The Jackson Ultima Synchro blades arrived today. I took some measurements, made some tracings of the rocker, and compared the toe picks. I was a bit disappointed to see a sticker on the blades indicating the country of origin to be Taiwan. Note that the measurements below are for
10-1/2" blades (measured from toe tip to back of heel on the mounting plate) to fit my size 7-1/2 Riedell boots
First the toe picks...
The Coronation Aces are on the left, the Ultima Synchros on the right. I was astonished at how aggressive the toe pick appears on the Synchro blade. While the picks are straight cut, they are cut considerably deeper than the Aces. I never found the Aces to be lacking for my own toe jumps, so I don't expect any problem using the Synchros - especially since I don't jump as much any more. This is armchair speculation, and actually skating on them later will settle the matter for me.
At 11.25" long, these Synchro blades are 1/2" shorter than my Aces. It's not that much visually. We'll see how much that helps tight footwork.
The stanchion height is a little taller than my Aces, measured at two locations. At the heel stanchion, the Ace height is 1.75" while the Synchros are 1.92" (difference of 0.17"). At the spin rocker stanchion the Aces were 1.77", Synchros 1.85" (difference of 0.08"). The Synchros will sit a little taller in the tail than the Aces. They will also provide marginally better clearance for boot lean. I'm unsure how this will translate into the feel of the blade on ice.
What I found most surprising was a tracing of the blade rocker. The Synchros are advertised to have an 8' rocker, Aces are 7'. When I overlaid the blade tracings, there was almost no difference between the rocker shape. From previous scale drawings I made, I didn't expect a huge difference, but there was almost none...
(click the picture to enlarge it)
It's possible that even the gentle hand-sharpening that I've given the blades (very slow steel removal rate) has changed the rocker over time. It still surprised me how closely these two blades matched each other in rocker.
The sole plate is narrower than the Aces (under 2-1/2" wide vs. 2-7/8" wide). It might be an advantage for narrow width boots, but I'm not sure. The edge will need a sharpening touch up. There was no protective strip on the edges like the Aces had when I bought them. I suspect that I'll stay with the advertised 7/16" ROH, so I'll need another Pro-Filer set. (I've been wanting that size anyway!).
That's the measurement part of my experiment. I'll have to mount them and skate on them to conclude the experiment. Unfortunately our rink isn't open just yet, and my teaching job is preventing any travel to other rinks. So stay tuned. It might take about a month for the rest to be done.