because of build-up on the wheel. It's easy to see where the wax was here....
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_adjustments-25-800px.jpg)
Color me skeptical if you wish, but I think that the wax might be a way to sell more grinding wheels with all the required re-dressing.
There is one little thing that I will keep in mind. The wax could be seen melting where the wheel touched the blade. Perhaps it will prevent the steel from losing temper along the edge because the wax melting and evaporating might keep the steel a bit cooler. That would affect edge life, not finish.
I am extremely happy with these results. The blade is as smooth as a baby's bottom, and it's easy now to accommodate different blades with this sharpener. I'll have happy dreams again tonight!
BTW, I used a 7/16" ROH for these blades to split between the Pro-Filer's 3/8" and 1/2 ROH", both of which I've tried.
I'll be up early tomorrow to skate on them. The dance blades will have to wait a bit longer.
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tstop - there is a slight burr, but it's much less than I got with the Pro-Filer hand sharpener. It's detectable in some places along the blade, but not in others. I'm using the fingernail test to find it.
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Hallelujah! The math worked! I was over the top with joy! Boy, am I having fun!
...
Good heavens, the prediction was right on!
It's reassuring that geometrical analysis, measurements, and math work. Sid Broadbent took this approach when he designed the Incredible Edger; he was a former aerospace engineer. But this approach doesn't get passed on to skate techs who use his machine. I met one hockey coach who sharpens skates with this approach (with a different machine); turned out he was previously a tech at a steel mill. I think there would be fewer screwups if all skate techs learned this approach for setup.
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There is one little thing that I will keep in mind. The wax could be seen melting where the wheel touched the blade. Perhaps it will prevent the steel from losing temper along the edge because the wax melting and evaporating might keep the steel a bit cooler. That would affect edge life, not finish.
I thought the wax was used only for the final pass. Is that correct? If so, there would be no wax-assisted cooling for most of the sharpening run, and you would run the highest risk of burning the steel prior to applying the wax.
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Yes, the wax is used for the final "finishing" pass only. That's how I used it.
In some online videos (yeah, I know) the finishing pass is the one done in the opposite direction than the initial passes, and is done slower.
I don't like the "slower" part because of the possibility of grinding in small irregularities. The regular passes (~1 inch/second) work fine, and I'll experiment with the wax at the regular speeds.
At any rate, I didn't see much improvement so far. Time will tell.
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Skating on the blades went very well today. The blades felt very fast, probably because 1) fresh sharpenings always feel faster, 2) the blade surface was very smooth, and 3) the hollow is a flatter 7/16" instead of 3/8". I really pushed into the ice today and was rewarded with a lot of speed.
The conclusion is that everything is just fine. I'm up and running with this new sharpener.
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The conclusion is that everything is just fine. I'm up and running with this new sharpener.
Glad it's all worked out, and in a much shorter time than I had anticipated. I have a good grasp of the measurement and setup procedures. What caused me to shy away from buying the Wissota in the past is the manual manipulation of the skate holder during the sharpening process: pressure of the blade against the wheel, feed rate of the blade, and tracing the contour of the blade are all coupled and done by hand. I was under the impression that this would take considerable practice to develop the skill, as well as constant use to maintain the skill. That doesn't appear to be the case with you. In previous posts, you've indicated that you have two bench grinders plus a Tormek power sharpener. Do you feel that your past hands-on experience on these units already gave you the right touch with the Wissota? Or do you feel that this part of the operation is fairly straightforward?
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It's easier than you expect. Maybe some of my previous experience helps, but as long as you maintain light, even pressure, and don't slow down or speed up halfway through, you'll be fine. That assumes a properly set up skate holder though.
The 100 grit "figure skate" wheel that I'm using is gentle and forgiving. It doesn't hog off material like a standard 80 grit wheel. That makes it more resistant to user bobbles, plus rewards you with a very smooth surface.
I don't think it is as hard as many people make it out to be. You just have to think about what you are doing. Going slow during setup is a virtue.
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I was handed a set of depleted Gold Seals today to practice with. Gold Seals have side honing, so many skate sharpener holders can't clamp on that blade geometry.
They clamped up just fine in the Wissota Figure Skate holder. It holds the blade by the stanchions, which have not been machined.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_gold_seals-13-800px.jpg)
I had just sharpened my Ace blades yesterday, and the stanchion thickness of the Gold Seal blades were identical. I made no adjustment and took the blade straight to the sharpener.
Perfect!
There is one wrinkle though. The "reference" piece of the Wissota Elite even edge checker kit won't work with blades lacking flat sides. The side honing of the Gold Seal prevents the usage of it. My Eclipse Dance blades, being ground to a "thin line" edge for 1/4", can't use both edge checker parts either.
You can still sight against the skate holder itself using the edge checker piece that lies across the edges. You get close, but not as accurately as you can with a flat-sided blade using both parts.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_holder_gold_seals-11-Edit-800px.jpg)
The Wissota Elite Edge Checker essentially becomes their $40 Basic Edge Checker with these blades. I suspect that it's still just fine.
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There is one wrinkle though. Half of the Wissota Elite even edge checker won't work with a non-flat blade sides. The side honing of the Gold Seal prevents the usage of it. My Eclipse Dance blades, being ground to a "thin line" edge for 1/4", can't use both edge checker parts either.
You can still sight against the skate holder itself using the edge checker part that lies across the edges and get very close, but not as accurately as you can with a flat side blade using both parts.
Paramount produces three configurations of edge checkers to accommodate the various blades on the market. They are all two-piece units (measurement bar and reference horizon bar), like the Wissota unit. The measurement bar is the same for all, and is attached to the edges via a magnet, just as in the Wissota unit. The design of the reference horizon bar varies, to accommodate different types of blades. See https://www.paramountskates.com/videos (Sharpening & Leveling at 3:15 on). For blades that do not have parallel, planar sides, the reference horizon bar clamps onto the stanchions. The main deficiency of the Paramount units is that the reference horizon bar does not have graduation marks to give you an estimate of how off-level you are.
People who design blades should give more consideration to how blades are sharpened and checked.
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That's a nice set of measurement tools. I see that the Paramount skates use a standard hockey-style skate holder to grip the runner.
They appear to be in control of their manufacturing tolerances when it comes to rockers and blade thickness.
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That's a nice set of measurement tools. I see that the Paramount skates use a standard hockey-style skate holder to grip the runner.
They appear to be in control of their manufacturing tolerances when it comes to rockers and blade thickness.
Most Paramount blades can't use standard hockey-style holders: the runners aren't wide enough. They need to be held by the stanchions. There is a YouTube video showing that the Wissota figure-skate holder that you have does work (the aluminum-alloy stanchions are a lot thicker than normal steel stanchions, and some figure-skate holder jaws don't open wide enough). There is another video showing Paramount blades mounted on Sid Broadbent's Incredible Edger.
Paramount was also guilty in their initial designs of not taking into account how a typical skate tech would sharpen and check the edges. Paramount had to develop their own custom edge checker. Within this past year, Paramount has introduced two intermediate-grade blades that can be sharpened with standard hockey-style holders: the runners are wider. Unfortunately they are available in 420 stainless steel only, not the better grade 440C. I think Paramount would have wider acceptance if they were easier to sharpen. Not sure whether they will redesign their advance patterns: the wider runners will add some extra weight, and Paramount keeps pushing light weight as one of their biggest selling points.
It would be great if someone at your rink has a worn-out Paramount for you to play with. Wissota does not recommend the 100 grit wheel for stainless steel blades. I wonder what the finish is like with the 80 grit wheel; and whether you have as easy a control. I suppose you could use the 100 grit wheel for a final pass if needed for a better finish, but you would have to swap wheels (that's why I previously asked how easy it is to swap wheels). I don't think most pro skate techs would do that; but for personal use, certainly viable.
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Within this past year, Paramount has introduced two intermediate-grade blades that can be sharpened with standard hockey-style holders
That must be what I saw when I glanced through the Paramount offerings.
Just FYI, it looks like the clamp itself can clamp up to ~1/2" thick stanchions. There's sufficient thread for that. The photo below shows the threads and finger nut, but the top part of the clamp is lying in the background. I measured the 1/2" with the top clamp in position and the finger nut loosened to about 5 or 6 threads left.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_skate_holder_det-1-800px.jpg)
If you need more than 1/2", the threaded studs look to be standard 1/4-20 bolts inserted from the underside. Just find longer bolts to handle extra thick stanchions.
You'd have to adjust the skate holder downward by half the stanchion thickness. I took a rough look at how much down travel is left, and it looks to be roughly 1/2". The plate can move only as far as the locking nut nestled inside the springs, not the whole 0.7" showing on the ruler. That should be more than enough for fairly thick Paramount stanchions.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_skate_holder_det-2-Edit-800px.jpg)
So what is the thickness of a Paramount aluminum stanchion?
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When I purchased the sharpener, I purchased additional accessories like the Elite Edge Checker, sharpening wax, the 100-grit wheel for figure skates, plus a toe pick protector.
The toe pick protector looked familiar, but couldn't place it right off the top of my head.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector-6-800px.jpg)
It fastens to the blade to protect the toe pick from being accidentally ground when sharpening. (It's obviously too late for the junk blade in the photo!)
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector-2-800px.jpg)
I finally realized where I had seen those before. They are devices to clamp onto a machinist's square to set a fixed measurement. I checked McMaster-Carr and found them listed for under $5 per pair. https://www.mcmaster.com/square-holding-clamps (https://www.mcmaster.com/square-holding-clamps)
I paid $14.99 for one of them from Wissota.
There's a place where you can save a little money.
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I wanted to quantify the errors indicated by the Wissota Elite Edge Checker when used to check for level edges. Along the way, I discovered this. The wedge of light appearing between the Starrett square body and the edge checker indicates a squareness problem.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_checker_tune-15-800px.jpg)
This piece of the two-part tool wasn't mounted square to the magnetic attachment. That would indicate level edges when in fact, they are not. I already sharpened my own skates using it this way, so they don't have perfectly level edges. Frankly, I didn't detect it skating yesterday, so I must be able to tolerate slightly uneven edges.
But still, I don't like inaccurate tools. I suspected that the heavy paint application caused this. The paint built up in ridges around its edges, including the mounting holes for the magnet. Two screws took the unit apart for fixing.
I placed sandpaper on a flat surface to smooth the paint on the magnetic block. This surface had irregular ridges of paint around the mating edges, so they were flattened by rubbing it against the sandpaper.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_checker_tune-22-800px.jpg)
I also took a small file to flatten the paint on the bottom where the magnet mounts. I did squareness checks as I leveled the paint to ensure that I didn't go too far.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_checker_tune-23-800px.jpg)
The photo above shows obvious paint build-up on edges, and where I removed some of the high spots from around the mounting holes.
I now have this perfectly square piece.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_checker_tune-26-800px.jpg)
There are a lot of edge checkers out there that work like this. I wonder how many of them need a little TLC for best results?
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So what is the thickness of a Paramount aluminum stanchion?
Right blade: mid-stanchion and heel stanchion both .341"
Left blade: mid-stanchion and heel stanchion both .343"
[Measured with a micrometer with .0001" vernier; rounded to nearest .001".]
What I call the mid-stanchion is the rear stanchion on the toe plate.
This confirms that the Wissota figure skate holder should work with Paramount blades.
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Yes, agreed that it should work. Easily.
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There are a lot of edge checkers out there that work like this. I wonder how many of them need a little TLC for best results?
That's disappointing for a $100 tool. ETA: At least you were able to readily correct the alignment on the Wissota measurement piece, since the magnet was secured with screws. I've come across other units in which the magnet was secured with adhesive.
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Actually, the magnet itself is a little round rare earth magnet potted into a small piece of aluminum. The aluminum block that holds the magnet is drilled and tapped for mounting. Nothing wrong with the basic design, but the implementation of it, with unexpectedly heavy paint in places, caused the issue.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_edge_checker_magnet-1-800px.jpg)
Easy 45-minute fix though.
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I finally realized where I had seen those before. They are devices to clamp onto a machinist's square to set a fixed measurement. I checked McMaster-Carr and found them listed for under $5 per pair. https://www.mcmaster.com/square-holding-clamps (https://www.mcmaster.com/square-holding-clamps)
You mentioned that the toe protector fell off in the course of your first run, and you continued without it. Was this just a matter of you being over cautious the first time and not tightening it enough, or did you find out the cause? You've mentioned that the motor runs smooth, so I assume that it didn't come off due to vibration. Have you successfully used the toe protector in subsequent runs? Any mods, such as thread lock or thread tape, needed? [ETA: When I first saw it, it reminded me of a ground wire connector.]
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I just didn't tighten it enough. I have used it on subsequent blades. Being soft brass, it shouldn't mark the skate blade even with it being clamped tighter.
One issue is that it tends to stick out pretty far and limit how close to the pick you can grind. It can be positioned differently to help with that, and it's something I will investigate more thoroughly.
I did order the look-alikes from McMaster-Carr yesterday, together with a set of Starrett radius gauges. I should have the items here by later afternoon and I'll post comparison photos.
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Well, I have my first customer as of this morning. One of the local young adult skaters attends morning freestyle sessions. She started the season in September with some rust on the bottom of her blades, and had the local rink sharpen them. That was before they put up the sign saying they wouldn't sharpen figure skates any more.
After the session ended today, I checked her blades for level edges. This is what she had at the rear of her blades...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_blades_uneven-2-800px.jpg)
Ugh! That has to affect her skating!
Knowing that I have the new sharpener, she asked me if I could sharpen them. I agreed to. I'll do them early next week to suite her skating schedule.
One of the coaches here skates in Paramount blades. I tried out the edge level checker on them, and it worked fine. On Paramounts, the blade's aluminum chassis prevents the checker's side magnet from going all the way down, but there's still enough side engagement on the blade that it works. I was happy to learn that.
She has her skates sharpened in Columbus by an individual, not a rink, and her blades were perfectly even. That fellow knows what he is doing.
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The alternate toe pick protectors arrived today. They are called "stair guages" and are meant to be attached to squares for repeated marking.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector2-1-800px.jpg)
These must be common. There are some slight differences between the "toe pick protector" provided by Wissota and these, but nothing that inhibits their function.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector2-3-800px.jpg) (http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector2-5-800px.jpg)
The hole in the bottom of the Wissota-provided unit means nothing. It's just a manufacturing choice between two different brands, I suspect.
The new ones work like a charm...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_pick_protector2-13-800px.jpg)
They might even be available in well-stocked hardware stores. They are certainly inexpensive.
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In the recent order that I just placed for the brass pieces, I included a set of radius gauges to measure the hollow of blades. I also wanted to verify that the diamond dresser markings were accurate on the dresser. The diamond dresser rotates around the edge of the grinding wheel, and rounds it to produce the hollow desired by the skater.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_diamond_dress_adj-8-800px.jpg)
..and a close-up showing the markings on it. The screw head is the indicator for the markings on the diamond dresser.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_diamond_dress_adj-6-800px.jpg)
I used the radius gauges to verify its accuracy. I'm happy to report that this has been set very accurately on the Wissota sharpener.
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They might even be available in well-stocked hardware stores. They are certainly inexpensive.
Home Depot.
$2.51/pair (Johnson) https://www.homedepot.com/p/Johnson-Brass-Stair-Gauges-2-Pack-405/100353821
$4.97/pair (Empire, with hole) https://www.homedepot.com/p/Empire-3-4-in-Brass-Stair-Gauges-2-Pack-105/100162901
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Wow - that IS cheap!
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..and a close-up showing the markings on it. The screw head is the indicator for the markings on the diamond dresser.
I really have to hand it to Wissota for clever design; particularly use of off-the-shelf components in an unexpected application.
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Wow - that IS cheap!
And waaay cheaper than the ProSharp toe pick protector: $35
https://prosharp.us/collections/consumeables/products/toe-pick-protector
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Yep, just like using a flathead screw for a pointer for the diamond dresser.
Plain, common sense manufacturing.
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Bill: Do you suppose that "polishing fluid", or just a light oil, would be easier to use? In that I don't think you would need to re-dress the wheel. I know of at least a couple skate techs who use one or the other.
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I'm taking the easy way out and omitting the wax. With the 100-grit wheel, the finish is very good without it. Perhaps with the coarser 80-grit wheel that comes standard with this unit, sharpening wax might make a more meaningful difference.
If I used a fluid or oil, I'd probably have a mess afterward to clean up. I'm not going to experiment with that.
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I sharpened the skates of a young adult skater after today's freestyle session. She's the one who had terribly uneven edges from a rink sharpening.
The first that that I did was to measure her current ROH, and it looked to be 1/2". She's not a strong skater and she didn't request a different hollow, so I didn't change the ROH. I redressed the grinding wheel to 1/2" in about a minute. I previously had it set to 7/16" ROH for my own skates.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-48-800px.jpg)
Here's the $100 tool checking the edge level. From my earlier calculations it looks like one edge is higher than the other by about 0.011".
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-30-800px.jpg)
To compare the expensive tool to a cheap alternative "edge checker", I held a piece of scrap 1/4" Masonite against the edge...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-31-800px.jpg)
The zero-cost "tool" is certainly good enough to give a rough qualitative assessment of edge levelness. The advantage of the more expensive tool is that it tells me about how much to adjust the skate holder up or down to get close to a level edge.
Because I had so much grinding to do to repair the bad sharpening, it took about 8-10 passes on the sharpener. One bad sharpening wastes so much of a blade!
When I was done, I had this...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-40-800px.jpg)
And this with the scrap piece of Masonite...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-43-800px.jpg)
Pretty good! I hope that it works for her. The rink did the previous bad sharpening back in September, so I'm sure that this will feel different to her.
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.011" high! The last guy really butchered her blades. Good thing you corrected the misalignment in the edge checker before sharpening skates for others.
"The advantage of the more expensive tool is that it tells me about how much to adjust the skate holder up or down to get close to a level edge."
You lost me here, Bill. I thought you would have just measured the thickness of her blades (at the position the skate holder clamps onto), and adjusted the height of the skate holder accordingly. How does the initial state of the edges come into play? Are you trying to level off the edges initially before the sharpening?
I hope your wife isn't the jealous type. You'll be Big Man on Campus (at least at the rink); and girls and women (at least the figure skaters) will be clamoring for your attention. :-)
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You lost me here, Bill. I thought you would have just measured the thickness of her blades (at the position the skate holder clamps onto), and adjusted the height of the skate holder accordingly. How does the initial state of the edges come into play? Are you trying to level off the edges initially before the sharpening?
You are correct. However measuring blade thickness and setting height gets you close, but not to perfection every time. A look at the gauge tells you how far you are off your are from your estimate for level edges, so you can tweak the height when you get close. That's what I meant by that sentence, not in the context of adjusting the holder to get rid of the whole amount in this case..
Beside that particular use of the tool, it's enlightening to quantify how far things are off.
One more thing - a photo that I didn't include in the previous post shows how rough the previous sharpening was, with recurring chatter marks. I easily beat its surface finish.
Edit: I decided that I'd include the photo anyway. After all, this is the definition of a bad sharpening from a hockey-oriented rink.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-36-800px.jpg)
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You are correct. However measuring blade thickness and setting height gets you close, but not to perfection every time. A look at the gauge tells you how far you are off your are from your estimate for level edges, so you can tweak the height when you get close. That's what I meant by that sentence, not in the context of adjusting the holder to get rid of the whole amount in this case..
Oh, I get you now. You're using the edge checker to tweak the skate holder settings during your sharpening passes. I misunderstood. I thought you meant you were using the initial .011" offset as a factor in setting up your skate holder.
ETA: A .011" high edge is a lot. In grinding that down, did it create a groove in the wheel, causing you to redress multiple times?
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None that I noticed. I did lightly dress between the two skates to be safe.
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It sounds like you are happy with your new toy. Great!
Did you take the machine to the rink to do the young lady's skates on site?
What do you feel you could do for her with the powered machine that you couldn't do with the Pro-Filer?
You are missing three measurements, that would make you look like a real expert:
1. How much metal are you removing? A good place to measure with your calipers is under the stanchion.
2. Are you removing about as much on the front as on the rear?
3. As far as you can tell, does the rocker profile still match a tracing from before? Or if it looks to you like the previous butcher removed the sweet spot (or whatever you want to call the rocker transition point), did you put one back, roughly under the ball of her foot?
I admit that 99.999% of skate techs would never measure any of these things. But think how much you will impress all those fine young ladies by taking out a precision calipers.
