skatingforums
On the Ice => The Pro Shop => Topic started by: Kaitsu on September 13, 2021, 10:02:53 AM
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New thread opened for discussions related to Incredible Edger. You can drop your questions and experiences to here. I will add also my own experiences related to this machine. For those whom does not know which machine we are talking about, please have a look http://www.iceskateology.com/Skateology/INCREDIBLE_EDGER_Fig..html
There are two models from this machine. Earlier design had only one guide rod and it was called ICEskate sharpener. For these machines they are selling conversion kit to upgrade it to Incredible Edger which does have dual guide rod design. Here you can see how earlier design was used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFvSeA5oeM&t=7s
...and here you can see how the newer Incredible Edger with figure skate carriage looks and how it is operated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tt4vO2GeJg&t=27s
Channel of 3beltwesty includes lots of excellent videos related to the figure skate sharpening s. Example if you want to see how Sparx, Prosharp, SSM-2 and many other sharpening machines are used, highly recommend to follow this guys videos.
John Wilson Revolution blades requires hockey carriage or most recent special carriage. Unfortunately there is no any pictures, videos or any other information than price available from this revolutionary skate carriage. I have been using hockey carriage. In this video we can see how Bruce Hurd uses Incredible Edger and hockey carriage to sharpen JW Gold Seal Revolution blades. Bruce is also using little edger, which is optional cross grinder which can be attached to the Incredible Edger. Very handy device (Little edger), but available just with 110V version. 220V transformer available, but personally I replaced immediately the electric motor to 220V version so that I do need to use transformer. New 220V motor was pretty easy to find from the Ebay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tWd_K5iBI&t=602s
With Incredible Edger and with figure skate carriage you are able to sharpen traditional blades (~3.7-4.2mm) as well as Matrix and Paramount skates (~8mm) blades. Supersharp has some experiences how well converted ICEskate sharpener manages to adjust to different blade stanchion thicknesses. In my machine 3.7-3.8mm blades requires shim plate between the blade and skate carriage. Other ways the eccentric height adjustments levers does not have enough adjustment. If you order new machine, it recommended to mention to Sid that you want to sharpen both blade types. If your machine would not have enough wide height adjustment range, I would say that it should be pretty easy to fix that issue.
All axis has ball bearings and they are less or more self cleaning. It is not exact truth that they would be completely self cleaning, but still better than table top machines where dust falls easily to table where you move the skate carriage. This bearing system is not either 100% perfect. 4-point contact would require super straight and parallel guide rods, but hardly ever they are. This can lead to situation where three bearing has contact and one does not. This then may lead to vibration issues more easily than in table top machines which are very rigid...but does have more friction. Very narrow contact to guide rods may also be a small problem, but lets discuss that perhaps later stage.
Big advantage of this machine is small grinding wheel. It helps a lot and I would say the same as Sid, that small wheel slowdowns the erosion of frontal area, which is most import area on the blade. I know there are lots of different opinions, if the big wheel machines are worst than small wheel machines. You will notice the difference more clearly if you have sharpened enough many skates with large and small wheel machines. This can be also matter of my personal opinion, but keep it anyhow in the mind when you count the pros and cons between the machines. No matter if you decide to buy small or large wheel machine, keep in mind that possibility to adjust blade parallelism is must feature. Example SSM-2 cannot provide you such an adjustment and also height adjustment cannot be called height adjustment. Their height adjustment is more tilting the blade than adjusting the height.
If you want to see which kind of surface finish you can gain with IE, check these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd0uqrFR_T8 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52rFQP-jiU&t=5s
Example how to check edges evenness when Matrix blade is in figure skate carriage can be found from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbrR3hBtm70
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I do have 50Hz version of IE. Motor nameplate states 1400rpm and spec. is 34-5315W863. I have measured the rpm´s with the tachometer and got following results without load.
Motor ~1480rpm and grinding wheel ~4986rpm, which gives pulley ration of 3,37. Outer diameter of belt drive at the motor end is 71mm and in the spindle ~21mm.
If your electrical network is 60Hz, your motor is spinning ~1780rpm and wheel ~6100rpm. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bj60sMkLL8) So those whom does have 60Hz electrical network, does have also 20% higher cutting speed.
Is this the reason why example Supersharp mentions that she would like use different grinding wheel for stainless blades?
