Here in my area, we have a dearth of good skate sharpeners (which is kind of surprising considering that we rival Canada for hockey enthusiasm and figure skating is huge). I have had more than one pair of Gold Seal blades ruined by people who even champions swear by. I did have the good fortune of having my skates sharpened exquisitely up through college, but they've all since died off! I do know what it feels like to have good edges. With that in mind, I became really, really frustrated. And I can't afford to drop 600 bucks because some inept shyster convinced he's God's gift to the skating world has given me a concave curve where the secondary radius should be! I was about to send my skates to a guy on Long Island. Fortunately my husband, a machinist all his adult life and one who knows metal, started sharpening skates. As a machinist and one who's been grinding metal for a living for decades, it was an easy transition for him. After doing some research and consulting with a number of sharpeners, we bought a brand new Blademaster machine (one of the ones the article recommends as well). He did a few old pairs of skates. He really did measure them with a micrometer! I inspected his work, and had him do my Gold Seals as his third pair of skates. Well, it was like butter! Skating has never been so smooth! (And I'm not just saying this because I'm married to the guy. If they weren't good, I would have told him that he needed a little more practice. But because I was fed up with everyone else, I had nothing to lose.)