Also, a few of the real experts keep a file on each "customer". It might contain things like name, hollow, a tracing of their blade, and whether they wanted you to dull the blade (i.e., de-burr). It would make you look even more professional.
Don't forget to give all those fine young ladies your contact info!
(Of course, their parents will start getting worried about you.)
If your rink already has a pro shop or designated skate tech, they could get very mad at you. Typically, they pay a fee to the rink for exclusive rights. And if your rink doesn't, and rink management finds out, they might want to charge you for the privilege of sharpening other people's skates - even if you don't charge. :(
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The machine is mounted to the pedestal and is much too heavy to move in that configuration. I did it at home where it is permanently set up, and I have all sorts of tools at my fingertips.
I'm MUCH too old to worry about impressing the ladies. That time has passed. Besides, my wife would probably collar me if I started to frollick about.
I plan to take the time for measurements once a blade is stabilized. I did this job for free, so didn't put in the time for documentation. I am more curious how she will do on the skates after having been on bad edges for a couple of months.
Now, compared to the Pro-Filer, this machine:
1) Is WAY more expensive
2) Is much faster
3) Offers more ROH choices beside 3/8" and 1/2"
4) More fun to run (Think back to the old TV show Home Improvement with Tim Allen, and you'll get the idea.)
5) Can't sharpen right up to the toe pick like a Pro-Filer
6) Screw-ups can happen in a blink compared to the slow grind of the Pro-Filer
7) Reduces your cardio workout
8] I get to buy more blades over the years because it has more aggressive metal removal ;) [That was a joke, with an element of truth to it!]
Frankly, part of the reason I purchased the machine is because the local rink put up a sign stating that they will no longer sharpen figure skates. That's a bit unfair to figure skaters in the community, and I will offer sharpening to some of the serious skaters that I know through word-of-mouth. My wife prohibits me from starting a business and doing all the figure skates in town though, or we'd have a stream of tiny tots with parents showing up at the door. No thanks!
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BTW, I do enjoy working with it and on getting to understand it inside and out. In that respect, it is very much a toy for me.
But a useful one.
When are you buying yours?
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Frankly, part of the reason I purchased the machine is because the local rink put up a sign stating that they will no longer sharpen figure skates. That's a bit unfair to figure skaters in the community, and I will offer sharpening to some of the serious skaters that I know through word-of-mouth.
<<Emphasis added>> If the blades you rescued are representative of the quality of sharpening they used to do, then they're doing the community a great favor by no longer accepting figure skates.
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..., and I will offer sharpening to some of the serious skaters that I know through word-of-mouth. My wife prohibits me from starting a business and doing all the figure skates in town though, or we'd have a stream of tiny tots with parents showing up at the door. No thanks!
Wise wife.
BTW, I do enjoy working with it and on getting to understand it inside and out. In that respect, it is very much a toy for me.
But a useful one.
Now that you're retired, it's important to distinguish between a hobby and another job. A hobby you pursue for your own personal satisfaction, and for the benefit of a select group of skaters (and you get to do the selecting). It would stop being fun if you had a line of impatient customers at your garage, or a parent collecting skates from a group of kids and dropping off a batch of a dozen skates to be done pronto monto. And with too many orders, you won't be able to be as meticulous as you want to be.
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Just a note about location - I have it in my workshop which is UNDER the garage. It's cool in winter, but not frigid like in the garage itself.
I bring this up because Wissota has special precautions about using the unit in a very cold location...
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_cold_weather.gif)
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It's great that Wissota uses a motor outfitted with ball bearings. Getting less common in these days of aggressive cost cutting.
Do they specify a recommended minimum ambient operating temperature elsewhere?
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The manual itself recommends that temperatures below freezing might cause slow starting. Startup times reaching 6 seconds require pre-heating of the motor.
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When I was a kid my parents kept their car engine warm with head bolt heaters. :) Could you create something similar for your workshop power tools? Or put the tools in a circle surrounding a small electric heater?
>When are you buying yours?
If the question was for me, I can't really afford it, and will be moving to a TBD location that might not have room.
I prefer hand-tools. I plan to experiment with a VERY coarse round stone, to see quickly I can do major re-shaping. But a minimalist power tool also appeals - e.g., a circular grinding wheel, whose radius matches the ROH, on an electric drill mounted in a horizontal drill guide, or a router, using the profile copying method you mentioned in another thread. Right now I am experimenting with looking at my edges with microscopes - kind of cool too.
I wish I could get as easy results out of skating. In my mid-60's jumping is mostly a lost cause, but even a few good spins would be nice.
>Reduces your cardio workout
If experimenting with sharpening and blades pushes you to skate more, you are increasing your cardio workout! :)
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My mostly subterranean workshop has a couple of heat vents in it. The shop temperature might dip into the 50s F in the dead of winter, but nothing severe. I don't have any worries there.
It's worlds better than an unheated garage.
There's nothing wrong with hand tools though. I'm keeping my Pro-Filer for now. It's the only tool I have that can sharpen right up to the picks.
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I found another limitation of the Elite Edge Checker today. I mounted Eclipse dance blade and sharpened them to 1/2" ROH.
When I tried to mount the edge checker half that has a side magnet, I realized that it won't work well with dance blade "thinline" profiles. The blade thickness abruptly steps down near the edge to become a thin dance blade. The side of the blade is not flat, so the magnet couldn't hold the reference half of the checker square to the blade.
I reverted to eyeballing the other half of the edge checker to ensure that it's parallel to the skate holder surface. I should be fine, but wanted to point out that some blades without flat sides won't work with the edge checker kit in "Elite" mode.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/eclipse_dance_mounting-2-800px.jpg)
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I found another limitation of the Elite Edge Checker today. I mounted Eclipse dance blade and sharpened them to 1/2" ROH.
When I tried to mount the edge checker half that has a side magnet, I realized that it won't work well with dance blade "thinline" profiles. The blade thickness abruptly steps down near the edge to become a thin dance blade. The side of the blade is not flat, so the magnet couldn't hold the reference half of the checker square to the blade.
I reverted to eyeballing the other half of the edge checker to ensure that it's parallel to the skate holder surface. I should be fine, but wanted to point out that some blades without flat sides won't work with the edge checker kit in "Elite" mode.
How far down the side of the blade (from the edges) does the magnet of the reference horizon piece reach? Does the full-width portion of the blade have flat reference surfaces?
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(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_checker_dance-13-Edit-800px.jpg)
The magnet block is 1/2" deep down the side of the blade. The magnet itself is around 3/8" diameter potted in a hole located in the center of the block. The Eclipse blade steps down to edge thickness just over 1/4" down. The edge checker reference piece can't go lower to stick to the flat side of the blade stock, but I can go up onto the flat relief. However, that gets really fussy because part of the magnet is above the blade and is not in contact with metal. It wants to be down where there's more metal. Then, if it rides down, it makes incorrect measurements.
Really though, the edge checker without the reference piece works just fine for skating purposes. Wissota's basic edge checker is exactly that anyway. You just have to realize the device's limitations or you could accidentally make things worse.
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BTW, my first "customer" was extremely pleased with her newly sharpened blades today. She felt more confident at speed and could hold her basic edges much better.
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BTW, my first "customer" was extremely pleased with her newly sharpened blades today. She felt more confident at speed and could hold her basic edges much better.
Nice! :toppts:
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When I tried to mount the edge checker half that has a side magnet, I realized that it won't work well with dance blade "thinline" profiles...
Another issue with that type of edge checker, as well as using a small square, occurs with blades that have a "twist warp". I believe you want the line across the edges to align with itself along different parts of the blade, as yours does - rather than to be at right angles to the side of the blade. However, I'm not sure what technique you would use to optimally sharpen a blade with twist warp. With Pro-Filer, there is enough play for a skilled person to compensate.
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You are correct. However measuring blade thickness and setting height gets you close, but not to perfection every time. A look at the gauge tells you how far you are off your are from your estimate for level edges, so you can tweak the height when you get close. That's what I meant by that sentence, not in the context of adjusting the holder to get rid of the whole amount in this case..
Beside that particular use of the tool, it's enlightening to quantify how far things are off.
One more thing - a photo that I didn't include in the previous post shows how rough the previous sharpening was, with recurring chatter marks. I easily beat its surface finish.
Edit: I decided that I'd include the photo anyway. After all, this is the definition of a bad sharpening from a hockey-oriented rink.
(http://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-36-800px.jpg)
OT: I happened to be scrolling through Bill's post history because I was looking for a post about the MK Pro vs Coro Ace, and went by this picture....
.....and I'm swearing because my blades have chatter marks just like this. Don't remember if I had them after the first sharpening but they do now after second sharpening mid October. I've skated 4 times since then, but last night was the first time I noticed that if I was going somewhat slowly (but not super slow), I had a strange sensation like I was skating over ruts. Not an issue when skating at normal speed, especially given my low level, but I guess I won't be defending my skate tech anymore. :-[
ETA: and I used a ruler to simulate an edge tester like Bill's gadget, and yep, they're uneven.
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Time to buy your own sharpener! ;) ;D
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Time to buy your own sharpener! ;) ;D
You know if it wasn't so difficult to learn how to sharpen, if the learning curve wasn't so steep, that more people WOULD do their own. Even with the cost of the equipment.
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Hey. Sorry to bring up an old thread. Just a question for all with a wissota. Have you ever tried stones that aren't from wissota? I've tried a few and they are a hit and miss, definitely not balanced. I live in Canada so getting wissota stones cost a lot more, but I am thinking they are way better quality? Just looking for some feedback.
P
Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk
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I've used only Wissota wheel stones in my sharpener. Sorry that I can't comment about the possibility of using other vendors.
Being a small outfit, I'm fairly confident that Wissota doesn't make their own stones in-house, but I don't know who their vendor is. Both the pink and the blue stones (hockey and figure) have "Made in Mexico" on them as the sole clue.
Perhaps you've already done this, but could you call Wissota to see if there is a Canadian distributor? That might cost less than having them shipped from the USA.
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Now, compared to the Pro-Filer, this machine:
2) Is much faster => Screw-ups can happen in a blink compared to the slow grind of the Pro-Filer
8] I get to buy more blades over the years because it has more aggressive metal removal ;) [That was a joke, with an element of truth to it!]
Frankly, part of the reason I purchased the machine is because the local rink put up a sign stating that they will no longer sharpen figure skates.
Bill,
These all are true. Be careful in the frontal area of blade with your big wheel machine. I am not sure if you have ever read Sid Broadbent´s Skateology manual, but there Sid warns about the big wheel machines. Large wheel ensures high cutting speed, which typically ensures nice surface finish (if wheel is in balance, bearings are OK and wheel is dressed enough often). But as you said, it means also faster material removal. You will easily make hump behind the toepicks and erosion at the blade most important area is typically faster. What happens in hockey skates, happens also in figure skates. If you look this video https://youtu.be/8msCWpgY9BI you can see how blade profile has changed remarkably. When such a erosion happens in figure skate blades frontal area, it is not good thing at all.
Those whom says that non-skateable zone profile is not important, has not figured out yet that this area is actually partly used even it looks like you cannot skate with it.
Quite many rink sharpeners sharpens mainly hockey skates and they use large wheel machines. When they are not so used to sharpen figure skates, they may think figure skates take too much time and in the end they just get complains from the figure skaters that they have ruined skaters expensive blades. This surely reduces motivation to sharpen figure skates. Most likely this is reason why they say, thanks, but no thanks. Earning money is much more easier with hockey skates.
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What happens in hockey skates, happens also in figure skates.
I think Bill is careful enough to monitor his profile. He has purchased a device and designed jigs that help him measure it.
A typical complaint for hockey skaters, as in this video, is that poor skate techs tend to even out the rocker radius, reducing the difference between the relatively flat center, and the highly curved ends.
While there is a similar complaint for figure skaters, in that poor skate techs tend to blur together the main rocker radius with the spin rocker radius (or radii), a complaint that is shared by some hockey goalies, there is also a widespread complaint among figure skaters and hockey goalies, that poor skate techs tend to round off the ends, as though they were hockey blades, or maybe even accidentally trim figure skate toe picks when not needed. (BTW, there are times when trimming the toe pick slightly is a good thing, to try to maintain the same relationship between the many-times rockered area and the toe pick. And some school figures people remove it completely.)
This is why I have advocated tracing, or even photocopying the new blade (when that is practical), so you can compare its profile to what it is now, and fix that. But you also need to recognize that most pro shops and many mail order companies that do handle figure skating blades do an initial sharpening themselves before they sell the blade (especially with MK and Wilson blades, which many people claim not to have reliable factory profiles or good factory edges), to give it the profile and edges THEY think they should have - unless you explicitly request they do otherwise.
I have an old Skateology manual which seemed to imply that the "non-skating zone" isn't important - in fact it is possible Broadbent introduced that term. I think it may matter most to skaters who jump, but I believe it affects those of us who don't much too, because the blade sinks a little into the ice. I have used a pencil on the bottom of the blade, and noticed that when I skate, the graphite in that zone comes off too, though I admit that isn't complete proof. I do notice that Ultima Matrix blades (the old style Matrix 1 that I still have) come from the factory extremely sharp, with a hollow essentially all the way up to the toe pick, so they at least believed it matters.
Based on simple geometry, rather than much experience with powered sharpening machines, I believe it is hard to maintain the hollow in that zone on powered machines, precisely because the wheel diameter is so large, as you note. It is easier on the Pro-Filer. It is even easier on the old Berghman sharpeners (because you can see what you are doing, and place the stone at the end of the holder) - especially if you replace the old crumbly stone with a Pro-Filer stone.
A powered "cross-grinder" can come very close to the toe pick - but if not used carefully, it creates asymetric edges. In addition, cross-grinders typically have very coarse grit, and the current wheel diameter determines the hollow radius, so can not be adjusted.
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I have an old Skateology manual which seemed to imply that the "non-skating zone" isn't important - in fact it is possible Broadbent introduced that term. I think it may matter most to skaters who jump, but I believe it affects those of us who don't much too, because the blade sinks a little into the ice. I have used a pencil on the bottom of the blade, and noticed that when I skate, the graphite in that zone comes off too, though I admit that isn't complete proof. I do notice that Ultima Matrix blades (the old style Matrix 1 that I still have) come from the factory extremely sharp, with a hollow essentially all the way up to the toe pick, so they at least believed it matters.
Not about Wissota, but I think this is on topic. Let me know if this should go elsewhere...I'm still in the low single-digit GOE category ;)
I had a guy tell me I was "sharpening too close to the toe pick" when I first started sharpening. This was a skate tech from Fairbanks that sharpened a pair of skates that I had previously sharpened while we were there for a camp. I found that really confusing. How can you sharpen too close to the toe pick? What harm could it possibly do, as long as you don't hit the toe pick itself? Anyone have an idea on this? Am I missing something?
So I did some experimenting the next time I got new blades and left the non-skateable zone (NSZ) unsharpened and then tried the blades. It was very limiting, I felt. I would have a glitchy moment going into a scratch spin because the edge angle changes from acute to 90 degrees as tip forward (yes, that's really far forward, but you do go there when you "hook" into a 3...and this is not a technique thread, haha). Also, the unsharpened area was much rougher than the sharpened area. Waltz jump takeoffs felt terrible and there was a feeling of not-grabbing-fast-enough when rolling off the toe pick at the landing. I'm sure if I had always had skates with an unsharpened NSZ, I would have thought this all felt normal, but I did not like it at all. My takeaway from this is that the blade sinks into the ice a bit, which puts you forward of the contact point you see on a flat surface, and if you are solidly over one edge, you will get farther forward than if you are on a flat, because you sink deeper into the ice...so yes, there is a NSZ but it's farther forward than what you see when you assess the blade on a non-deforming surface.
I have also had skaters who purchased skates while at a summer camp or out of town visiting family who come back with an unsharpened NSZ. The older kids and adults tend to notice that there is something they don't like about the new blade and bring it to me to see what's up, so I show them the unsharpened NSZ and explain that rolling from a sharpened edge to that rough 90-degree surface is what they are feeling. I'll admit that some of the younger kids are not very aware, so I usually discover it when they are ready for their next sharpening. I don't say anything, but I just sharpen as usual because they are accustomed to having that area sharpened on their old blades. However, I have had even 7-yr-olds say that the skates feel much better now, that they felt "weird" before. Since it's an isolated town (trapped in the fjords...glaciers behind us, ocean in front) and I sharpen all of the higher-end figure skates, sharpening up to about 3/8"-ish from the pick is de facto the norm around here. I have the ICE machine designed by Broadbent, so the wheel allows me to get that close. Toe pick geometry dictates how close I can comfortably get.
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Good discussion about the non-skating zone (NSZ). I can tie this back to the Wissota sharpener because I did a little research into how well the 7" wheel of a Wissota could reach into the NSZ of Coronation Aces. I was skating on them a the time, and I was concerned about how well it would reach into the area. I created a to-scale illustration of the difference in the Wissota vs. Blademaster 3" wheels around the NSZ...
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/skate_blade_grinding_wheel.gif).
It was drawn in a vector program and I can change the heavy "art" lines to finer versions, and zoom in for a very close peek and make some accurate estimates. The 3" and the 7" wheels were surprisingly close, and both sharpened well into the NSZ. Of course, your Broadbent machine is much better than either of these, but I didn't feel a skating issue on my own skates using the 7" grinding wheel on Aces, Gold Seals, Eclipse dance blades, or Pattern 99s. I might have skated on some others while trying out different blades in the fall of '19, but can't recall them right now.
I had been used to skating on a very tiny unsharpened area between pick and NSZ contact point (flat surface) when using the Profiler hand sharpener as you can see in this photo...
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/skate_blade_change_ROH-59-800px.jpg)
You can spot a little Dychem Blue on either edge close to the toe pick where I didn't spend excessive time trying for a sharp edge there. I was changing my ROH at the time (more experiments!), and it was an hours-long process doing it by hand. Even though I didn't get a sharp edge all the way to the toe pick, you can tell that it is a lot closer than a grinding wheel can get. After switching to the Wissota, I couldn't detect any difference in skating feel attributable to reach into the NSZ.
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Just as a point of reference, this is what I achieve with the Wissota. Shown is a 10-1/4" Gold Seal blade. The beginning of the sharpened area is well within the NSZ produced by the blade touching the drag pick on a flat surface. The 7" wheel can't reach as close to the pick as the Profiler (or your ICE sharpener), but I didn't detect any issue when skating. I concluded that it was not a problem.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/skate_blade_non-skating_zone_wissota-13-Edit-1000px.jpg)
To sharpen this close to the pick, I do attach the pick protectors mentioned earlier in this thread.
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For sharpening with hand tool, I just use cloth athletic tape instead of a "pick protector", and try to be careful.
I'm not all that certain that frequent NSZ sharpening is needed. I don't do it as often as the rest of the blade - because I think I don't wear down that part of the edges much.
And I've noticed certain pro shops never worry about it, but just stay far away from the toe pick. I guess that is better than going too close and trimming it by accident! :)
But I guess that wouldn't be enough to stop a powered sharpening machine, like the Wissota, from grinding off the tape and a bit of the toe pick - right?
I assume you haven't tried to create a jig to follow rocker-bar type guides, or something involving adjustable screws to set the rocker radius? In other words, you guide the skate against the blade by hand, and try to be uniform in how much metal you take off?
How would you design such a jig?
I though of making my own rocker bars on a 3D printer, but the 3D printers I can get free (e.g., at public libraries) or cheap access to have about 1 or 2 mm consistency - not great. :(
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For sharpening with hand tool, I just use cloth athletic tape instead of a "pick protector", and try to be careful.
...
But I guess that wouldn't be enough to stop a powered sharpening machine, like the Wissota, from grinding off the tape and a bit of the toe pick - right?
At most, it would buy you a split second to react. Worse, soft gummy material would foul the grinding wheel, necessitating a re-dress.
I don't intend to get into rocker re-shaping using templates even though I dreamed about it. If my basement shop were large enough to hold more machinery (mill and lathe), and I were younger, then I might pursue it. I'm no stranger to machine design...
(https://www.afterness.com/images/bill_radva_loader.jpg)
(I wish that I still had the youthful vigor that I had in this early 80s photo.)
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Love the 80s photo!