I have been always using IE fine wheels and lately Blademaster Ruby (120 grit) wheel for stainless and carbon blades. With both wheels and steel qualities I can get pretty nice surface finish. I haven't notice any issues that wheel would get clogged from the "melting" stainless steel.
It would be interesting to hear which wheels Supersharp is using to carbon steel and stainless steel blades.
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With respect to the Incredible Edger, are you concerned with continuity of service and availability of parts? As far as I can tell from a Google search, Sid Broadbent is still alive, but an article posted in 2014 listed his age then as 92. Do you have any insights concerning the future of the company?
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For sure....availability of spares has been concern already from the beginning, but I would say that there is no any spare parts availability guarantees even I would purchase Wissota, Blademaster, Blackstone or any existing machines. Todays trend seems to be that equipments are not intended to be repaired or at least they want to sell modules instead of individual parts. Example for the IE you cannot buy transversal guide rods, you need to buy the whole carriage.
I am quite confident that Sid has already arranged things so that business continues after he is not able to serve customers anymore. Bruce Hurd has been already helping years Sid in the business related things. Or at least that is what can be read from the web. https://www.denverpost.com/2014/02/16/jeffco-resident-supports-olympic-figure-skating-through-invention/
Another article from Bruce https://2020dfscbanquet.com/awards-recognition-week
If the IE disappears from the markets, I have prepared my selves with following plan:
I have collected my own spares stock with those consumables which are available and which I believe to be wearing parts in the future. Earlier mentioned transversal rods I swapped from left to right and right to left so that solved my wear issue for at least 5 years. If some spare parts are not sold or they are not even available at all, I need to try find used or make spare by my selves. With today's technology duplicating is not any issue. Is it reasonable in cost wise, that can be another story. Most probably it's more feasible to find used unit. Diamonds, wheels and bearings, those are easily available also elsewhere if I cannot buy them anymore from Sid. Genuine spares are anyhow my #1 choice.
If I would example drop carriage, which I scare quite a lot (due shoe laces), it would break and I could not find new or used spare unit, I would not most likely make exact copy from the original. There are several things what I would like to change in the existing design. So I would probably make my own design when I need to anyhow make something new. Inaccuracy / missing scale at height adjustment is one of the features in current design which disturbing me quite a lot.
Second option would be buy totally new machine, but there aren't so many options on the market if you want to have portable machine with 3" wheel. What I have found, there is just two options. Sid´s machine and Blademaster BRPD1. If you know some other brand, I am very keen to hear more about them. Double of triple head stand alone machines are out of question in my case. I have also considered to make machine which would be totally my own design. There could be markets for such a machine, as there aren't so many competitors.
Third option is just to quit sharpenings and let someone else to make that investment, spent sleepless nights by thinking problems on figure skate blades and in their sharpenings. For me this is just a hobby so it's not any issue to quit sharpenings if someone else is willing to spent nearly 10 000$ of his own money for the equipments, development trials and errors and top of that spent as a average one hour per one pair to someone else skates. When I have mentioned these things for the people, so far everyone has stopped dreaming to have their own machine. I am not trying to scare them away, I am just telling them how I have done the things so far. It would be absolutely benefit to skaters, if they would have more options to choose where they sharpen their skates. I believe small competition between the skate techs would also increase the quality in general level.
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Thanks for your detailed, thoughtful, insightful response.
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I also worry about the supply chain for Incredible Edger parts. I keep a couple of diamonds and belts on hand, and a good supply of wheels. I upgraded my machine last year, so it is almost new. The motor is from my older machine, but I had replaced it in 2014 when a huge voltage surge destroyed my previous motor. My machine operates at 60Hz. I am out of town right now, so I can't look up any details, but I'm on standard utility power for North America.
I am currently using the white fine wheels supplied by Sid Broadbent. They do seem to create an edge that stays sharp a bit longer, but they also load up with material from stainless blades more than the gray type did. I have been using the white wheels for about 2 years now, and I think I will try a gray one just for comparison next time I change wheels.
