We have no compelling reason at this time to assume that such very small differences in abrasion patterns - which are dominated by along track scratches - even matter. E.g., that they create significantly different drag, along track, or cross track, or other effects.
I suppose you could even argue that the scratches increase surface area, so pressure is decreased. Ice physics seems to be a very complicated field, with relatively poor numerical models, including some arbitrary parameters. Some empirical literature in ice physics have shown that effective friction goes down when pressure decreases, but I'm not sure of the details. But if were true with constant weight (which I'm not sure of - maybe it is only true with constant area), the friction with along-track blade scratches might actually go down slightly, as completely unintuitive as that would be. I don't think we can know without actual measurements. And it probably isn't worth the effort, because ordinary skate techs don't go to the amount of work to create smooth surfaces that you guys are putting into this.
Or maybe the dominant effect would be to slightly increase cross-track friction, which might be a good thing, because it lets you push against the ice better. After all, increasing cross-track friction is the major point of having edges in the first place.
Or maybe the dominant effect would depend a lot on ice temperature and surface texture, the composition of the blades and the water used to make the ice, the skater's weight and skating style, or what trick the skater is performing.
Sid Broadbent has a picture of a fancy jig on a lever arm, forcing a skate to move along a circular path across the ice. I don't know what he actually did with it, but I suppose he could have measured drag. Such a device could in theory be used to measure how various surface finish artifacts affect skating. Even if one did that, that is a pretty crude model of what happens during figure skating, which is a lot more complicated than gliding in a circle.
There have been a lot of attempts to sell people proprietary technologies to decrease friction in hockey skates. E.g., there have been attempts to heat blades, and there are the flat bottom V sharpening techniques. People give away the equipment to professional hockey teams, who maybe try them out. If what someone who used to work for such a team told me is correct, the professional teams usually drop them after a brief trial, but the advertisers still use their trial for advertising purposes, and don't mention that the technology is no longer in use by a significant number of professional players.
It seems to me that after a while, one should have some degree of skepticism about things that sound good, but might be insignificant or even counterproductive.
As far as how the blades look, it seems unlikely that spectators in the stands can see such minor imperfections in the hollow of the blade.
Topic: How to get good surface finish to blades and how they look? (Read 11080 times)