Great details, Bill, thanks. It looks to me like your machine gets close enough that it doesn’t affect your skating. A lot of blades come with a full inch unsharpened at the front, probably just to be safe regarding the toe pick. Factory sharpenings are notoriously poor anyway, they’re just a starting point. I see a lot of new blades come in where the edges are off by the same amount on both blades, relative to how they run through the sharpener, such as low in LI and RO. Still, having some sort of radius to start from saves grinding time. A a skate tech that just follows the factory pattern will leave that whole area unsharpened and sometimes doesn’t even level out the edges (gasp!).
SkateScience blades come completely flat, so it takes forever on the first sharpening. But then I know that I have the actual design profile, and anything that is or isn’t right is my doing.
Query—I agree that once you have shaped the NSZ so it has a radius, it doesn’t really need to be sharp. It mostly needs to be shaped so that it has enough of a hollow to be a natural continuation along that rocker profile.
I have never used a ProFiler, I will have to look at how that works. Tape would definitely tear right off and gunk up the wheel on a powered sharpener.
I have less machining experience than Bill and my shop is small (it’s the dry lab for my engineering business) so I don’t try to machine to a profile pattern. I think I started sharpening in 2007, I’d have to look back in my sharpening logs to see. I know I’m able to pay attention to far more detail now than I was when I started, but I’ve always tried to maintain the original profile as best I can. The guy that taught me to sharpen never mentioned this, and actually he told me some things that I could see early on were problematic (if only the front is off level, just shape the front and lift away from the wheel where it’s already level...). If you don’t take a layer off the whole length, your profile is going to change on every sharpening and who knows what you have? If it’s a rec blade with zero subtlety, okay (maybe), but for a $450 blade that you chose for its shape?
It’s a tremendous relief for me to have discovered a forum for people who can discuss these things. Have any of you bought products from PBHE? I’m considering their “blade root honing tool”.
http://precisionblade.com/index.php/product-catalogue/
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I haven't purchased anything from them but have borrowed some ideas. The honing tool you linked was mentioned in an earlier thread when I was casting about for power blade sharpening equipment. I had used a Profiler hand sharpener from 2000-2019. It's a well-made unit, works well, but is of course slow. That's an advantage though when you want maximum blade life. I used in on a pair of Coronation Aces from 2007-2019 (12 years!) and they still had life remaining.
Here's a pair of tracings brought into Photoshop and aligned. The new condition is in black pencil, the condition 12 years later is shown in red. Click to enlarge.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/skate_blade_wear_aces_2007-2019_color.gif)
The Profiler is available in just two radii - 3/8" and 1/2". They advertise a unit with the common 7/16" radii, but it is just a 3/8" unit. When questioned about this, the owner said that there was hardly any difference between 3/8" and 7/16" so they just sell the same hardware. That felt a bit misleading even though he's right.
You can get uneven edges with the Profiler if technique is poor. I made a jig a couple years back to hold my skates so that I had a bit better control over Profiler usage. It's shown in this thread...
http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8371.0 (http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8371.0)
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I've used only Wissota wheel stones in my sharpener. Sorry that I can't comment about the possibility of using other vendors.
Being a small outfit, I'm fairly confident that Wissota doesn't make their own stones in-house, but I don't know who their vendor is. Both the pink and the blue stones (hockey and figure) have "Made in Mexico" on them as the sole clue.
Perhaps you've already done this, but could you call Wissota to see if there is a Canadian distributor? That might cost less than having them shipped from the USA.
Hey thanks for the response. I just ordered a few from wissota. I did reach out to them and they simply said no.... Such a shame because after shipping each wissota stone cost me $55 US.
The aftermarket distributor I used is confident they had a bad batch. These say made in Mexico as well... He is shipping me new ones for free when the new batch comes in and I will try them out.
Sent from my SM-G975W using Tapatalk
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The high cost because of shipping is unfortunate. You also get hit because of the exchange rate.
Despite the fact that your third-party wheel stones are the likely cause of unbalance, be sure to also check the clamp bolt that holds the motor assembly to the table. If that's a bit loose, it will amplify unbalance in the grinding wheel.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_clamp_bolt-4-Edit-800px.jpg)
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Bill,
When I was purchasing my first sharpening machine with 6" wheel, I made very similar research (sketches) as you have made. I was focusing heavily in to area which you cannot grind without cross grinder. I could not understand why more skilled skate techs says that big wheel machines are not so optimal for figure skates. Most of the time I was focusing to wrong side of wheel. What you should focus is the area between the touch point and where hollow starts. Area which remains ungrinded, is just kind of indicator which visualizes the issue more easily than seeing the erosion in the blade profile.
I agree that there is no significant difference where is hollow starts. I mean small wheel vs large wheel. Does the hollow start from 0.5" or 0.7" from the toe pics is not the actual problem. I assume you start grinding from the front, near of toe pics and from there you swipe to heel direction. Starting point is that which causes that you will easily remove more material even you believe to remove same amount material all over the blade. Typically you cannot see remarkable change in short term, but most likely you will see the erosion in some stage. When you have used couple years big wheel machine and couple years small wheel machine, its easier to understand the benefits of small wheel machine. Starting from the behind of toe picks is so much easier with small wheel machine.
Attached you can see example picture from the Gold Seal blades which has been sharpened ones with Wissota. Company which made them says that they are specialized to figure skates sharpening and they have sharpened figure skates more than 20 years. At least based on their marketing words, they are very skilled. Either they are not as skilled as they say or problem comes from the machine. I think both options are valid, but audience has freedom to choose their own opinion.
I have examples also from the other skate techs whom uses small wheel machines. They witness that small wheel machine is not any highway to happiness but it definitely makes sharpening of figure skates a bit more easier.
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Bill and I have had this discussion privately. That dead zone behind the toe pick is noticeable to me because I demonstrate a lot of things slowly to students.
When you are working in slow motion, the blade skitters sideways after the toepick sinks into the ice, but before you roll down to the rocker or blade edge
I think most sharpeners only think about jumps, where skaters shift quickly to/from the toe rake.
Basic spins use the toepick to start the maneuver and then shift only to the rocker. (Think of a backspin from a pivot start)
A skater just learning a one-foot turn will often roll all the way up to the toepick, only to lose their grip on the ice as they roll back down through that dead zone.
Just a personal perspective.
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As Figure Spins knows, one advantage of the Pro-Filer hand-held unit is its slow sharpening speed and its ability to sharpen as close to the pick as you want. It just takes patience. You still have to ensure level edges though. Here's a shot of a Pro-Filer getting cozy with portion of the blade just in front of the pick...
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/holder_sharpening/skate_holder_jig_last-32-800px.jpg)
That hand-held sharpener has a lot going for it.
Kaitsu - Do you use an Incredible Edger? If so, what is the diameter of a fresh grinding wheel for it? I know that the motor RPM for that machine was measured running to be about 1780 RPM when driving a wheel not under sharpening load. That equates to a grinding wheel RPM of around 6100 RPM because of the belt drive ratio. I'm curious about the grinding surface speed produced by the wheel at that RPM.
Estimating from photos, I approximated that the Incredible Edger has a wheel about 3" diameter. A 3" wheel on an Incredible Edger would produce a grinding wheel speed of around 80 ft/second where it touches the blade.
FWIW, my Wissota motor is rated 3450 RPM unloaded. The grinding wheel is mounted directly to its shaft. A new 7" wheel is 1.83 feet in circumference, and a worn-down wheel at 5" diameter is 1.31 feet around. Resulting grinding speeds are:
7": (1.83 ft/rev x 3450 rev/min) / (60 seconds/min) = 105 ft/second
5": (1.31 ft/rev x 3450 rev/min) / (60 seconds/min) = 75 ft/second
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_motor_label-1-850pxh.jpg)
BTW, what grit is the Incredible Edger's grinding wheel? That can make a difference too. I use the fine 100-grit wheel marketed for carbon-steel figure blades, and not the more aggressive (pink) wheel typically sold with it.
Note that I often finish a sharpening using sharpening wax. Following instructions for using it, I start the grind going in the same direction as the wheel. (Think of a "climb cut" on a router bit in woodworking.) Because un-clamping and re-clamping can affect level edges, I start sharpening at the tail for passes with wax. The brass toe pick protector is the last thing to touch the wheel on that pass. The geometry of the protector causes the blade to lift away from the grind stone at the end of the pass.
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Do big wheels have advantages too?
Aside from the fact that they have more surface to wear out, so I assume they don't need to be changed as often.
E.g., can the wheel get so hot that it stops working right?
Speculations:
I read something that was about extremely sharp sharpening (e.g., razors). If I understand right, abrasives that aren't hard enough to reshape the carbide inclusions in hardened steel (like diamond dust, and a few other abrasives), that give steel its hardness (including resistance to bending the edge), must instead pull the inclusions out of the steel, making it soft (sometimes dealt with by stoning the edge, to completely remove a sharpening burr of softened steel), or push them further into the steel, making the steel at the edge extra hard and brittle (also sometimes dealt with by stoning the edge).
Straight razors are often sharpened with the aid of particular types of jewelers rouge that contains diamond dust or another very hard material, which CAN reshape the carbide inclusions.
Obviously, razors are different. Whereas the edge angle in skates is only a little less than 90 degrees, razors have a very narrow edge angle, and hair cutting was claimed to work best if the tip of the edge is narrower (sub-micron) than the size of those carbide inclusions (which can be up to several microns wide). Whereas the edge on an ice skate only has to penetrate a little into the ice (which is much softer than hair at a microscopic level) to prevent sideways slippage.
Perhaps skate sharpening wheels can't be made with super-hard abrasives, because they have to be dressed with a diamond point to the desired ROH. (Or is that wrong? Perhaps only the resin, that the abrasive is embedded in, is ground away, when you dress a wheel.) Do you think that that the hardness of the abrasive has a significant effect on skate blade edges? I.E., if you used a super-hard abrasive, could the edge be any better, from a skating perspective?
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Do big wheels have advantages too?
You mentioned life, which will include the ability to retain the dressed shape longer during sharpening. You also have basic geometry working for you. Larger diameters are less likely to produce a "divot" along the rocker as a result of improper technique. In practice, the grinding wheel diameter differences we are talking about probably don't matter when using good technique. Having said that, I'm sure that there's a practical lower limit. For example, I wouldn't want to try sharpening with a Dremel wheel or I'd have a wavy rocker.
I've never experienced the wheels of good grinding machines getting hot. For example, when I use a bench grinder to sharpen a mower blade, it is easy to get red-hot metal at the edge as it passes by the coarse cutting wheel. Sharpening mower blades not a delicate operation. Significant pressure, coarse grits, and multiple passes are involved to remove 1/16th inch from the cutting edge to eliminate divots left by gravel impacts. After a while, the metal becomes too hot to hold, but the wheel is barely above room temperature. With mild steel mower blades, there's no temper loss to worry about. Just press in, grind on, and get it done. But the grinding wheel stays cool regardless.
The case of the very light touch, fine grit, and few passes when sharpening skate blades is even better at keeping a wheel cool. More importantly, those factors keep the metal blade from overheating. The wheel itself will barely be above room temperature after sharpening a pair of blades.
As an experiment this morning, I went into the shop and fired up the aggressive bench grinder. I ground away at some angle iron for 30-seconds, making lots of sparks. The metal got very hot as expected. Any temperature change in the wheel was undetectable to touch. I attempted to quantify temperatures with a thermocouple for you, but the readings would have been inaccurate for various reasons.
I'm not going to go into the other speculations offered because I'm not an expert on abrasive theory, practice, or production.
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Now a days I use incredible Edger. It uses same wheel size as Blademaster machines which uses 3" wheels. See https://blademaster.com/web/en/2585-finishing-wheels-3-inch
Sid sells wheels in three different coarseness. Fine, medium and coarse. I have never used coarse wheel, which I have only one. Medium wheels I have just tried ones. At least fine wheels are sold in two different color, but Sid has not specified more detail level their differences. White wheels are aluminum oxide wheels which are quite soft. In some cheap stainless steel blades you cannot even make one pass when wheel has bigger hollow than the blade. In such a cases I have used Blademaster 120 grit ruby wheel, which are much more harder.
I have asked from Sid about his fine wheel grit specification and he replied following."Quality of finish equal to any regular 120 grade wheel from elsewhere from our experience"
Party I can agree what Sid says. According to my experience the way how you dress the wheel and how often you dress it has major impact to the surface finish. Attached one example. In the right hand and left hand side can see sharpening which has been made by figure skate retailer with long experience. They use incredible Edger, just like me. In the middle you can see same skate after my grinding. Lesson learned: If you try to save in wheel costs, it can be seen in the quality.
With the wax you may improve the surface finish, but the problem is that wax ingress quite deeply in to the wheel. To get rid of wax, you need to dress quite a lot away from the wheel.
Blademaster promotes that their 3" wheels are weight balanced, but truth is that Sid´s wheel are better in balance even they are not sold as a weight balanced. See videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=86s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=86s)
In Ingredible edger you can use wheels up to 2 inch size. As I am living in country where we have 50Hz electrical network, I am loosing 20% of the speed compared to 60Hz network. This is easy to notice when wheel starts to be in the end of its lifetime. Velocity speed start to be clearly too low. To fix this speed issue, I have planned to apply frequency converter. I already have it, but its not wired yet. Measured speed from the wheel is ~4980rpm.
See also pictures:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7ha5mdp69h5f93/20210207_075826.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxirnhq87cn2d89/20210207_080149.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k37w1ow7gyvilnh/Before%20and%20after.jpg?dl=0
Coming back to topic, how close from the toepicks sharpening should start, see this video. Pay attention how far the cross grinding goes when Bruce has finished the blade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tWd_K5iBI
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You get a very nice finish compared to the other two sharpeners. Great job!
I don't have the ability to cross grind down to the toe pick like the Incredible Edger can do. We agree that sharpening should start inside the length that doesn't touch when a toe pick hits. I do get well inside of it, so the real question is "How close is needed?" That would require doing on-ice tests. In my own skating, I haven't detected any difference between a Pro-Filer that sharpens right up to the pick and my Wissota machine sharpening. It's possible that another skater, or different blades (worn vs. new), would make a difference.
I do have a lot of respect for the Incredible Edger machine. It's well thought out, and I'd have one if I had the space and the finances for it.
I did note in the video that the grinding wheel rotation is opposite that of the Wissota. I find that curious. I generally mount the blade as shown in the video you linked (toe pick to the left), and make passes going from right to left as shown, but my wheel is turning the opposite direction. In either the Wissota or I.E. case, the blade could be mounted in reverse and passes made in the other direction if desired.
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Now a days I use incredible Edger. It uses same wheel size as Blademaster machines which uses 3" wheels. See https://blademaster.com/web/en/2585-finishing-wheels-3-inch
Sid sells wheels in three different coarseness. Fine, medium and coarse. I have never used coarse wheel, which I have only one. Medium wheels I have just tried ones. At least fine wheels are sold in two different color, but Sid has not specified more detail level their differences. White wheels are aluminum oxide wheels which are quite soft. In some cheap stainless steel blades you cannot even make one pass when wheel has bigger hollow than the blade. In such a cases I have used Blademaster 120 grit ruby wheel, which are much more harder.
I have asked from Sid about his fine wheel grit specification and he replied following."Quality of finish equal to any regular 120 grade wheel from elsewhere from our experience"
Party I can agree what Sid says. According to my experience the way how you dress the wheel and how often you dress it has major impact to the surface finish. Attached one example. In the right hand and left hand side can see sharpening which has been made by figure skate retailer with long experience. They use incredible Edger, just like me. In the middle you can see same skate after my grinding. Lesson learned: If you try to save in wheel costs, it can be seen in the quality.
With the wax you may improve the surface finish, but the problem is that wax ingress quite deeply in to the wheel. To get rid of wax, you need to dress quite a lot away from the wheel.
Blademaster promotes that their 3" wheels are weight balanced, but truth is that Sid´s wheel are better in balance even they are not sold as a weight balanced. See videos https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc) and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=86s (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=86s)
In Ingredible edger you can use wheels up to 2 inch size. As I am living in country where we have 50Hz electrical network, I am loosing 20% of the speed compared to 60Hz network. This is easy to notice when wheel starts to be in the end of its lifetime. Velocity speed start to be clearly too low. To fix this speed issue, I have planned to apply frequency converter. I already have it, but its not wired yet. Measured speed from the wheel is ~4980rpm.
See also pictures:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/x7ha5mdp69h5f93/20210207_075826.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/cxirnhq87cn2d89/20210207_080149.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/k37w1ow7gyvilnh/Before%20and%20after.jpg?dl=0
Coming back to topic, how close from the toepicks sharpening should start, see this video. Pay attention how far the cross grinding goes when Bruce has finished the blade. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tWd_K5iBI
Gorgeous finish on that blade, Kaitsu!
I also use the Incredible Edger. I inherited the old style Broadbent machine back in 2007 (and the duty of sharpening all local figure skaters), and finally upgraded to the modern version last August. I really like the upgrade, no curvature bias from the radius of the blade (the old machine had a single bar and one set of rollers, so that as you ran along the single bar, the blade radius changed the distance between the wheel and the holder, slightly tilting the blade at the center). I had developed a technique to overcome most of the curvature bias on the old machine (turning the eccentric adjustment as the blade ran along) but it was definitely an art. I did have a real bond to the old setup and was able to feel the amount of radial shift and adjust relative to it, but it was mentally taxing. After 5 pair of skates, I would have to stop or I’d start to get less accuracy. That’s as many as I want to deal with in one day anyway, so not a big deal.
I’ve been using the new white fine wheels and they produce a good result but seem to also produce a lot more dust than the old wheels.
I feel like I can pay more exact attention to other things now that I don’t have to compensate for the curvature bias, but still occasionally get mixed up on adjusting the left eccentric knob because the rotation is reversed compared to the old machine. The old system was CCW to raise, CW to lower the carrier. I think the new system is more intuitive, having each knob move toward the center to go up and away to go down, but I have 13 years of doing the opposite movement built into my left hand...and the device has the same shape and feel...so I still have to think twice after adjusting before I start grinding. Always learning something new. I’ve been impressed at how true the CL of the radius was on each pair of blades when I made the transition to the new machine, but it just goes to show how attuned we can become. It’s not just running a machine, it’s a relationship that we develop that can transcend the expected limitations. In both ourselves and the equipment.
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For the question "How close is needed?" I do not have any clear answer. I would say that it depends on the blade profile and how much material has been already removed. When you have sharpened enough many skate pairs, you will notice that some blades does not have basically NSZ at all. Example some Quest blades does have such a profile that I cannot understand why they are like they are. In those blades I would say that you need to get very close to toe picks.
I am confident that Wissota´s wheel size in not an issue in means if hollow starts enough close to the toe picks. Problems is that if you start sharpening from toe picks side, its not so easy to get smooth transient grinding to starting point. You easily remove too much material and then you have hump behind the topics. See attachments. I would say that risk for hump can be reduced by starting the grinding from the tail. There you can enter to the blade almost parallel, unlikely than if you would start from the behind of toe picks. You just need to be very skilled or use toe pick protector or elsewhere you easily destroy toe pick.
If you are interested to see sharpener which can grind all the way until to toe picks, see this video. Unfortunately video with English subtitles has been removed. It is interesting that grinding traces are in "wrong" direction and only edges are "polished" with freehand.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l14Y0XGMYUE
For those whom does not know the difference between "old" and "new" type of Incredible Edger, you can see the difference in these videos
Old type:
https://youtu.be/J4XNZWv4aIA
https://youtu.be/mUFvSeA5oeM
New type:
https://youtu.be/XbNxYIlWIuY
I have never thought about the issue what supersharp mentioned about the old type of IE. Due the blade profile you truly need to tilt skate holder differently in the tail than in frontal area, which means that also blade "height" changes. Basically same phenomena could be seen in new type of IE if the transversal guide rods would not be in 90 degrees angle to the longitudinal guide rods. Thanks for supersharp about raising this topic.
Query was asking if anyone has ordered Root honing tools from http://precisionblade.com/ I do have 3 of them, all with different radius. Personally I didn't like them...like many of other things what I have tried / purchased during the years. H.D.I gauge has been most expensive decor item what have. These are of course personal opinions. Problem in Brian´s honing tool is that I didn't have enough patient to learn how to adjust those brass screws so that honing cylinder would parallel in blade. Both tools, Root hone and profiler requires that you have some kind of bench where to mount the skate so that you can push the tool against the blade. Still I am not confident that tool would travel parallel. Some people use masking tape when they use Profiler. It reduces the cap between blade and tool and in that way ensure that tools travels more parallel.
I have tried also SkateMate, but I don´t even dare to say what I think about that tool.
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More on the old IE discussion...
Since the rocker at the front of the blade is a smaller radius, the blade height is changing the fastest there.
As you move the blade holder along the guide rod from right to left, as the blade moves from front to middle, the distance between the holder and the wheel will increase, tilting the blade away, thus removing more material from whichever edge is closer to the floor, and then the opposite happens as you continue from middle to end.
I had the best results overcoming the curvature bias in the old IE machine by:
-placing the blade in the holder so that the longer, flatter radius was lined up with the holder (of course not completely parallel, since one is straight and the other is a gentle curve)
-setting the blade height to be centered at the middle and back of the blade using witness marks, and noting where the left knob was located for being centered at the middle
-starting at the toe pick end, lowering the blade for centered contact right behind the toe pick, then progressively raising/turning the knob to keep it centered as I ground from toe to middle. With carbon steel, you can see where the blade is burning on the wheel, so you can almost see the center.
-it was not practical nor was it necessary to do any adjustment of the right knob (at the heel). My right hand was needed for consistent speed control and pressure, and my left was finessing the elevation in the rocker area and then just providing stability.
Needless to say, I practiced this on junk blades before I ever tried it on blades in use, and experimented with my own at first. Risky in terms of the blade profile, to a point, because it is hand shaping, but it was the only way I could get level edges with a perfectly centered groove. You can just as easily destroy the subtleties of the rocker radius with inconsistent pressure, and the parallel guide rod system does really help with keeping a light, even pressure.
If I hadn’t converted my old machine to a new one, I’d send a photo of the difference between my technique and just running the blade through parallel. Running through parallel put the groove slightly off-center either at the middle or at the toe and heel, and neither seemed acceptable because it affects the edge angles. I love how Sid identified this problem and solved it. It really is an elegant design.
With the new IE, the blade has double rods so it moves in and out without changing elevation. Spendy conversion but I’m very happy with it. It will take me another half-season of sharpening to cover the cost of the upgrade (less hours on the ice this year so less sharpening, so I guess it wasn’t good timing financially) but I don’t mind because I have been wanting to make this upgrade for 10 years. I usually use my sharpening income to help pay for going to skating camp, so I guess it kind of evened out with no camps in 2020.
Good equipment is a delight. Worth it.
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This thread has forked from a discussion of the Wissota machine to a discussion of the Incredible Edger (IE). I'll leave it to the admin whether to separate the posts. Meanwhile, since we have two people here with first-hand experience of the IE, I'll post my question here, rather than launching a separate thread.
Around 5 years ago, when I was considering buying a sharpener, I did consider the IE. But, a local pro shop, specializing in figure skates, had one, and I was not happy with the results. Background: the owner not only is a tech with many years of experience, but also a coach and former competitive and pro skater; so he knows how important a good sharpening is. He sharpened traditional Coronation Aces for me several times. This is a straightforward blade for sharpening: plain-carbon steel, parallel sides; no stainless steel, taper, side honing, or thick chassis to be concerned about.
Traced profiles showed good rocker control; and HDI measurements showed good control over ROH and centering (level edges). But there were substantial chatter marks along the entire length of the blade. These were not due to lack of dressing, because he dressed the wheel right before the sharpening (he let me watch). And it wasn't anything peculiar about my blades; all the blades he sharpened were like that. He told me that it was purely cosmetic; after all, he said, many skaters he coached (and whose skates he had sharpened) had competed at regionals, sectionals, and even US Nationals with the chatter marks. But I've had Coronation Ace blades sharpened on other machines, and the finish was far superior.
He felt the problem was that the IE uses a low-torque motor, which requires a light touch (low pressure) between the blade and wheel. This is good for minimizing material removal and overheating, but bad for chatter. When he applied higher pressure to reduce the chatter, the motor was prone to stalling (this was on a scrap blade, not mine!).
Have the two of you (Kaitsu and supersharp) encountered this problem?
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Coronation Ace is a very straightforward blade to sharpen. And I disagree that the chatter marks are only cosmetic...more discussion below. Was that tech a skater?
I think most of this is basically true for all machines:
Definitely more chatter marks with the medium wheels than the fine. Speed of pass-through has a significant effect, both for the blade and for dressing the wheel. I experimented with dressing the wheel at different rates and different numbers of passes and feel like it needs multiple slow passes to really be smooth and it needs at least 2 slow passes after adjusting the knobs to create a consistent, centered hollow (each time you move a knob, you are changing the location of the center of the radius). I check the radius at multiple points after I check the edge levelness. You can have one without the other, so the only way to know both are right is to check both.
The wheel also gets smoother with use, so I dress it at the start and it glazes over a bit as I sharpen, making it smoother on the final passes. Adding wax also makes it smoother, but then the next blade takes a lot longer to get sharp. Depends on the skater and situation as to whether this is necessary. I rarely use wax.
Unless the belt is loose, applying enough pressure to bog down the motor sounds like way too much pressure, but maybe it was a coarse wheel?
I do a couple of long slow passes as I’m finish to get as smooth of a machine finish as possible (I use the fine wheel) and then deburr and final polish the edges by hand. I have skated on the final product as my technique has improved over the years, so I can give first-hand feedback:
~Guy who trained me—no deburring. Pretty sure he used a medium wheel to save time. Yikes. Be careful stopping and don’t cut yourself wiping snow off your blades.
~Early days—I added simple deburring because why wouldn’t you? I hated those nasty ragged edge bits.
~Old IE with curvature bias reduction technique —definitely more consistent edge angles along the whole blade.
~Previous...with addition of polishing chrome relief with gummi stone/cratex stone—mmmmm, nice.
~Previous...plus ceramic rod honing to deburr and extend edge life—definitely smoother, but a little too sharp so needed to hone then dial back the edge a hair or it took too long to get used to the sharpened blades. Edges seem to last longer, though, which extends blade life.
~Previous...plus polishing the radius with garnet cloth wrapped over an appropriate sized dowel chunk—starting to feel pretty amazing.
~Previous...plus use of new machine where my focus doesn’t have to be split between curvature bias reduction and speed—probably slight improved speed control. Overall, very brief adjustment period and really nice smooth edges.
What other skaters notice the most: polishing the chrome relief, polishing the ROH, and sharpening the NSZ if it has been left flat (probably only matters when the flat is >3/4”, doesn’t need to be sharpened every time, but it’s best if the edges are level; see other discussion on NSZ).
Would love to see a response from Kaitsu.
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Was that tech a skater?
As I mentioned above, the tech is also a coach, and a former competitive skater (hi-level elite) and a former pro skater (including well known ice shows).
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In Ingredible edger you can use wheels up to 2 inch size. As I am living in country where we have 50Hz electrical network, I am loosing 20% of the speed compared to 60Hz network.
Slightly off-topic, but an electrician who worked on a lot of motors, especially sub-pumps, told me that it is very important to match the voltage and frequency that feeds a motor to the motor's spec.
If you don't, the motor windings may get very hot, and burn out.
Anyway, it may be worthwhile to get the frequency adjuster installed sooner than later. But make sure it creates a sinusoidal voltage and current output at full load - harmonics pump extra electrical energy into A/C motors, which is partly dissipated as heat rather than producing mechanical power - and 5th harmonics typically produce a reverse torque in A/C motors, which fights the rest. I don't know how you check for sinusoidal output, but he when he wasn't trying to be fancy, he verified that a mean-responding current meter, and an rms-responding current meter, gave the same result.
I'm not an expert in this, and he was only an electrician, not an engineer, but this is what I vaguely recall he said:
It has something to do with how long the motor stays in "start mode". In particular, A/C motors, like fluorescent lights, when they start up, typically draw a lot of extra current. I don't know all the details - e.g., whether there is always internal circuitry, or whether it is sometimes a natural result of induction, etc.
(In addition, an A/C motor is to an extent a rotating inductor. It's impedance creates a different resistance to current flow at different speeds. E.g., when power companies create summertime "brown outs", lowering the voltage because they are near their maximum power output, he said he found that power draw by the University actually increased - probably because air conditioning motors draw more average power at lower voltage. However, he said it might "work" a little over the long run, because a lot of those air conditioners burned out, because the motors got too hot.)
There were other factors which influenced that, like alignment between the motor and pump, the mount positions within the range of travel of the linkages, motor and pump balance (most electricians are not trained as mechanics, yet are often told to maintain or replace motors), various ways of reducing startup water pressure on the pump (never put pumps in series to increase pressure - let each pump push water up to a well at atmospheric pressure instead; drill a pin hole into outflow pipes a foot or so over the outflow), proper lubrication, poor electrical voltage/current conditioning (such as harmonic components from switching power supplies, such as are in computers and UPSs), the incorrect wiring diagram that came with some motor control systems that used A/C for power and D/C current for control on the same line (half the diagrams left out the diode), inappropriate transformers, insufficiently large wires (creating voltage drops), the discrepancy between code current ratings (American motor companies do not rate motors by their mean or maximum current draw. They rate them by the size of the "overload breaker" that should be used to prevent burn out if the motor overheats for any reason. Most electricians don't know that. As with other appliances, they over-rate the breaker by at least 25% (I think), so the windings burn out before the breaker reacts.), the University's tendency to go with the lowest bidder ( :) ), and other things.
When he started working at the University of Maryland, which had over 200 buildings with sub pumps, some of the sub pumps would fail every few weeks. Once he figured things out, by a combination of trial and error plus having discussions with the better motor shops, a master plumber, and the engineers who designed the motors and transformers, all of the motors he had installed within the past 30 years were still working. So these kinds of things, including voltage and frequency, may make a significant difference.
Obviously you should use a transformer if your voltage is off by more than a few percent.
It is common for low end motor shops to compensate for minor voltage and frequency differences by shortening the wire in the windings. That increases the current, which overheats the wire, and the motors don't last long. A rule of thumb used by the shops that maintained motors with fewer problems was that you should simultaneously increase the size of the wires used in the windings, so that the total mass of the metal was about the same.
He was once given a Japanese motor to install, with a very high reliability rating, designed for a different voltage and frequency, to install, that had been bought at a a discount. The buyer was very proud; he thought he was saving a lot of money, and was buying quality. It fell on the electrician I knew to prove him right. The electrician had an "unlimited master's license", and had no trouble finding a transformer to compensate for voltage. But he had to get together with a high end motor shop to re-engineer the motor. In the long run, it would have been much cheaper to use an American motor designed for American voltage and frequency.
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As I mentioned above, the tech is also a coach, and a former competitive skater (hi-level elite) and a former pro skater (including well known ice shows).
Oops, missed that, thanks. Interesting. So many layers to this topic.
Sometimes these things like smoothness, modest twist, are just less of a problem to a highly skilled skater who can compensate for anything being imperfect. My coach can skate on pretty much anything, probably a couple of shelf brackets on some tennis shoes, haha, although she of course prefers a good blade on a custom boot. Having to compensate isn’t a big deal to her at age 33 having skated her whole life. I find the older skaters, even some of the stronger skaters, pay a much higher price for contorting themselves to make up for mounting or sharpening problems. When you already know how to do something, you can rely on body memory and your brain can focus on fixing the glitches, maybe?
I have a friend who very gracefully skates at a snail’s pace when working on new skills and she really needs her equipment to do everything it can. She is 70 and started skating at age 52, and I will bend over backwards to fix whatever allows her to skate for as long as she can. Even the tiniest thing affects her because she skates slowly, but she can’t speed up unless everything feels perfect. A pro skater may find the chatter marks immaterial, but for the slow adult skater it might make the difference between stalling and achieving some actual flow. It’s all about experiencing some joy on the ice, really, and fortunately that is shared by all of us, regardless of speed and skill level. I can still remember learning back swizzles and it was pretty much The Best Thing Ever because I was skating BACKWARDS. It just made me so happy.
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First at all, my sincerely apologies that we were messing with IE related discussions in thread which was meant to be just for Wissota. Bill has made great review of Wissota and I agree that we should have own thread where to discuss about the differences of the big wheel and small wheel machines. I am bit novice, so I would like to ask your help to contact moderator to split IE conversations to own thread. Its nature of mine to jump from topic to another :) My apologies also if my English inst so good!
Wissota is excellent machine. A bit heavy and too big wheel to my taste, but this is just matter of opinions and personal needs. I guess its a fact that possibly 98% of figure skates are sharpened with big wheel machines. Also blade manufacturers uses big wheel machines. So I am not trying to say that Wissota is crap and IE is the best machine on the markets.
When I decided to invest to new sharpening machine, I had three options:
* Wissota (was cheapest and machines were available in local agent stock)
* Blademaster BRPD1G with 3 inch wheel. European model was not in stock and delivery time was ~2 months. (Model seems not to be available anymore)
* Incedible Edger
I did choose IE for following reasons:
* I need portable machine
* I had machine with 6" wheel and I wanted to have machine with smaller wheel
* During the years I haven't seen any single video or read users experiences from the Blademaster 3" portable machines. I was scared to be first one :D
* I was a bit scared about the friction of the table...even it can be tuned by polishing and waxing
To be honest, in the beginning I was disappointed to IE. I used so much money to it by believing that I will immediately get superb surface finish. It took couple years to learn all tricks to get surface finish what you did see on one of my posts. Picture what I shared from the retailers quality witness that they are also suffering from the severe chatter. According to my experience IE and its fine grit wheels can produce good surface finish only right after the dressing the wheel. Already second pass-through creates clear chatter marks. Its not clear to me is it because of missing cutting speed, fine grits of wheel, the rotation direction of the wheel or something else. Anyhow wheel travels always over the grinding dust and it sticks also into the wheel. Wax glues even more this dust. When it happens, grits loses partly their sharpness and it will not cut the steel properly. So what I do is that I dress the wheel every ~10 pass to keep the wheel radius correct. When I feel that blade is sharp enough, I dress the wheel and make one more pass. After that I clean the blade, dress the wheel ones again and make last final pass with gentle pressure. Speed of pass-through has a significant effect to the surface finish like supershap mentioned. This is I guess is indication of missing rotation speed.
So yes, I agree that IE causes easily chatter marks, if you don´t know how to use it. I think there is couple reasons for that:
* smaller wheel = lower cutting speed, smaller contact area + less mass on the wheel
* Table top machines skate holders has wide contact to table and they should have basically zero clearance in that means, when IE does have very small contact areas in round guide reals. With four-point bearing system there is risk that only three bearing has proper contact to the rails. In my opinion IE is more sensitive for vibrations due its mechanical structure.
* If there is any speed hunting in the electrical motor, gear ration multiplies those problems into the wheel. So I think direct drive would be better than belt drive.
What I do not agree is that chatter would come from the missing torque of electric motor. If the wheel speed reduces while sharpening, problem is in the belt drive. Belts will not last forever and even the dust can make it to be slip even at lower grinding pressure. Cold ambient conditions makes belt slip even more easier. This I have noted when I sharpened skates on outside conditions also on winter time (due COVID). So yes, I agree that belt drive inst most optimal and you need to pay extra attention to it. Example belt tightness, cleanliness etc.
Electrical motor of mine IE is with the correct voltage. It is the frequency which drops the speed 20%. I am not electrician, but I am 100% sure that I will not overheat the electric motor as long I so not increase the frequency too much. I have not considered what would be the maximum frequency what I could use. Basic idea is increase the frequency from 50Hz to 60Hz when wheel is new. When wheel gets smaller, I should increase the frequency to keep cutting speed all the time same.
PS. I would like share my thanks Bill, Query and Supersharp about these interesting discussions. I have enjoyed from every moment.
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Electrical motor of mine IE is with the correct voltage. It is the frequency which drops the speed 20%. I am not electrician, but I am 100% sure that I will not overheat the electric motor as long I so not increase the frequency too much. I have not considered what would be the maximum frequency what I could use. Basic idea is increase the frequency from 50Hz to 60Hz when wheel is new. When wheel gets smaller, I should increase the frequency to keep cutting speed all the time same.
That is so clever! :)
Remember that altered frequency might mean less torque, because the induced force depends on the frequency, and because the motor was designed with the right time lags for a given frequency. So you probably want to use a light touch so as not to overload the motor. But you presumably already do that to get such a nice finish. And now that you have invested in such an expensive tool, you probably do that already to make it last longer. Of course professional skate techs have to balance that sort of thing against the economics of trying to sharpen as many blades/hour as they can, which may be why some of the busier shops buy $10,000 - $30,000 machines.
I wonder how wax compares to oil, polishing fluid, or jeweler's rouge, both in terms of how clean the edges are, and how clean the finish on the hollow is. And how much that affects skating.
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I believe electric motor what I have is 3-phase motor which is converted to 2-phase motor with capacitor. When I apply frequency converter, capacitor is removed and third phase is taken in use. It should bring some extra torque. Even I would be wrong in this I am not so worried about the torque. But you are right, it drops if frequency converter cannot fix it.
I wonder how wax compares to oil, polishing fluid, or jeweler's rouge, both in terms of how clean the edges are, and how clean the finish on the hollow is. And how much that affects skating.
During the years I have tried so many different chemicals to improve surface finish. I have tried example, pure water, WD-40 + several other spay oils, Chemico valve lapping paste, ski waxes, Accu-Lube stick, Blackstone Fine Shine, metal polishing wax, etc. etc. Main conclusion has been that almost all of them improves less or more surface finish. They main issue is that most of the ingress very deep in to the wheel and you need dress quite much from the wheel before it gets clean. For this reason I prefer to use "cutting oil" which viscosity is close to water.
I know this is anyhow wheel type and size dependent. Example Blackstone Fine Shine didn't work in my IE, but in Blackstone and hockey skates it worked well. Its viscosity and consistency was very close to 10W-30 motor oil. I have to say that Fine Shine bottle was not mine own, so I cannot be 100% sure if content really Fine Shine or has the skate tech filled it by him selves.
Unfortunately I have quite many big projects ongoing so I could not make you comparison with / without polishing wax finishing. Here is anyhow link to picture where I sharpened one pair of skates by using different polishing wax on both blades. In right foot blade used wax which is for aluminum and left foot blade I finished by using wax which is for silver and gold. I could not identify any differences on the surface finish. If you can see some differences in the pictures, it is impossible to say if they are from different view angle, light reflection or camera´s own adjustments. I should have some fixture which would ensure that pictures from left and right foot has been taken as identical setup as possible. Even this is not 100% perfect test, I can confirm that polishing wax was not bad at all. It is not anyhow going to be something what I use.
It is recommeded to download the picture so that you can zoom in to different areas of the blades.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0alp5m8ev5aobnu/Polishing%20wax%20test%20IE%4050Hz.jpg?dl=0
What comes to the surface finish, I would say that its quite obvious that chatter-marks and coarse grinding will not improve the glide. I have one skater whom used to bring his skates for me. From my proposal they started to sharpen skates in one another skate tech (due long distance). Skater was happy for his skates until they did come to competitions which were kept by our club. Father of the skater did see me on the rink and he asked if I would have time to sharpen their skates. There was some hassle why their skates were not sharpened well before competitions. I said that I can do them, but there is always risks if you change the skate tech just before your competition day. They said that skates are so dull that they rather take the risk than try to survive over the competition with the dull skates. In next day I asked their feelings about the skates. They said that skates glide is so much better that the speed what you can gain is almost scaring. I didn't change ROH, so mainly improvement did come from the better surface finish. Since that they have used again my sharpenings.
It is anyhow fact that quite many skaters don´t recognize any difference in the skates even you believe that improvement what you have made is so remarkable that skater should notice the difference already in the first stroke. This should not anyhow be any excuse for skate techs to make poor quality. Unfortunate fact is that too many skate tech makes sharpening s just to earn money and not to help skaters with best possible sharpening what they can do.
EDITED 11.4.2021
I tried some new mixture for another pair of Wilson blades. I was more satisfied to this new mixture than metal polishing wax. Link to new picture: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhg7ihzeb7g7bjd/Polishing%20test%20IE%4050Hz%20-%20own%20mixture.jpg?dl=0
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In next day I asked their feelings about the skates. They said that skates glide is so much better that the speed what you can gain is almost scaring. I didn't change ROH, so mainly improvement did come from the better surface finish. Since that they have used again my sharpenings.
Cool!
I believe you that the finish helps.
I assume you know that effective sharpness is not just determined by ROH. Most skate techs use a flat stone to deburr or repoint the sharpening burr. The exact way they do that has a tremendous effect on effective sharpness (because most people round off the edge a bit when they use that flat stone) - which also affects speed, a lot.
Another issue: if you scratch the sides of the blade, on the part that touches the ice when the blade sinks into the ice a bit, that might increase friction. I am not sure how much that matters, but I try not to as much as I can.
Some people who sharpen straight razors use "polishing fluid", or jeweler's rouges, which I think contains very small grain abrasives, like diamond dust. Some skate techs use polishing fluid with fine abrasives in it while using powered sharpening machines. They say it improves the finish.
I believe electric motor what I have is 3-phase motor which is converted to 2-phase motor with capacitor. When I apply frequency converter, capacitor is removed and third phase is taken in use. It should bring some extra torque. Even I would be wrong in this I am not so worried about the torque. But you are right, it drops if frequency converter cannot fix it.
There are many different types of three phase and 2 phase electric system, even just in the U.S. E.g., see
https://ctlsys.com/support/electrical_service_types_and_voltages
When the electrician I mentioned wasn't sure what to do, he sometimes called the motor manufacturer, and asked to talk to the engineer who designed the motor. They might be able to guess whether your system is set up right, and how to tell if the motor is overloaded and/or getting too hot.
Perhaps you have already done what needs to be done.
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In next day I asked their feelings about the skates. They said that skates glide is so much better that the speed what you can gain is almost scaring. I didn't change ROH, so mainly improvement did come from the better surface finish. Since that they have used again my sharpenings.
I had one skater (about 12 years old at the time) who brought me her skates after forgetting to have them sharpened for months after they needed it. They were very worn, edges were chopped up by blades hitting each other. I sharpened them her father picked them up. The next time I saw her, I asked her how they felt. She said,”you know how it feels when you’re riding your bike and you’re in the wrong gear and it’s really hard, and then you shift gears and it feels great? It was like that.” What a great analogy.
Other skaters just say “they feel fine” when I am sure that there is a tremendous improvement in the blade. Some are just not very aware. I agree that we should still provide them with quality work, but it is disappointing to restore a blade from bad to good and have the skater notice nothing.
I also report to the skater and coach if I see edges wearing unevenly. Worn down spin spot and edges still sharp—busted! I have a friend who used to have this problem until I explained that her spin obsession was the reason. Too many CCW moves and not enough CW—the edges always reveal the truth. Always stop with the same foot on the same edge—that one will probably get dull first. Just like the tracings on the ice, there is evidence there, you just have to look for it.
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This thread is a very interesting read. I’ll add a few comments which may be of interest.
A few years ago I looked to purchase a sharpener, and the Wissota was on my list. The price including shipping and UK tax was reasonable. Several issues put me off. The first issue was that it would go in an unheated garage, and Wissota warn against that. I didn’t want it indoors because of metal and abrasive dust, and oil, given that I have carpets in the house. The second issue was that I wasn’t convinced I could learn how to use it, when only sharpening once a week. Looks like I was wrong, given your experience. I do know someone who owns one, and he likes it a lot. I am surprised at the issues you had, hopefully Wissota are now aware of them.
Regarding BAT gauges, I had a ProSharp gauge that was off by several thou, unacceptable IMO. It disagreed with a no name ebay gauge, a Sparx gauge, and a BladeMaster gauge. I sent it to the office in America in disgust and they said it was within spec. I never did get a refund. It was painted, and I didn’t think to check for paint build up. More recent ones are anodised, which avoids a paint problem.
In the end I bought a Sparx sharpener, which is excellent. However, it is more expensive to run as grinding wheels cost ~£70-80 and one wheel can sharpen ~ 80 pairs of skates assuming a light sharpen and no damage. So that is £1 a pop. If the blades are damaged, with deep notches in the edges, that will use up a lot of the grinding wheel, and be costly. Also it needs a different grinding wheel for each hollow, and that could work out expensive. A Wissota can do a range of hollows with the same wheel, just redresss it to suit. Of course one big advantage of a Sparx is that kids can use it without risking injury, and I leave it to sharpen a blade while I make myself a coffee. The only issue I have had is when sharpening cheap hockey skates. The steel blades were soft, and it really didn’t get a great finish. They were probably okay, and it might have been due to cheap steel, in which case the Wissota might have done no better.
I was lucky as a friend gave me a collection of wheels including two unused 5/16” wheels! Those last two will go on ebay. I wear hockey skates and I skate on a 7/16” hollow. I may try a 3/16” hollow just to see how it feels. I am 11 stone 7 pounds (161 pounds), so quite light for a male.
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Wissota's warning about using the sharpener in unheated areas comes without any mention about temperature thresholds that would cause the problem. To me, that's a little vague. That can cost them sales.
I'm an inveterate tinkerer, so tweaks to machines are inevitable once they arrive here. The most serious issue was fitting the dust hood to the machine.
I didn't contact Wissota about this, so it might be an ongoing issue. I do think that the dust hood (or other alternative) is essential even in a dedicated workshop like mine. The hood combined with the shop vacuum makes it a fairly clean, but noisy operation.
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....
In the end I bought a Sparx sharpener, which is excellent. ....
I wear hockey skates ....
<<Emphasis added.>> A caveat for readers unfamiliar with previous discussions of home sharpeners on this forum. Leif is a hockey player, and the Sparx was initially specifically designed as a sharpener for hockey skates. They have since introduced an adapter for figure skates. I've not read any reviews of how well this adapter works. But also note an FAQ on the Sparx website:
https://sparxhockey.com/pages/faq
"Can you sharpen figure skates?
Yes. We offer a figure skate adapter for $99.99. With the figure skate adapter in place, Sparx can sharpen most traditional, flat-sided blades. Sparx is not compatible with the multiple-piece blades often used in competitive skating."
So the figure skate adapter at most will handle traditional blades with flat, parallel sides (such as standard Coronation Ace), but not traditional blades with other geometries such as Gold Seal (concave side-honed, tapered sides) and two-piece (chassis plus runner) blades such as Matrix and Paramount.
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Re: Sparx and figure skate sharpening
With the replacement cost of good figure skating blades as high as it is, I can’t imagine using this kind of automated process on anything above basic recreational skates. It’s designed for hockey blades and probably does an adequate job on that continuous curve…but putting a high-quality figure blade into it?
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Few comments related to so called automated sharpening machines and Leif experiences related to the wheel costs…(my apologies that this is out of original Wissota topic)
In my opinion wheel costs in traditional wheels are not so much lower than in diamond coated wheels. If best possible surface finish is what you are intend to do, you have to dress traditional wheel quite often which means that also your dressing diamond will wear.
If we think about where diamond wheels are typically used, can you name any other metal grinding process which would use diamond coated wheels? Perhaps there is some reason why traditional wheels are still dominating in the metal grinding industry.
With my very less experience about the diamond coated wheels, I would expect that metal wheels which are coated with diamond grits are not suffering same weight balancing issues than traditional wheels. In the other hand what I have seen and heard with my ears (while hockey teams uses Prosharp SkatePal machines), diamond wheels will never provide same surface finish than what you can gain with weight balanced traditional wheel. You can hear already from the sound that blades are going to have heavy chatter marks and burrs on edges. It is also possible that this is just consequence of wrong use of machine, but so far all diamond wheel machines what I have seen has kept terrible noise when wheel hits to the blade.
When considering sharpening of figure skates with these automated machines, it’s good to keep on mind few things...
* Even figure skates blades are parallel type, their thicknesses are not even and it the same time automated machines blade thickness adjustments are not so accurate. To be able to control if the edges are going to be even, you need to remove skate from the machine. Will the chromed blade position always similarly when you put it back is good question.
*You have adjustment for blade thickness, but not for parallelism. At least with my experience chromed figure skate blades where chrome has been partly removed requires always adjustment to get blade in level (parallel to axis / even edges)
* For the toe picks there are some protectors, but how to control that heel is not going to get rounded or grid too less?
* While you enjoy your coffee or tea, unpleasant surprise might wait when you were not controlling the machine. When blades costs 150-300£, it might be expensive cup of coffee / tea. (Referred to Supersharp)
In my opinion sharpening skates is not so scientist that it should be scared too much. Automated machine sounds like you cannot fail so easily with them, but I disagree that. Only thing you automate is movement and grinding pressure. All the other issues remain same as in manual work or even get more difficult to control. Every machine has their own tricks and you need to learn them anyhow by doing enough many skates and trying different things. Those are more difficult to learn than keeping grinding pass or grinding pressure equal all the way.
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Doesn't the carbon of diamond dissolve into the steel at the temperatures created by powered grinders? That leads to the diamond breaking down quickly.
Instead of diamond, use cubic boron nitride (CBN) for grinding steel if you don't want to use standard wheels. Because CBN abrasive particles are embedded in a metal wheel for grinding, they can't be dressed to different ROH.
Just Google the phrase "why not diamond wheels for grinding steel" to find more.
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Doesn't the carbon of diamond dissolve into the steel at the temperatures created by powered grinders? That leads to the diamond breaking down quickly.
Instead of diamond, use cubic boron nitride (CBN) for grinding steel if you don't want to use standard wheels. Because CBN abrasive particles are embedded in a metal wheel for grinding, they can't be dressed to different ROH.
Just Google the phrase "why not diamond wheels for grinding steel" to find more.
Excellent point and fascinating to read more about grinding wheels.
From Kaitsu:
“In my opinion sharpening skates is not so scientist that it should be scared too much. Automated machine sounds like you cannot fail so easily with them, but I disagree that. Only thing you automate is movement and grinding pressure. All the other issues remain same as in manual work or even get more difficult to control. Every machine has their own tricks and you need to learn them anyhow by doing enough many skates and trying different things. Those are more difficult to learn than keeping grinding pass or grinding pressure equal all the way.”
I agree, and there is so much information coming in through your hands as you move the blade across the wheel. I know I’m not a machine, so no doubt there is some variation in the speed across the wheel, but I think that is more than made up for by having a feel for what you are doing. I look at the contact point of the blade on the wheel and watch the blade move by, sort of a Zen moment where I feel like I’m observing the flow of the blade across the wheel and having that feedback go directly to my hands if I sense any disruption in speed. Long, slow passes require intense focus, so like skating itself, it takes you out of your thoughts and requires that you be very present in the moment. I guess I like to think that I’m much more likely to notice if something isn’t quite right, and would notice it sooner (preferably before the complete destruction of a nice blade). I can enjoy my reasonably-priced cup of tea afterwards.
Sharpening Horror Story of the Week: parent of a skater (approximately 13 years old, has been skating for about 4 years) contacts me to schedule a sharpening. She drops off skates. Later I prepare to sharpen them and see that the laces need to be replaced but the boots are in otherwise good condition. Then I look at the blades. They are unsharpened to about 3 to 4 cm from the toe pick, meaning they have never been sharpened in that area. The blades are also very dull, and both are extremely off-level at the back. I can’t image the misery of trying to skate on these! So I send the parent a text asking if the skates are new to this skater. No, she apparently wore them all season last year and for the first few weeks of this season. I ask who sharpened them last, parent said “oh, I only bring her skates to you”. Hmmmmmm. I explained that I had never sharpened these blades before (I can tell because I always sharpen into the NSZ) and the response is along pause and then “oh, uhhhh, maybe they’ve never been sharpened?”
Apparently this skater skated an entire season on a factory sharpening.
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Sharpening Horror Story of the Week... Apparently this skater skated an entire season on a factory sharpening.
A very bad factory sharpening! Which brand & type blade?
A video on "Cape Falcon Kayak" says, in relation to planes and chisels, that "tools don't come sharp". He also says that you frequently have to file some plane mechanisms to make them work well.
Is it your impression that new edge tools frequently need to be resharpened, and that many new commercial tools need minor adjustments? I recall Bill said his new Wissota needed minor modifications. Was that true for other Wissota buyers?
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A video on "Cape Falcon Kayak" says, in relation to planes and chisels, that "tools don't come sharp". He also says that you frequently have to file some plane mechanisms to make them work well.
Yup. Search for "fettle a plane" to learn more. It's often squaring a plane mouth or smoothing burrs from the bed that are required. Sometimes more is needed. For example, I sent this Stanley No. 5 to a machinist to have the sides ground square with the bottom for "shooting" duty. https://www.afterness.com/woodworking/planes/plane_stanley_no_5_tablesaw_tom-6-800px.jpg (https://www.afterness.com/woodworking/planes/plane_stanley_no_5_tablesaw_tom-6-800px.jpg)
Some of the better planes and chisels (Lie Nielsen, Veritas) may come acceptably sharp, but most users still sharpen the blades first for best results. The standard test is that you can shave hair on your arm with a well-sharpened chisel or plane blade. A user has to frequently re-sharpen after every few hours of use, so you can identify a serious woodworker by the lack of arm hair. ;D
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Thanks tstop4me for pointing out that I wear hockey skates, it was remiss of me not to mention that fact. Yes I can’t say how well Sparx machines work on figure skate blades though they are compatible with some blades. ProSharp make a similar machine which as far as I can tell is for hockey skates only.
Re: Sparx and figure skate sharpening
With the replacement cost of good figure skating blades as high as it is, I can’t imagine using this kind of automated process on anything above basic recreational skates. It’s designed for hockey blades and probably does an adequate job on that continuous curve…but putting a high-quality figure blade into it?
I’m curious why you think a Sparx (or similar ProSharp machine) only does an adequate job. Before I bought the machine I struggled with getting a good sharpening. Many sharpeners don’t get even edges. I have also seen some appalling sharpenings of figure skate blades, such as uneven edges with right side high at the front and low at the back, and one case where the wheel had not contacted the full blade width, resulting in a stepped hollow! When I lived in Montreal I even saw figure skates with part of the pick ground off by a sharpener. My last blades before I bought a Sparx were almost flat. Uneven pressure during multiple sharpenings had significantly changed the blades’ profiles.
Essentially a machine can get even edges and maintain the profile. I am not convinced a human can preserve the profile. No there is no chatter at all. The finish is excellent. I am a good skater as hockey players go (struggling with forwards inside edge three turns) and the Sparx is a god send. I’d recommend a figure skater get a Wissota or similar, having sharp blades that are correctly sharpened is worth the outlay. It also makes it easy to try different hollows, or change the hollow to suit the ice. That at least is something hockey players do.
Incidentally, ProSharp make automated machines that sharpen figure skates, I assume all kinds. The operator dresses the wheel with a diamond as normal, but the machine does the grind.
The one notable difference with a Sparx is the lack of oil on the last cut. Does anyone know if that makes a measurable difference when skating?
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When I said "an adequate job", I did not mean that as a slight against the Sparx in that context. With no toe pick and a design that allows for rolling onto and off of both ends of a hockey blade, automating the process seems like something a machine could do adequately. A hockey friend of mine has one and he loves to be able to create fresh edges before every game. For the same pair (or several pairs) of hockey skates, it's seems like a good way to take control of your own edges and also be able to have the convenience of sharpening whenever you want.
Sadly, it's true that there are many, many cases of poor sharpenings being done every day all over the world by people operating machines of all different types. I've definitely seem some pretty awful examples and have seen a pair of brand new blades have half of their life removed in a single sharpening by a person who didn't know what they were doing. But this doesn't mean that hand-operated sharpenings are worse by nature. It depends on the skill, understanding, and attention of the sharpener.
There are a lot of differences between hockey blades and figure skating blades, which is why I feel like the Sparx wouldn't work for me. Figure blades generally have complex curvature at the front end; they have that oh-so-necessary but oh-so-in-the-way toe pick to deal with, and the back of the heel should not be rounded. The blades are generally longer (for the same foot length...and I say "generally" because my dance blades are about the length of most hockey blades) and they are generally wider, with variation in thickness across blade models and types. Some have dovetail edges. Some have side-honed edges that are hand ground and not actually mirror images of each other (blade is shaped like an hourglass with the widest part along the sharpened edge to make a more acute angle for greater grip). Some are parabolic down the long axis of the blade, so the front and back of the blade are wider than the center. Most are carbon steel (a fair variety of types of steel of varying hardness), some are stainless. All of these options add up to it requiring a lot more guidance in terms of where the wheel goes, particularly if you sharpen for a group of about 40 figure skaters like I do. I'm not convinced that a machine like the Sparx can be a "one size fits all" type of sharpener.
The blades I sharpen run from $90 to $650/pair and all have to be ordered from out of town. It would take a lot of sharpenings at $20 each to cover the loss from damaging even one pair of mid-range blades. I like being able to see what is happening and control the level of pressure and where I start and end each pass. I can watch edges that are off-level changing to level one pass at a time, and can make fine adjustments that keep the process from removing excess metal. I know my speed is probably not as precise as a machine, but I think it's reasonably good and there are a lot of other factors that make up for small variations in speed. Since I am a figure skater, I know how it feels to have a good sharpening vs an okay one vs a bad one. I want my skaters to have their edges kept in the best condition possible since skating is already hard enough without fighting your equipment.
I'd say there are additional considerations that Bill_S would be better at explaining in regards to the cutting properties of the diamond wheels and their use on carbon steel blades.
As far as adding oil or wax on the last pass, my experience is that it does make a difference in the smoothness of the blade. You can create a beautiful polishing pass by adding oils, but then your wheel needs to be re-dressed or the next skate you sharpen will get polished rather than sharpened. Hand tools can also be used to improve the final finish (something you could try after you use the Sparx, perhaps?) I'm still experimenting on this, it sounds like Kaitsu has had more experience and the photos of the final edge condition are gorgeous.
Does the effort of the final polish matter--I think that is in the eye (foot?) of the beholder. If you don't polish a carbon steel blade, it takes a week or so of skating to smooth out the fine chatter enough that you have nice flow across the ice, which is disappointing. Our rink sharpening machine (Blademaster with what I guess is a medium or coarse wheel) leaves the bottom of a carbon steel blades looking like tweed as compared to satin. One coach had the rink sharpen her skates when she discovered there was rust on the blades when she arrived at the rink, and gave them to me to resharpen right after that ice session. She said it felt like trying to skate through sand. Newer skaters--I don't know if they would really notice, and they might actually find the extra resistance reassuring because it makes the blades a little less slippery. I direct all the skaters with basic recreational skate blades to the rink for sharpening because they can't feel the difference yet and the toe pick is usually so high up on the front that there isn't much issue with keeping the profile intact. It costs half as much, and I don't think I'm really adding a lot of value to their experience at that stage. Plus I already work full time and skate...I don't want to end up spending my time sharpening instead of skating. The upper-level figure skaters love to be able to put on freshly sharpened blades and have that immediate flow, so the higher their skill gets, the higher the degree of polish I add. I've experimented with my own blades and I have a strong preference for a beautifully smooth finish, but I doubt I would have been able to appreciate the difference in my first few years of skating.
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Incidentally, ProSharp make automated machines that sharpen figure skates, I assume all kinds. The operator dresses the wheel with a diamond as normal, but the machine does the grind.
<<Emphasis added>> Yes and no. ProSharp is a Swedish company. A couple of years ago at my rink, we had a hockey coach who was originally from Sweden. He brought over with him the then top-of-the-line ProSharp AS-2001 machine (there's a slightly improved current version that sells for ~US$11K). I looked into what it would take for it to handle a full range of figure skate blades. For plain vanilla blades (traditional blade with stanchions brazed onto mounting plates, and flat parallel sides), you just need to buy a stock attachment. For more complex geometries (e.g., tapered, side-honed, and chassis+runner), however, you need custom clamping plates as well.
But even then, as Kaitsu previously pointed out, such automated machines assume that the clamping surfaces on the blade are parallel to the longitudinal axis of the blade. And that assumption doesn't necessarily hold for many figure skate blades. With a manual unit such as the Wissota, the skate holder has a 2-axis tilt correction capability; Sparx and ProSharp unfortunately do not.
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A very bad factory sharpening! Which brand & type blade?
Ultimate Mirage blade. I was surprised because Ultima blades are usually close-ish to level, although the unsharpened space behind the toe pick is variable—1.25” to 2.5” (3 to 6 cm).
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Bill: Could the Wissota unit operate with a 3" diam wheel?
* What is the diameter of the mounting hole for the Wissota wheels?
* Assuming a 3" diam wheel were installed, (a) Would the diamond dresser arm have sufficient reach? and (b) Would the skate holder hit into any obstruction?
* The surface feet/min would be less with the smaller diam wheel, but that could probably be accommodated. Any other issues you can think of?
I know you personally have not found any issues with the larger diam wheels. Just curious whether the Wissota would work with a smaller diam wheel (assuming you could get one from a different supplier).
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It's not possible to use a 3" wheel. The ~5" diameter motor housing upon which the wheel is mounted would interfere with the skate holder, and the wheel could not be properly dressed.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_wheel_sizes-12-1000px.jpg)
Wheel diameter reduces during its lifetime. It could wear to approximately the diameter of the motor housing (roughly 5 inches diameter) before I would not be able to dress the wheel. The diamond dressing unit would interfere with the motor housing trying to dress a wheel much smaller than the motor diameter. There is spare travel in the dressing mechanism, but it couldn't be used.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_wheel_sizes-8-1000px.jpg)
The mounting hole in the grinding wheel is exactly 0.500 inch. The wheel is 0.375 inch thick. A new wheel is 7" diameter. The Wissota motor has a nominal RPM of 3450.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_wheel_sizes-3-1000px.jpg)
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Thanks, Bill. Oh, well.
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Contemplating buy sharpener.
Enjoy Figure Skating. Rink shop Sparx only, limited outside contact availability.
Sanity check this idea - Suggest tools/extras? Wisdom?
========
Volume: Self (maybe friends - No biz/charging);
Area: Unheated+finished garage. Temp (F): 40s-50s (consider spot heater if drops to 30s).
Workspace: Have dinky table - maybe buy (adjustable height) table or rolling toolbox
Experience: None (good test marketing, hehe); build some skill from old blades.
Tools: None specific to this (household only)
Blades: Matrix Supreme, Paramount 420SS12;
Order:
- 911 Skate Sharpener: $1225 (normal) / $1625 (“Portable”)
- Holder (in addtion or swap): Elite 3-D Universal Figure Skate Holder $425
- 100-Grit Blue Grinding Wheel Stone: $36
- Toe Pick Protector: Stair gauges from h/w store
- Wissota “Elite” Even Edge Checker: $129.99 - Spendy - is one of better built or best for figure blades?
- Wissota Skate Sharpening Wax: Bill initially undesired (residue on stone), but later changed/now uses?
- Wissota Rocker bars: $28, needed? Seems tells if need fix but fix requires specialist/profile equipment
- Wissota Universal Wheel Dresser: $275 - unneeded/replacement part?
- Paramount edge tooling checkers?
- Rulers?
Question: Need of the dust hood (will I miss in personal use)? No dedicated dust Vac, a shop vac is around. "Portable" has no dust hood.
Question: How measure material taken off after a sharpening? Likewise, how measure "capacity" blade has? Tools? Data for idea of normal/abnormal.
Question: ROH checker tool? Wissota Hollow Depth Indicator H.D.I.: $259.95, Worth?? Maybe vagrancies of wheel dressing leads to inconsistent/not particularly useful data? Seems cheapo ones of e-bay basically same result?
Question: Level/shimming? Bill no mention, but did shim pedestal? Machinist background, maybe have true level floor like Rick & Morty...
Post purchase:
- Check/fix Wissota “Elite” Even Edge Checker for squareness (potentially heavy paint)
Miss anything?
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Question: ROH checker tool? Wissota Hollow Depth Indicator H.D.I.: $259.95, Worth?? Maybe vagrancies of wheel dressing leads to inconsistent/not particularly useful data? Seems cheapo ones of e-bay basically same result?
I can answer this one for you. I have the HDI gauge (originally manufactured by Edge Specialties). It works great on traditional blades with flat, parallel sides. It works marginally with Paramount blades (I have the original design, not the ones with new, wider runners). And it won't work at all with Ultima Matrix blades (tried them when I was at a shop). The body of the gauge needs to clamp onto flat, parallel sides. There is a problem using the gauge with chassis+runner blades if the width of the runner is too small: the clamp hits into the chassis and doesn't seat fully. The Paramount runner is sufficiently wide (at least when new) that the gauge just about clamps adequately (but you need to handle the gauge very carefully). The Ultima Matrix runner is not wide enough at all for the clamp to seat viably (you would need a custom modification, and probably also need to swap out the stock contact tip ... not worth it). [ETA: The HDI gauge measures how even the edges are directly (more quantitatively than edge checkers), and the ROH indirectly: It measures the depth of hollow. You measure the blade thickness separately with a micrometer or caliper (you need to purchase these separately). From these two values, you can calculate the ROH (assuming ideal geometry).]
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Sanity check this idea - Suggest tools/extras? Wisdom?
========
Area: Unheated+finished garage. Temp (F): 40s-50s (consider spot heater if drops to 30s).
The instructions have a procedure for determining if it's too cold, but you have to have the machine there to evaluate motor start times. You might want to call them to see if your temps are remotely problematic. Cold weather start up precautions from Wissota...
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_cold_weather.gif)
Workspace: Have dinky table - maybe buy (adjustable height) table or rolling toolbox
Should be fine if stout. Make sure it doesn't flex or wobble. The sharpener is heavy. FWIW, my pedestal height is 34". The sharpener bolts onto the top of it.
Experience: None (good test marketing, hehe); build some skill from old blades.
Practice on old blades will give you a feel. Once you adjust the holder for your own blades (and don't re-adjust for others), there won't be much adjustment needed for subsequent sharpenings.
Tools: None specific to this (household only)
Buy as you need.
Blades: Matrix Supreme, Paramount 420SS12;
Order:
- 911 Skate Sharpener: $1225 (normal) / $1625 (“Portable”)
- Holder (in addtion or swap): Elite 3-D Universal Figure Skate Holder $425
Call Wissota to have the figure skate holder substituted for the standard hockey skate holder for only the difference in price. Ask about clamping your particular chassis-framed blades to make sure they work. I called to check about swapping holders and placed my order over the phone.
- 100-Grit Blue Grinding Wheel Stone: $36
- Toe Pick Protector: Stair gauges from h/w store
- Wissota “Elite” Even Edge Checker: $129.99 - Spendy - is one of better built or best for figure blades?
The Even Edge checker is very accurate, but paint thickness could affect reading slightly. I tweaked mine using a good machinist's square as reference. Ask Wissota about usage with blades mounted in chassis/frames. It requires a bit of exposed blade for one magnet to stick to the side of the blade. There are other options, i.e. their Basic Even Edge Tool, small adjustable squares, etc. Frankly, you can get close with a piece of Masonite held down against the edges and sighting carefully down the blade.
You can see that this blade is good, but not perfect, with the piece of Masonite held down against the edges. I carry this "tool" in my skate bag in case someone new approaches me about sharpening their blades.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-43-800px.jpg)
- Wissota Skate Sharpening Wax: Bill initially undesired (residue on stone), but later changed/now uses?
Your call. Residue is removed with the wheel dressing required for the next sharpening anyway. It's a slight improvement, but I get surprisingly smooth results even without it.
- Wissota Rocker bars: $28, needed? Seems tells if need fix but fix requires specialist/profile equipment
- Wissota Universal Wheel Dresser: $275 - unneeded/replacement part?
That stuff is not needed. The wheel dresser they sell is for any machine, especially those without a dressing diamond. With the Wissota, you'll get a dressing diamond, adjustable for a wide range of ROH, so avoid the Universal Wheel Dresser.
- Paramount edge tooling checkers?
- Rulers?
Keep it simple. You don't need the expensive Paramount device unless you plan to re-profile blades. Most of us adapt to our blades as they wear anyway. The blades given to me for practice sharpening by a former Scottish national champion were so flat that I don't know how he skated on them, but he did. This device would be most useful for the skater who has two or more pairs of skates and needs to have the same profile for all of them.
Ruler? I used one when setting up the machine and fitting the dust hood. It might be nice to have a thin stainless ruler about 12" long to judge blade straightness down it's length.
Question: Need of the dust hood (will I miss in personal use)? No dedicated dust Vac, a shop vac is around. "Portable" has no dust hood.
Your call. It will get messy without some dust collection, and you will probably want to wear a dust mask. Plenty of masks around now, though.
The metal hood required some finessing to fit my sharpener. I had a lot of tools to choose from, but perhaps simple bending of the sheet metal where it fits would be enough. Wissota has a smaller/cheaper dust collection option that fits to a vac too.
Even with dust collection, I still need to use a hand-brush to sweep away remaining debris.
Question: How measure material taken off after a sharpening? Likewise, how measure "capacity" blade has? Tools? Data for idea of normal/abnormal.
A micrometer can measure material removed, but why bother? I make a pencil tracing of the blade profile when it's new and can see how different it becomes over time.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/skate_blade_wear-1-800px.jpg)
Comparing scans of two tracings (2007 vs. 2019) of my old Coronation Aces, sharpened by hand over a 12-year period.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/skate_blade_wear_aces_2007-2019_color.gif)
With a blade held in a chassis/frame, it won't be as easy to trace, but you might find a way. You can see blade wear at a glance if you can.
Most skaters estimate remaining life by the amount of chrome relief left, but stainless blades won't have that. Perhaps scribe a light line about a tenth of an inch from the edge, and replace when it approaches the line? If you have a chassis holding your blade, measure with a finely-divided steel ruler the distance from the chassis to the blade's edge and compare over time. When you wear away between 1/16" and 1/8", replace the blade.
Question: ROH checker tool? Wissota Hollow Depth Indicator H.D.I.: $259.95, Worth?? Maybe vagrancies of wheel dressing leads to inconsistent/not particularly useful data? Seems cheapo ones of e-bay basically same result?
I use flat steel radius gauges. They are certainly close enough, but not as sexy as the expensive HDI gauges.
I purchased an inexpensive set from McMaster Carr - https://www.mcmaster.com/radius-gauges/ (https://www.mcmaster.com/radius-gauges/)
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/kristens_skates_wissota-48-800px.jpg)
Question: Level/shimming? Bill no mention, but did shim pedestal? Machinist background, maybe have true level floor like Rick & Morty...
A reasonable floor level, not machine shop level is desired. Some sharpening machines have ball-bearing carriages, so they would need to be more level. The skate holder used by Wissota has a felt bearing surface against the machined cast iron top, so it has light damping friction in whatever direction you move it. Slighty out-of-level won't affect sharpening on this machine.
I didn't need to shim the base to prevent rocking, but that depends on the floor.
BTW, the pedestal base is larger and stronger than it looks in photos. The floor base is a wide 18" square and made of heavy 1/4" steel plate, with a 4" square tube upright, probably also 1/4" thick. It's very heavy and stable.
Post purchase:
- Check/fix Wissota “Elite” Even Edge Checker for squareness (potentially heavy paint)
You'll need some sort of square to assess this. It was a slight tweak for mine. A good small square is useful anyway.
Miss anything?
If so, post away.
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Keep it simple. You don't need the expensive Paramount device unless you plan to re-profile blades. Most of us adapt to our blades as they wear anyway. The blades given to me for practice sharpening by a former Scottish national champion were so flat that I don't know how he skated on them, but he did. This device would be most useful for the skater who has two or more pairs of skates and needs to have the same profile for all of them.
Correction here:
The Paramount tools are not used for profiling. They are used to check how level the edges are. They are similar to the Wissota two-piece Elite Edge Checker (a measurement piece that magnetically sits on top of the two edges and a reference horizon piece that attaches to a suitable surface). With the Paramount tools, the reference horizon piece has different configurations to accommodate different blade geometries (e.g., traditional blades with flat, parallel sides; traditional blades with tapered and/or side-honed sides; or chassis+runner blades). Unlike the Wissota unit, the reference horizon pieces on the Paramount units do not have a graduated scale.
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Miss anything?
Safety goggles to protect your eyes.
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Contemplating buy sharpener...
It used to be that the Edge Specialties Pro-Filer was a $100 hand tool kit that did an adequate job, and I have used them on (old style) Matrix blades, including Dance, Supreme, Synchro styles. Sure, it took a few minutes / blade to do a good job - 5 minutes if I waited too long - longer than a skilled powered sharpener operator can manage. So what?
Pictures are at https://www.medstarhealth.org/mymedstar-patient-portal
But Wissota bought out Edge Specialties, and has not chosen to make Pro-Filers.
You could perhaps buy a used one on eBay, etc. Be careful you get the figure skating kit, not the hockey kit - the gap sizes are much different.
Also, an even better hand tool was made by Berghman. E.g.,
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Dgf4D56IJE
but I think they stopped being made in about 1949. They too can be bought used, rather cheap.
BUT: they only were made for 1/2" hollow.
And, the stone was old tech - quite crumbly. Very coarse grit too. You can buy modern 1/2" abrasive cylinders a number of places that would work - I would choose one with diamond grit. I used one from a 1/2" Pro-Filer without a problem.
Things I liked about them was the adjustable width, and the self-centering mechanism, and the fact that you can see what you are doing very well, so you can choose to sharpen almost up to the toe pick. If you wanted to use them with a blade that wasn't flat (I haven't tried this), there is plenty of space to apply adhesive compressible foam to both sides of the gap, which I think would work.
Some people have successfully sharpened skates with nothing but an abrasive cylinder - no holder. I think they place there fingers in such a way that they sort of act like a gap, that keeps the blade centered on the stone. But my hand-eye coordination isn't that good. When I've tried that, I kept nicking the edges, and creating non-uniform edges. Some people can even hand craft a custom hollow (including a hollow that varies along the length) using a smaller radius cylinder. That is way beyond my coordination. :)
BTW, at hand sharpening speeds, you can use water instead of oil or polishing fluid. It won't mess up the stone (though oil alone isn't really that bad - many knife sharpeners use oil), and if it spills in your skate bag, it doesn't make much of a mess. But you may need to re-apply the water once or twice while sharpening, whereas you only need apply oil once during sharpening. I don't see that as a serious problem. (As best I understand it, at machine sharpening speeds, water would boil, so is not usable.)
(Incidentally, I found a bunch of cheap sharpening hand tools from a Chinese importer. But they all had 1/4" hollow! And I have tried another skate sharpening hand tool, that some hockey players have used, that was complete junk, and could not produce reliable edges.)
Hand tools are NOT good for skate sharpening businesses. Powered machine sharpeners are faster. If you work out the math, even the expensive ones are worth it for a business that does a lot of sharpenings.
There is another issue. At current, as Kaitsu pointed out, the major figure skating blade makers do NOT put a hollow on blades. I.E., there is no initial hollow, when you order a new blade from the factory, except with some extremely cheap blades that probably aren't worth using by figure skaters. Hand tools are not adequate for that - you would take a very long time, and wear out the stone. I know that from experience. (Maybe you could get by with those initial very coarse stones that came with the Berghmans...) I have verified with another professional skate tech that Kaitsu is right about this for Jackson Ultima Matrix, MK and Wilson figure skating blades. So you would need to find a (good) skate tech to create the original edge. (BTW, many mail order retailers will do it before shipping - you have to ask to find out.) Likewise, if you wanted to modify the profile in a significant way, hand tools are too slow. (I have restored the "sweet spot" - i.e., the transition point between the main rocker and the spin rocker, around where many people like to turn and spin - using Pro-Filers. But that is a very minor change, that takes less than a minute at most, though I find it quite important, because it helps me figure out when I am on that part of the blade. I also like to move it to where it works best for my feet, because my toes are shorter than what blade makers assume.)
Anyway, good luck with your adventure.
I must warn you that there is a more difficult learning curve with powered sharpeners than hand tools. That's because they take off metal more quickly and easily.
>Question: How measure material taken off after a sharpening?
As Bill points out, a micrometer can do it, or even a very precise and consistent calipers. But you have to mark the point along the blade you are measuring it from. Some people mark the bottom of the blade with a pencil or magic marker. They know to stop when no ink remains. You can actually remove a little less with hand tools than with a powered sharpener - because to some extent, at the slower speeds of hand sharpening, you are reshaping the steel, rather than just grinding it too shape. So maybe you remove .001" instead of .003", if you are good, and you haven't waited too long between sharpenings. In theory, that saves you money. In practice you can get somewhere near 30 machine sharpenings even removing .003", if you assume that you have an adequate blade shape for about .1" - i.e., where the toe pick digs into the ice too easily, when you are just trying to skate. The difference is significant if you have $500 blades. Maybe not as important if you have $150 blades. I've talked to an (in my opinion incompetent) skate tech who routinely removed at least 1/16", which would mean the blade would have a good shape for 1 or 2 sharpenings - imagine doing that on a $500+ blade pair! :( That said, you can get a little more use out of an old blade if you carefully trim the furthest back toe pick ("the drag pick"). But that takes a certain amount of skill and care.
When I started using the Pro-Filer, it didn't occur to me to trace the blade profile, like Bill discusses. I messed up a pair of expensive MK Dance blades that way. I had to figure out that I should have traced the blade too. I also had to learn to reverse the tool or the skate half-way through, so the two edges will be of equal height even if the Pro-Filer gap is slightly off center.
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It used to be that the Edge Specialties Pro-Filer was a $100 hand tool kit that did an adequate job, and I have used them on (old style) Matrix blades, including Dance, Supreme, Synchro styles. Sure, it took a few minutes / blade to do a good job - 5 minutes if I waited too long - longer than a skilled powered sharpener operator can manage. So what?
Pictures are at https://www.medstarhealth.org/mymedstar-patient-portal
But Wissota bought out Edge Specialties, and has not chosen to make Pro-Filers.
You could perhaps buy a used one on eBay, etc. Be careful you get the figure skating kit, not the hockey kit - the gap sizes are much different.
<<By the way, you posted a link to a medical provider, not to an image of a Pro-Filer.>> As I pointed out in a different thread, there is still some new Pro-Filer stock available from the people who previously ran Edge Specialties. See
OK. Here's the word from Jan Anderson at Edge Specialties [Brad and Jan Anderson run Edge Specialties].
* They are retiring.
* They have sold the "pro-filer.com" domain to Wissota.
* They have sold the boot punch, HDI gauge, and rocker bar product lines to Wissota. These are the products featured on the Edge Specialties page of the Wissota website (where you land when you enter "pro-filer.com" in a browser).
* Edge Specialties still has some Pro-Filers in inventory for sale. If you are interested, please contact:
Jan Anderson
Edge Specialties, Inc.
phone 320-808-1536
e-mail pro-filer@charter.net
BUT, the OP has Ultima Matrix blades and Paramount blades. I have the original design Paramount blades. The Pro-Filer will not work with them unless you modify the chassis (that holds the abrasive cylinder) of the Pro-Filer. That can be done with hand tools: I've done it I don't know whether modification is needed for the recently revised Paramount blades (which claim to have wider runners).
As for the current Ultima Matrix blades (non-interchangeable runners) that have been sold for a while now (not the Matrix I with interchangeable runners that you keep referring to), the width of the runner is even smaller than that of the original Paramount. The chassis of the Pro-Filer would need an even more substantial modification. I wouldn't attempt it with hand tools. It could be readily done with a milling machine if I had access to one (I don't), and paying a machinist to do it would probably cost more than the unit itself (assuming you can find a machinist willing to do a one-off job). Even then, I'm not sure whether whatever remained of the guide slots would be deep enough to hold the unit in alignment with the blade (I'm skeptical). So you could end up spending >$200, just to find it doesn't work.
And, as discussed in other threads, the Pro-Filer, as with almost any tool, has its own set of pluses and minuses, its own learning curve, its own limitations to deal with and work around. I don't think it's accurate to portray to random skaters (who are newbies to the Pro-Filer) that they can pop the unit out of the box, and, voilà, have fresh edges in 5 min or so.
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Great infos - thank you all very much! Hope reference for others.
Additions:
- Eye Goggles + Dust Mask(s) dedicated to space: Safety good
- Radius Gauge: Low cost RoH checker
- Mini broom/sweep brush nearby: Tidy tool
Nice to have:
- Steel ruler (1/10" or finer): Measure chassis to blade edge, compare over time
Skipped:
- HDI Gauge: skipped, high cost & limited viability
- Pedestal, DCS, Dust Cover: Will put monies toward work table, consider jerry rig shop vac tube. Also may higher shipping (pedestal = heavy)
- Portable Case: Skipped, cost high/need lessor
Process Step to Do: Trace initial blade profile (+scan/archive), useful reference point, highly recommended.
More data/experience needed:
- Paramount Measuring tool(s): May find better with traditional blades with tapered and/or side-honed sides; or chassis+runner blades. Wonder if side by side experience Paramount measure tool vs Wissota (or even Sparx) Edge checker tools. Worth noting measure may be helpful but anecdotal experiences suggest [great] skaters done miracles on super wacky edge measurements.
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Contemplated handheld sharpener but RoH 7/16" elusive, long(er) term availability question, dead/dying instrument. Modern holders seem focus tooling/"track" (but $$$), lessor reliance consistently good steady hands. Maybe someday handheld revive. Lament: sport high cost barrier for many, going way of stone masons/metallurgy/etc - low cost viable tool maybe good for future.
Question: Bill profile tracing of 12 year Aces seem margin of error identical - tiny tiny shorter edge. Nearly no steel removed? Extrapolated: maybe 30-50 year blade? Am I misunderstanding? Seems excellent profile retention.
Why interest measure steel: Mechanism for trust but verify, while still honing own skill. Thinking if measure before sharpen, measure after, difference = Delta. Delta can suggest too aggressive/poor sharpener. Edge check before/after help validate edge consistency. Profile trace help identify round offs etc. Often people say butchered blades, interesting if quantify (extent, area). Perhaps misguided direction? Would be nice to have real data to support sharpener recommendation.
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Ordered:
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- Wisotta 911 Skate Sharpener Package x1
- 911 Machine
- 3-D Three Dial Skate (Hockey) Holder (kept in; for hockey/edge case figures)
- 80 Grit Pink Wheel
- Diamond Dresser
- Wisotta Elite 3-D Universal Figure Skate Holder × 1
- Wisotta 100-Grit Blue Grinding Wheel Stone × 1
- Wissota "Elite" Even Edge Checker x 1
Need to pickup:
- Toe Pick Protector: Stair gauges from h/w store
- Radius Gauges: ebay/McMaster-Carr
- Eye Goggles dedicated to space
- Dust Mask(s) dedicated to space
- Mini broom/sweep brush
- [Nice to have] Steel ruler (1/10" or finer)
Workspace items:
- Craft/buy toolbench
- [Once workbench in place] Discrete Shop Vac, jerry rig so suck sparks/shavings away
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Wow! That's great. It would be enlightening to get a detailed review from you. It would not be redundant with Bill's, but complementary. Bill is a mechanical engineer, and a skilled machinist and woodworker. You evidently don't have such a background. I've been considering purchase of a Wissota myself (still need to finish some home remodelling first).
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As for the current Ultima Matrix blades (non-interchangeable runners) that have been sold for a while now (not the Matrix I with interchangeable runners that you keep referring to), the width of the runner is even smaller than that of the original Paramount. The chassis of the Pro-Filer would need an even more substantial modification. I wouldn't attempt it with hand tools. It could be readily done with a milling machine if I had access to one (I don't), and paying a machinist to do it would probably cost more than the unit itself (assuming you can find a machinist willing to do a one-off job).
How can a milling machine REDUCE the thickness of a gap?
If you had access to a full precision metal shop, perhaps you could just make yourself something similar to the Pro-Filer. I.E., a block of metal with a given thickness, with a hole drilled in it, and a slot of the right thickness centered on the hole. Would that be hard to do in a good precision shop?
I once modified a Pro-Filer that was designed for hockey blades for use with figure blades. (I ordered it on eBay, and didn't realize it was for hockey until it arrived.) I used a metal file to widen the slot, and had to be careful to maintain the centering, and another file to thin the slot depth, so it would fit my blades, which even with the old Matrix I blades, had shorter exposed runners than usual blades MK and JW made. It was a fair bit of work, and people unable or unwilling to take precise measurements might have trouble. Maybe that would seem trivial to someone with machine shop training...
Even the old Matrix I blades had runners that were slightly thinner than most MK and JW blades. So I had to be a bit careful, including the trick of reversing directions midway through. Sometimes I put thin tape on the blades. I also tried taping the tool, but it was very difficult to position the tape right, and push on it hard enough to make it stick.
Even then, I'm not sure whether whatever remained of the guide slots would be deep enough to hold the unit in alignment with the blade (I'm skeptical). So you could end up spending >$200, just to find it doesn't work.
Are they up to $200 now? My figure skating kits were $100. They seem so simple. But I guess people charge for reasonbly accurate machining.
And, as discussed in other threads, the Pro-Filer, as with almost any tool, has its own set of pluses and minuses, its own learning curve, its own limitations to deal with and work around. I don't think it's accurate to portray to random skaters (who are newbies to the Pro-Filer) that they can pop the unit out of the box, and, voilà, have fresh edges in 5 min or so.
I said it had a learning curve, and that I initially made mistakes. So would the Wissota, or any powered sharpener - and AFAICT, the learning curve is longer, and the mistakes may take off more metal. On top of that, there are multiple ways you could hurt yourself seriously using powered sharpening machines.
I once tried to learn how to use an old but small Blademaster sharpening machine. The person showing me, who was one of the people in charge of other people who sharpened for a rink, used amazingly poor technique. He took off most of the runner depth of a rental skate, because he kept centering the blade wrong. (It didn't occur to him to turn off the machine, use the wheel to scratch marks on the steel, and check how well they were centered - say, at least with a micrometer or calipers, if he even had one. It didn't help that they only had a bladeholder that didn't make it easy to make small changes. You had to loosen the bolts, move the blade, and try again. Every time he saw uneven edges, he used the cross-grinder to re-level the blade, and started over. I imagined him sharpening someone's $500 blades, and destroying most of the blade life in one sharpening. I decided he was not a good person to learn from. I was impressed by how heavily and solidly the machine was built, and how elegant the design for dressing the wheel was.
I talked about that with Mike Cunningham, a better skate tech, who had a fancier Blademaster. He showed me that his blade holder could easily be adjusted at each end in 1/2000" steps, by pushing buttons. He knew exactly how many times to push, to compensate for different blade widths. It also held the blade straight before sharpening. He also routinely used a micrometer for a number of things, was a Navy trained welder, had machine shop experience, and had been working on hockey and figure skating blades for over 50 years. I think all the good skate techs I've met had prior machine shop experience, and were all very mechanically inclined BEFORE they started sharpening.
While I've not seen the Wissota, I suspect the average figure skater, or hockey skater, could not learn to sharpen well on them in 5 minutes either. I certainly couldn't. When I was a rink guard, and sometimes worked the rental counter, the local pro shop sometimes trained people using the rental skates. From what I could tell, the learners often destroyed several skate blades before they were allowed to sharpen customers' blades - though to tell you the truth, I wouldn't have brought my skates to that shop for sharpenng.
It took me a fair bit of time just to figure out how to get reasonably consistent measurements out of a calipers or micrometer. (I recently bought a new micrometer that makes that easier: it has a ratchet stop, which makes it easier to apply a consistent pressure, its digital, and I can zero it at any given position. I tried all the ones in the store, and found only one whose mechanism worked perfectly, that gave monotonically increasing measurements as I increased the gap, and turned about the same between adjacent measurement points [some of the analog ones didn't, because the verneer scale wasn't molded quite right], and which returned exactly to zero if I zeroed it on a closed gap, moved it out to the widest width, and closed the gap again, and likewise for tests on other objects. I wanted to buy a cheaper one, but none of them in the store met even these basic criteria.)
I even had to learn how to feel the sharpness and straightness of an edge (especially a foil edge) without cutting myself. Maybe people with machine shop training are taught those things. But most high schools no longer offer shop courses, so it isn't reasable to expect the average hockey or figure skater to be able to figure them out quickly, no matter what tool they use.
I was shown how to sharpen using the Pro-Filer, by a very good skate techs. (I don't know why he sold them. Teaching people to sharpen, or selling them the tools, isn't good for a pro shop's business. I stopped using him to sharpen my skates after he taught me.) It took about 5 minutes to learn from him, including how to use a flat stone to polish and straighten the edge. It would have taken a lot longer without training. And he didn't bother showing me the trick of tracing the original profile, or of reversing the skate or tool midway, or of lubricating the tool or blade with oil or water to make a cleaner edge - I guess he just assumed anyone would think of that sort of thing.
I already knew how to sharpen a pocket knife, or a dive knife (I don't dive, but kayakers sometimes carry them for safety). Without that experience, it might have taken longer. I had also already learned to read verneer scales in a physics lab.
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SkaterNomad -
Question: Bill profile tracing of 12 year Aces seem margin of error identical - tiny tiny shorter edge. Nearly no steel removed? Extrapolated: maybe 30-50 year blade? Am I misunderstanding? Seems excellent profile retention.
Why interest measure steel: Mechanism for trust but verify, while still honing own skill. Thinking if measure before sharpen, measure after, difference = Delta. Delta can suggest too aggressive/poor sharpener. Edge check before/after help validate edge consistency. Profile trace help identify round offs etc. Often people say butchered blades, interesting if quantify (extent, area). Perhaps misguided direction? Would be nice to have real data to support sharpener recommendation.
My Aces were only hand sharpened during the 12 years of usage. Hand sharpening = slow metal removal. The hand sharpening tool is [mostly] self centering, so no extra sharpening passes are required to get acceptably level edges. The scanned and composited illustration can be a little misleading unless viewed at 100% size. It is still remarkable life for a blade. I've set them aside now for Pattern 99 blades.
This does bring up a point to be aware of with a typical powered sharpener. Even with a "Sharpie" mark in the hollow of the blade and a nudge of the grinding wheel by hand to assess blade height/centering, you will probably spend a cutting pass or two getting level edges. This consumes blade life. Spend time with the machine turned off adjusting for center as much as possible before making actual cutting passes.
Because blades come in slightly different thicknesses, a sharpener for commercial use must be constantly adjusted to adapt to the differences. If you use your sharpener just for your own blades, then the blade height setting will probably be very, very close each time after your initial setup. You'll achieve longer blade life doing it exclusively for yourself.
Concerning measurement of blade dimensions, either a micrometer (preferred) or digital calipers (easier usage, larger span, but perhaps less accurate) will suffice. The amounts of metal removed during a good power sharpening are small, probably on the order of 0.003-0.005". It will take careful measurement technique to get meaningful information.
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How can a milling machine REDUCE the thickness of a gap?
If you had access to a full precision metal shop, perhaps you could just make yourself something similar to the Pro-Filer. I.E., a block of metal with a given thickness, with a hole drilled in it, and a slot of the right thickness centered on the hole. Would that be hard to do in a good precision shop?
I once modified a Pro-Filer that was designed for hockey blades for use with figure blades. (I ordered it on eBay, and didn't realize it was for hockey until it arrived.) I used a metal file to widen the slot, and had to be careful to maintain the centering, and another file to thin the slot depth, so it would fit my blades, which even with the old Matrix I blades, had shorter exposed runners than usual blades MK and JW made. It was a fair bit of work, and people unable or unwilling to take precise measurements might have trouble. Maybe that would seem trivial to someone with machine shop training...
Even the old Matrix I blades had runners that were slightly thinner than most MK and JW blades. So I had to be a bit careful, including the trick of reversing directions midway through. Sometimes I put thin tape on the blades. I also tried taping the tool, but it was very difficult to position the tape right, and push on it hard enough to make it stick.
Are they up to $200 now? My figure skating kits were $100. They seem so simple. But I guess people charge for reasonbly accurate machining.
It has nothing to do with the thickness of the gap. When Paramount (and hockey blade manufacturers) talk about the width of the runner, they mean this: Lay the skate on its side. Now measure the distance between the interface of the chassis/runner and the edge of the runner. This is the width of the runner. With the skate in a normal vertical skating position, this would be the depth (or height, depending on your perspective) of the runner: how much the edge of the runner extends below the chassis/runner interface.
Now, the guide block of the Pro-Filer slips over the sides of the runner and must be pushed down deep enough to seat the abrasive cylinder against the edges and hollow of the blade and apply pressure. With a traditional blade with flat parallel sides, no problems. With the Paramount and Matrix, the bottom of the guide block will hit into the chassis (which is thicker than the blade) prematurely, and the guide block cannot be properly seated to exert pressure on the abrasive cylinder against the blade. So the bottom of the guide block needs to be trimmed so the guide block can be pushed down deeper.
The guide block has a wide body and two thinner rails (or "lips") at the bottom. The Paramount blade is wide enough that you can just trim off the rails for sufficient clearance. I did this by clamping the guide block in a vise, and using a large coarse file to remove most of the rails, followed by finer files and sandpaper for finishing.
The Matrix blade has an even smaller width than the Paramount (less exposed steel between the chassis/runner interface and the edge). For adequate clearance, you would need to remove the rails and part of the wide body (which is best done with a milling machine). Whether there would still be enough of a guide slot left for the Pro-Filer to work properly, I don't know (my guess is no). But since I don't like Matrix blades and don't plan to buy them, it's moot for me; but obviously of concern for someone who does have Matrix.
The >$200 figure, as I explained above, includes the cost of the Pro-Filer plus my estimate of what a machinist would charge for modification of the guide block (at least $100).
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Ok will contemplate micrometer/digital calipers.
Small anecdotal data point regarding Wissota, visa vi dangerous/ability to throw: A skate tech said he found Wissota specifically did not throw as hard as other machines he had used. Thought might be relevant specific about this unit.
Legit concerns powered machines e.g. Hole Hawg potentially twisting/snapping bulky worker arm - Yikes! Risks noted, caution will apply, brave face plastered on. Anyone reading in future, take serious caution of blade flying out and lodge into you or nearby friend - happens more care to think about with table saw, caution advised.
No expect good result after 5 minutes/5 sharpens. Sourcing old blades to practice. Need start somewhere, maybe end failure maybe cautious good result in time. Worth note may be multi-generational template/stepping stone - a reason avoiding tools from now defunct companies (for better or worse - see Notre Dame fire, expected lack of mason to fix... sad, beautiful things arts sport falling in age all "knowledge" in pocket). Also no guarrantee only Matrix or Paramount - may open doors to more blades so wanted reasonable expectation of "universal" sharpener (within hobbyist pricing).
Much appreciate all good info. Thank you all again for time. Will see how adventure goes.
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I would add a wheel balancing stand to the list of items you want. I’m able to get a much better surface finish now that I’m balancing my wheels on a stand instead of using balancing washers. Kaitsu showed me his process (we both have the IE machine) and it makes a significant difference.
I love having this opportunity to discuss sharpening with others who want to go beyond the basics and get as good of a product as possible. I’m an engineer, grew up doing a lot of hand crafts (wood carving, embroidery, light construction) and rebuilt bicycles and other items with my dad. We took broken things apart and fixed them. It was a great introduction to how things work and why they don’t. I took wood shop and metal shop classes in high school, but I don’t have the really valuable machinist experience that Bill and Kaitsu have. It has been such a pleasure to learn from people with these skills. Viva Skatingforums!
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Supersharp - As you say, having some mechanical skills in your background makes learning to sharpen blades easier. I know that you didn't infer this, but for the benefit of other readers, no one actually needs to be a machinist to sharpen skates. It's just careful work, not rocket science.
SkaterNomad - If you are thinking of kickback like a table saw or of a woodworking router when "climb cutting", rest assured that it just doesn't happen here. If I would let go, the holder and skate would just sit there. I'd probably grind a slight divot where I stopped moving, but I can't fathom the situation generating enough force to do move than barely nudge the holder. Perhaps if you bear down hard against the wheel, you'd feel resistance, but it doesn't take force to grind.
I use light pressure (an ounce or two?) against the grinding wheel, and move the holder with blade against the rotation of the wheel (R to L).
You'll quickly learn the feel of grinding. Light pressure and steady passes without pauses are what you will find work best. FWIW, I'd estimate that I move the holder about 1 inch/second when grinding.
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I would add a wheel balancing stand to the list of items you want. I’m able to get a much better surface finish now that I’m balancing my wheels on a stand instead of using balancing washers. Kaitsu showed me his process (we both have the IE machine) and it makes a significant difference.
Bill, could you please comment on this? I'm fairly sure we discussed wheel balancing before, but I couldn't find the posts. I believe you found that the Wissota wheels are well-balanced out of the box, and don't need any special balancing procedure. Is that correct?
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There's no mention of balancing in Wissota instructions, not have I done any.
That's not to say that a day may come where I'd need to do it to get good results. I'll cross that bridge when it presents itself.
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When I was thinking of dangers using powered sharpening machines I had very simple things in mind:
1. They send a shower of sparks into the air. Some powered sharpening machines do not have an eye shield, so you have to be careful where you put your face. If there was no transparent eye shield, would safety goggles be adequate?
2. If you have long hair, and don't tie it back behind you, it could get caught in any moving machinery.
3. If you have loose baggy clothing, especially extra long sleeves, a necktie, or any type of glove, same thing. I've seen warnings that gloves especially should not be used with power tools.
4. I suppose there is a risk that someone could put their finger or hand in a place where the sharpening wheel could pull it between the blade and the wheel, and create a serious injury.
5. I have seen a warning that power and circular saws, if they "bind" on wood (e.g., if the cut wood squeezes on the blade to hard, or if the weight of a circular saw causes the wood to sag much), can send the wood back at you, or at someone else who happens to be in the way, at sufficient speed to go through a body and maybe even kill. I think it's because they have a lot of power. I don't know if powered sharpening machines have that much power, or if there is a significant risk of this sort of thing. The situation is obviously different - nothing squeezes on the wheel from both sides, and most skate techs use a pretty light touch.
6. There might be a tiny risk that someone would forget to tighten whatever bolts or mechanisms hold the wheel or shaft, and they could fly away from what is supposed to hold it in place.
Am I overly worried about this things? I don't have much experience with power tools, so I don't really know. Could those of you with such experience comment?
Do any other significant dangers exist?
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Much of this falls under the "common sense" category.
There is NO kickback like in saws. Light grinding is completely different and has none of that danger.
Other significant dangers? - Well, don't stand in a puddle of water when sharpening with electric tools.
Please - most of this is common sense, so it doesn't bear addressing point by point. We've become all to familiar with "lawyer labels" on consumer goods to think for ourselves.
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Much of this falls under the "common sense" category.
There is NO kickback like in saws. Light grinding is completely different and has none of that danger.
Other significant dangers? - Well, don't stand in a puddle of water when sharpening with electric tools.
Please - most of this is common sense, so it doesn't bear addressing point by point. We've become all to familiar with "lawyer labels" on consumer goods to think for ourselves.
Hear! Hear! But remember: If components come sealed in plastic bags with packets of silica gel desiccant, don't stick your head in the plastic bags and don't ingest the packets. :o [ETA: And even though there are no warnings to the contrary, don't stick your head in the packets, and don't ingest the plastic bags, either.]
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The long hair comment is worth noting…I have long hair and I work with power tools regularly. Years ago (VHS tape era) my dad taped and sent me a show where a long-haired worker had pulled her hair back but the ponytail fell forward over her shoulder and was caught in a belt grinder or something similar. The image is pretty much permanently seared in my brain. Pull your hair back and make sure it can’t fall forward (easy enough to stick the ponytail under the back of your shirt). Having an intact scalp is one of life’s simple pleasures.
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I would add a wheel balancing stand to the list of items you want. I’m able to get a much better surface finish now that I’m balancing my wheels on a stand instead of using balancing washers.
Wheel balancing works and improves the surface finish in every machine and every wheel on the market. What the manufacturers says about their wheels balancing can be pretty much ignored. Example Blademaster 3" wheels are sold as a weight balanced. Still I can feel and see that they are way out of balance. Wheel weight is about 66 grams and to get them on balance requires typically about 1 gram additional mass when it is new. When the wheel gets smaller, also weight balance changes and balancing need to be redone. 1 gr unbalance sounds extremely small, but I can guarantee that you can feel and hear the difference between balanced and non-balanced wheel https://youtu.be/Zqh8rVBGG8A
What you need to remember on Wissota is that balancing stand is probably much more expensive than for 3" wheels. 7" wheel and its mass is probably too much for magnetic balancers. Wissota users might need something like this https://www.exportersindia.com/product-detail/cast-iron-wheel-balancing-stand-5773214.htm
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Balancing will help up to the limit determined by the coarseness of the grinding wheel. Problems with unbalanced wheels can be mitigated through machine design that reduces the propagation of unbalanced forces, i.e., increased mass to decrease cyclic displacement by a dynamic force, bearing precision and size, and machine material / geometry.
I did an experiment this morning to see if I could detect the affects of my off-the-shelf grinding wheel that has had no balancing steps performed by me. I do not know if the wheel has been factory balanced when manufactured.
I mounted a dial indicator onto a separate stand placed beside the sharpener, and positioned the probe against the side of the cast iron table. This is the plane that you would expect unbalanced wheels to perturb the most. I zeroed the indicator after positioning it. [Click to enlarge]
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_vibration_experiment-1-1000px.jpg)
I started the machine and watched the needle on the dial indicator for any cyclic displacement. It indicated no motion and the needle was dead steady.
Here's a link to a 3.5MB video of the dial indicator up-close while the machine was running. It confirms that stock grinding wheel vibrations are not perturbing the table to a degree that can be measured by my equipment.
https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_balance_dial_indicator-1.m4v (https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_balance_dial_indicator-1.m4v)
I believe that I benefit from the large and heavy section cast iron table/motor clamp plus the hefty 1/2" diameter shaft. The dressing diamond and supporting structure is also motor-mounted which would be an advantage for not "dressing-in" any vibration-caused runout.
This is a photo made at wheel-height so that the sheer size of the castings, mounted directly to the motor, can be appreciated. Click to enlarge.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_sharpener_vibration_experiment-5-1000px.jpg)
If I detect vibrations from an unbalanced wheel in the future either by feel or by seeing any emerging blade finish issues, I can dynamically (not just statically!) balance the wheel using the dial indicator.
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Here's what Wissota claims about their wheels (https://wissota.com/product/blue-wheel/):
"All Wissota grinding wheels are hand balanced and side finished to remove any wobble. You can find wheels with different grinding properties than ours, but you will not find a better running wheel!"
Question: Unless there are gross nonuniformities in either the flatness, thickness, or density of the wheel [which should be subject to good manufacturing control], wouldn't the dressing operation itself balance the wheel (i.e., make it axially symmetric about the rotational shaft)?
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I suspect that the balance variability is just a factor of just how tight manufacturers can hold tolerances in a composite material like a grinding wheel.
To address your question about dressing, I'm certain that dressing will improve a wheel's balance if it is out-of-round, or doesn't fit perfectly on the shaft, but won't completely balance it. As a thought exercise, take the following illustration showing a perfectly static-balanced grinding wheel (blue) mounted onto a shaft (gray) with purposely exaggerated wheel I.D. vs. shaft O.D tolerances. The dashed red line shows the wheel periphery after dressing, and it makes the wheel O.D. concentric with the shaft.
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/grinding_wheel_uncentered.jpg)
Before dressing, the large amount of material at the periphery that is outside of the dressed wheel line (dashed red) contributes heavily to an unbalanced system. Dressing removes this lopsided distribution of material, but there is still the little bit of air space at the shaft on one side, and wheel material at the other side where it touches the shaft. This is much less important than any un-concentric wheel O.D. errors because the radius is much smaller, the mass mismatch is smaller, but at rapid rotations could still would contribute to a slightly unbalanced system.
It's beneficial to have a tight fit between shaft and grinding wheel to reduce this secondary imbalance. I noticed that the I.D. of the Wissota grinding wheels have a circular bushing to reduce slop in the fit with the shaft. See the photo below... [Click to enlarge]
(https://www.afterness.com/skating/images/wissota/wissota_wheel_sizes-4-850pxh.jpg)
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I started the machine and watched the needle on the dial indicator for any cyclic displacement. It indicated no motion and the needle was dead steady.
I believe that I benefit from the large and heavy section cast iron table/motor clamp plus the hefty 1/2" diameter shaft. The dressing diamond and supporting structure is also motor-mounted which would be an advantage for not "dressing-in" any vibration-caused runout.
I fully agree that heavy mass and cast iron are good features to absorb vibrations. These are definitely good features even thought many hockey teams gives more value for more light portable machines.
What I disagree is that dial gauge would be good device to demonstrate vibrations. I tried that also in practice and needle was dead steady, just like in your video even there was clear vibrations on my machine.
Post modified as I did forget to add some disclaimers which are needed in certain countries.
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I prefer more old classic test where you put glass of water on top of the machine.
I'm sure that someone as careful as you would test for visible vibration first! :) Spilled water can destroy a sharpening machine. I know of a case where a leaky roof caused that.
The electrician I knew installed and maintained hundreds of sub pumps, and other pumps, powered by electric motors, on a University campus with a high enough water table to flood basements if pumps failed. While linking the pump and motor, he checked very carefully for seen, heard or felt vibration. He said poor mounting often destroyed bearings in a month. But 30 years after he figured out how to do it right, all the pumps he installed were still working. (Another issue he claimed could mess up bearings, if the coupling has an adjustable travel, each bearing should be in the center of its travel. He also said it was extremely important that the motor, if it doesn't have a sealed bearing, is lubricated correctly. He claimed too much grease can do just as much damage as too little. Also, if there is a Xerc fitting, make sure you know how to grease it properly. It isn't sufficient to pour grease on top of it. He claimed you should open the fitting for a minute and let the running motor squeeze the excess grease out, but a mechanic trainer told me that isn't optimal - each bearing is designed to be greased at the well calibrated pressure the appropriate grease gun delivers.)
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I suspect that the balance variability is just a factor of just how tight manufacturers can hold tolerances in a composite material like a grinding wheel.
To address your question about dressing, I'm certain that dressing will improve a wheel's balance if it is out-of-round, or doesn't fit perfectly on the shaft, but won't completely balance it. As a thought exercise, take the following illustration showing a perfectly static-balanced grinding wheel (blue) mounted onto a shaft (gray) with purposely exaggerated wheel I.D. vs. shaft O.D tolerances. The dashed red line shows the wheel periphery after dressing, and it makes the wheel O.D. concentric with the shaft.
Good image of the wheels, Bill, thanks! And I agree, dressing an out-of-round wheel will change its balance, since you will be removing more material from some areas than others.
Differences in what is most important probably vary with machine type. I use the Incredible Edger, and here is what is working for me right now:
- The wheel should be dressed first, then balanced. I think the biggest source of imbalance is inconsistency in the abrasive material mix that is used to form the wheels, so the imbalance is more related to areas with different densities within the wheel. There is no way to predict where they will be and they will be different on every wheel. As the wheel wears down and loses diameter, you will eventually need to rebalance it.
Regarding shaft fit on the wheel, that definitely needs to be addressed. Adding a shim (DIY bushing, I suppose) to get as close of a fit to the spindle shaft as possible is recommended. After installing the shim/bushing and doing an initial dressing of the wheel, you are ready to balance it. I have found that it makes quite a big difference in surface finish to balance the wheels.
Since it is almost impossible to get a wheel onto the spindle that does not have at least some small amount of extra space in it, I have been marking my spindle with a Sharpie and lining it up with the "light side" mark on the wheel when I dress it (some wheels come pre-marked with a balance line that indicates the lighter side...or you can just mark the wheel anywhere and use it as a lineup point). When I replace the balanced wheel, I line it up at the same place just in case there are tiny variations in the spindle that could affect vibration. Probably not important, but it all adds up, and consistency in as many areas as possible has been helpful in revealing a difference (or not) when testing different techniques for improving the finish.
I also hand-rotate the untightened wheel with the dressing diamond at the center of the wheel to try to re-align the wheel at the same center as before balancing, since having a big change in the center of the wheel is likely to affect the overall balance.
This probably sounds like a lot of effort, but I have been very pleased with the improvements in surface finish that I am getting from balancing the wheels. It is also much nicer when the machine hums along nicely with absolutely minimal vibration. Once you balance the wheel and install it, you get quite a bit of use out of it before having to rebalance or replace the wheel, so it is effort well spent.
I have had balancing weights fly off the wheel on the Little Edger (cross grinder) while using it. There is an immediate increase in noise and vibration. If I hadn't been convinced before, I would be after experiencing this.
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It sounds like you have thought through the pitfalls with your procedure.
I took a look around the web for accelerometers today. There are some very inexpensive sensors available today. My circuit design chops have decayed enough that I probably won't do anything with that idea though.
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I got a lot of assistance from Kaitsu on getting the IE tuned up. At this point, I have disassembled and reassembled almost every part of the machine. I replaced a spindle cartridge with worn out bearings, looking forward to dissecting it to see how bad the bearings look. It would be good to get it rebuilt for use as a spare.
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Machine arrived, got it set up.
Build Log:
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Total: ~$2500 (upto $2800 if counting items already had)
Wisotta 911 Sharpener: ~ $2k
- 911 Skate Sharpener Package
- 911 Machine
- 3-D Three Dial Skate (Hockey) Holder
- 1 80 Grit Pink Wheel
- 1 Diamond Dresser
- Elite 3-D Universal Figure Skate Holder
- 911 FIGURE Skate Sharpener 100-Grit Blue Grinding Wheel Stone
- Wissota "Elite" Even Edge Checker
Sharpening Accessories:
- Radius Gauges: ebay/McMaster-Carr (7/16”, 5/8", etc): Set 1 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/NEW-32-PC-Radius-Gage-Set-17-64-Inch-To-1-2-Inch-by-64ths/303109878191), Set 2 (https://www.ebay.com/itm/303135320074) (like Set 2 a little better)
- Toe Pick protector: Empire 3/4 in. Brass Stair Gauges (2-Pack) - Home Depot
- Steel ruler (1/10" or finer) - Home Depot
- Caliper, Digital - Home Depot
Workbench: ±$500
- Bench: Whalen Industrial Rack (Costco) - 77”W/24” D/72” H
- Plywood topper: 4x8 sheet - Home Depot
- C-Clamps Qty:4 - Home Depot
- Power strip with individual power switch - Amazon
- Light Bar - Costco
- Eye Goggles - Home Depot
- Dust Mask(s)
- Mini broom/sweep brush - Home Depot
- Dedicated Shop Vac - Home Depot
- +Bungee Cords, 36” - Home Depot
- Bench stool, 21”-29” seat height - Costco
- Temperature gauge - Walmart (roughly floating F50-55)
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Observations:
- Wheel is bigger than expected (was thinking hockey puck, its closer to medium sized pizza)
- No unique label between skate holder types: Easy fix, printed label
- Edge checker is low fanfare (plastic bag), custom cardboard packaging might be +1
- Manual is loose leaf/stapled: a nice booklet/folder with laminated holders would be +1
Question: Can't seem to find 7/16" on diamond dresser, manually carve/mark? Caliper then mark? Idea for thin line marking/scribe tool?
Status:
Haven't used yet, turned on once or twice. Mostly set up space. Will be long time (source old blades) before have anything of hands on experience.
Images:
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Prep:
(https://i.imgur.com/kBDxJWX.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/1PNozZh.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/C91uVXu.jpeg)
Arrival:
(https://i.imgur.com/4vgZc0y.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/FKSzvbf.jpeg)
Unpacked:
(https://i.imgur.com/xgCv1l9.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/LvCpKDJ.jpeg)
"Final"-ish setup:
(https://i.imgur.com/ubiiMTW.jpeg)
(https://i.imgur.com/vjcSEtX.jpeg)
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Very nice. Glad that you have it all set up.
Question: Can't seem to find 7/16" on diamond dresser, manually carve/mark? Caliper then mark? Idea for thin line marking/scribe tool?
I just sight halfway between the 1/2 and 3/8" lines on the dresser. It's going to get as close as you can measure or feel while skating.
The diamond dresser shaft is hard enough that I couldn't scratch it with a typical workshop awl this morning. If you still want a mark, I'd just put a fine Sharpie mark on it using a small square for straightness. If you get it wrong, some rubbing alcohol will remove it so that you can try again. It won't be as fine as their engraved and paint-filled lines though, but it will serve. Still, just sighting halfway between existing marks is easy and accurate enough in practice.
Let us know how it goes when you get some practice blades. If you can get them already mounted to old boots, that would be ideal. If not, you can still practice with blades-only, but that's not the typical case when sharpening. I actually prefer to guide the holder by the boots instead using the skate holder's plastic handles.
Be sure to use LIGHT pressure. Don't bear down on the wheel with a blade, and be sure to keep it moving without pauses when sharpening.
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Very exciting to get your equipment!
I also use the Sharpie mark system for 7/16”. Since most of the people I sharpen for are trapped here in my isolated community, I think they benefit most from getting blades with a consistent radius rather than whether it is exactly 7/16”. The Sharpie slowly fades so I renew it as needed. I also have a mark for 9/16”.
Good advice from Bill on looking for practice skates that are a boot and blade combo. The first sharpening I did was on unmounted blades (discarded patch blades). It was a little disconcerting to make the switch to blades mounted to boots when I did the first pair that were “real” skates. It’s probably best to get some practice on both mounted and unmounted blades before you start working on anyone elses’s blades.
Consistent light pressure and and a slow, even speed…I haven’t used the tabletop type of sharpener before, and I’m sure the feel is different, but I find that I get the most consistent speed on my machine when I have a little pressure between my hands, basically pressing my hands toward each other a little so both hands are connected and moving at the same speed.
Have fun and get ready to learn a whole bunch of fascinating things about blades and grinding. It gives you a whole new appreciation for how skating works.
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Good advice from Bill on looking for practice skates that are a boot and blade combo. The first sharpening I did was on unmounted blades (discarded patch blades). It was a little disconcerting to make the switch to blades mounted to boots when I did the first pair that were “real” skates. It’s probably best to get some practice on both mounted and unmounted blades before you start working on anyone elses’s blades.
If you want practice skates, many skating rinks throw away rental skates (usually with blades on them) when the boots wear out. If you catch them at the right time, they may give them away, or sell them cheap. Barring that, Salvation Army and other thrift stores sometimes sell used skates cheap. (AFAIK, Salvation Army doesn't bargain on price, but thrift stores and pawn shops often do.) Rental skate blades have softer steel than most high end blades do (though a few high end hockey blades use soft steel, on the theory that it can temporally take a sharper edge - I don't understand why), and different shapes. But it's still a cheap way to learn from your mistakes.
I think it's great that Skatingforums is allowing sharpening machine discussions. I looked for a discussion board that serviced skate techs, and couldn't find one. Too bad I'm getting left behind here because I can't afford the semi-professional level powered skate sharpeners you folks are buying. (I'm also not a good enough skater to test out some of the things I would like to test out, or to fully understand what high level figure skaters require.)
Sid Broadbent (http://www.iceskateology.com) once got a USFSA grant to study skate sharpening. I don't know if he was much of an expert on the subtler aspects of figure skating. Perhaps one of you folks could get one too, to study that subject more, and come out with a detailed guide on sharpening for figure skaters.
When I asked, the https://scienceofsharp.com guy offered to take electron microscope micrographs of sharpened skates, I think for a few hundred U.S. dollars. He makes gorgeous pictures! Maybe when you guys master things, you can use him and post the results, and show just how beautiful your edges look at the submicron level. :)
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Hahaha, more likely I would be completely deflated by how my seemingly mirror-smooth finish turned out to look like the Rocky Mountains under an electron microscope!
Sid Broadbent was a fairly skilled skater in his younger years, so he would understand what figure skaters of the time needed in terms of edge quality, edge angles, and consistency. Technique has changed quite a bit over time, as well as the advent of various new types of blades such as the Matrix, Paramount, and Revolution. I would guess that for the most part, though, things won't have changed much in terms of what can be considered a good sharpening: level edges, a smooth finish, no burrs, and a preserved profile...
Feel free to add whatever features I missed.
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...things won't have changed much in terms of what can be considered a good sharpening: level edges, a smooth finish, no burrs, and a preserved profile...
Feel free to add whatever features I missed.
The best techs I've known don't just preserve profile (as well as ROH and other sharpness parameters) - they customize them to the needs of the skater. But they try not to create unintentional changes.
To me, the most important thing is probably consistency, both within each sharpening (e.g., consistent degree of sharpness along both edges and the whole length), and sharpening-to-sharpening, as I often find it hard to adapt to changes.
Level edges aren't good enough. You could theoretically vary the centering of the wheel or stone along the blade, but level the height of the two edges out afterwards. That would create an inconsistent shape and feel to the edges.
Also, I don't like bent-over edges. I at least want the vertical.
"No Burrs": maybe. Except that some skaters prefer to have the burrs re-directed and polished into foil edges, because they are effectively much sharper than deburred edges. It's especially useful on rough ice. Contrariwise, some skaters want the initial edges dulled a bit, because they are uncomfortable on ultra-sharp edges.
I also think that most figure skaters don't want the ice picks modified except when necessary. But maybe you consider that part of the "profile".
Some sharpeners manage to overheat the blade, and modify the degree of hardness in undesired ways.
Preserve as much metal as you can.
Hockey skaters usually want the nicks gone, even if that wastes metal. Some pairs and dance skaters must occasionally create nicks too, by colliding into each other.
Most skaters get upset when the skate tech delivers something different from what was asked for.
I'm sure you can think of more...
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Good point, I definitely should have said “level edges with a centered radius of hollow”. I have seen blades with multiple parallel ROHs that generally make the edge angles inconsistent from one side too the other. Preserve metal, yes! That’s an important goal.
Personal preference is part of it as well. Query likes the extreme foil edges. I like my blades to be de-burred after sharpening to make them less grabby. I mostly do dance (plus spins and a few single jumps) I prefer maneuverability over a strong bite. It also makes the overall feel more consistent rather than having to adjust to them being super sharp at first and then having that change over time.
I have only ground down parts of the toe pick when trying to help skaters maintain a usable profile towards the end of the blade life. It does allow the blade to rock forward more and keep the spin contact area closer to the intended zone under the front of the foot, but the modest size of most drag picks doesn’t give you much to work with. I’m comfortable using this as a way to get a beginner skater to be able to get some life out of skates that are too worn for a skilled skater (beginner will be fine with the smaller drag pick, as long as the blade has a functional profile that allows them to learn to rock forward for turns and spins) or to buy a little time for a more advanced skater to finish out a season. Overall, though, I’ve just come to accept that blades have a limited life. The skate tech’s role is to optimize the blade condition through that lifetime, rather than to attempt heroic measures to have blades last forever.
And also, part of this role is to let the skater know when the blade is moving toward being a hindrance rather than a help. The kids get it when I ask: Do we try to use a wooden pencil down to the last cm? Not usually, because it makes writing awkward. It’s better than no pencil at all, but if you need to write much and you want to write well, get a new pencil. Blades are kind of like pencils, you sharpen them and use them and eventually, there isn’t enough left to work right.
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I've sometimes trimmed my toepick too to get a little extra life. School figure skaters often do it too, for other reasons.
For that matter, some people don't want level edges.
But I think you are right - the basic ideas behind good sharpening probably haven't changed all that much since the late 19th century. Skating books from that era already mention debates over rocker, hollow, side honing, and sometimes toe picks.
This 1877 or earlier machine might be an ancestor to machines like the Wissota
https://www.flickr.com/photos/amber-tree/49062875948/
It is discussed at https://blackstonesport.com/technology/history-of-skate-sharpening
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Here's what Wissota claims about their wheels (https://wissota.com/product/blue-wheel/):
"All Wissota grinding wheels are hand balanced and side finished to remove any wobble. You can find wheels with different grinding properties than ours, but you will not find a better running wheel!"
And here you can see one example how Wissota´s balanced wheel can be in unbalance. Pay attention to skate holder when machine is started.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fnfvOj8s9to
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Any boot holders available retail?
e.g. https://skatesus.com/product/mounting-stand/ (seems to not be available)
Precision Blade PBHE Adjustable Skate Anvil (http://precisionblade.com/index.php/product-catalogue/) is option, won't fit current stand without larger C-clamp size.
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Good luck finding a suitable retail unit. The Precision Blade unit looks good, but if the c-clamp doesn't work as-is, you might be able to adapt something to work with it.
I just made my own from wood and use it with a vice. The vice allows easy fore-aft positioning for locking level in that direction. See this thread... http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8486 (http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8486)
I use it with my drill press to drill blade mounting holes.
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Probably there is some other retailer whom sales EDEAs Mounting stand? At least in my country these stands are available only on customer request / order.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7eRApwFNxfc
EDEAs stand is pretty simple design and easy to make by your selves if you just have some contacts to metal workers. This stand is very useful. Helps a lot in blade mounting.
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Precision Blade PBHE Adjustable Skate Anvil is option, won't fit current stand without larger C-clamp size.
Just brainstorming here, but you could possibly clamp a thinner board to your stand, and overhanging it by a few inches. This would provide a thinner substrate for the Precision Blade unit to clamp onto. Because you would clamp it to overhang your stand, it would give you extra head-room when drilling mounting holes.
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Didn't realize such a limited retail availability of boot holder(s).
Thinking maybe cobbler/shoe repair industry would have options, but mostly see antiques/vintage.
Maybe will try contacting Edea distributor to see what options they have. May also order Precision Blade PBHE Adjustable Skate Anvil and rig as suggested, would likely work.
I could attempt mimic of Bill's wood variant, but liked concept of the metal ones. No metal worker contacts, but maybe reasonably doable via parts from home depot. More project than perhaps wanted for just boot holder.
If anyone finds retail option(s), please share.
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I take it you wouldn't feel comfortable wrapping a thick towel around the boots and putting that in a vice?