I agree with Kaitsu, if you are interested in sharpening, it is a huge time and mind commitment. Like any good equipment operator (heavy or fine equipment), you need to get to the point where you and the machine meld into a single system that is doing the task. It was interesting to me to see how long it took to adjust to my upgraded machine last year--the adjustment wheels on the old carriage both rotated the same way to move the blade up or down, but the new carriage has adjustment wheels that move in mirror image to go up or down. I had to really pay attention or I would adjust the left wheel the wrong way (the left turns the opposite way compared to the old carriage). I had always thought that mirror image would be more intuitive, and I think that is true, but after 15 years on the old carriage...it was hard to get myself to understand I have to stop and think about which way to move the wheel. It's sort of a John Deere vs. Cat controls problem. Anyway, I'm now adjusted to the new system and it works fine, but I do wish there was a finer control on the adjustment wheels. I've learned to make very subtle rotations, but it seems like it shouldn't have to require such fine tuning for the operator to be competent. And I have not sharpened enough skates yet (since August 2020) to recover the money spent on the carriage upgrade, not to mention the tools I procured from Precision Blade. But there is way more to it than the money, it's a hobby I suppose, and it's very satisfying to be able to solve equipment problems for skaters.
Kaitsu--I would love to hear what you would re-design on the Incredible Edger.
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Was it cheaper to replace the motor, then to use a 240VAC 50 Hz to 12VDC power supply, to power a 12VDC to 125VAC 60Hz (sine wave) inverter?
Could you briefly recap why you decided preferred the Incredible Edger over the substantially cheaper low end machines from Blademaster and Wissota?
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Anyway, I'm now adjusted to the new system and it works fine, but I do wish there was a finer control on the adjustment wheels. I've learned to make very subtle rotations, but it seems like it shouldn't have to require such fine tuning for the operator to be competent.
Kaitsu--I would love to hear what you would re-design on the Incredible Edger.
This is definitely the first improvement what I would do. I have discussed this issue also with Sid. Its good to have enough height adjustment so that you can sharpen traditional chromed blades and aluminum framed blades like Matrix or Paramount skates, but I would make it possible slightly differently. Height adjustment is done with eccentric levers, which allows at least on my machine ~3.6mm height adjustment. So in practice by turning both levers 1 degree, blade height should change roughly 0.02mm (3.6mm/180degrees). By knowing that you will never need to turn lever 1 degree on very final fine adjustment, this sounds very accurate. Just like me and Supersharp has noted, current adjustment is anyhow super sensitive. Example I am knocking the lever with my finger nail as turning the lever by hand would change the height way to much.
As there is no any scale, sometimes you need make adjustment back and fort to get edges even. Between the adjustment you need to remove some material from the blade to see how much you adjusted the height. It does not make things any easier that behind the height adjustment levers there is rubber pad, which purpose is cause friction and therefore keep the lever in adjusted position. As you can perhaps guess, also height adjustment lever acts sometimes like a rubber. Without any scale is very difficult to know it the height was changing or not. As Supersharp mentioned, learning the fine adjustment requires some practicing. Sometimes I also feel that height adjustment levers are drifting while I sharpen. There can be to different reasons for levers drifting:
1. There is some remaining tension in the rubber pad due your previous adjustment
2. Rubber pad was worn out or loosed their elasticity
In my machine I believe reason to be #1. I know one figure skate retailer whom also uses Incredible Edger. Usually their sharpening is quite easy to recognize. One foot blade has typically quite even edges, but another foot blade has hardly ever even edges. I have strong feeling that they might suffer from reason #2. Most likely they also adjust the machine for the first blade and then trusts that second blade is identical with first one. Blades are not identical and I am quite sure that they have never re-adjusted their IE bearings and transversal movement in not parallel or in "square" to longitudinal axis. In practice this means that blade height changes even you would remove just sharpened blade and put it back to skate carriage. It will never position similarly as in previous time. In the older version of IE where you had only one guide rod, transversal movement was never parallel because you tilted the skate carriage even in different areas of blade. Its highly recommended to check parallelism like I do on the beginning of my video. My machine had about 0.15mm parallelism deviation before re-adjustment. Pay attention to how height adjustment behaviors when blade is going "outside" of height adjustment levers. https://youtu.be/xC0Ewb-QsXc
Back to drifting issue. No matter if the drifting is caused by levers, blade movement on skate holder, blade geometrical deviations, or something else I will never trust that ones adjusted blade would remain in same position while I grind it. I will monitor edges evenness roughly every 5 pass-trough. If I need to make adjustments, then more frequent.
So how I would improve this all...
First at all, height adjustment should have dial gauges so that you can see what is happening when you adjust the height. They would indicate also possible drifting issue. This alone would sort out 80% of issue on the skate carriage. Alternatively I would build height adjustment with micrometer screws. This would be much more complex design, but still doable.
If I would continue with eccentric bearings / bushes, I would make them to have less eccentric. I would say that 1 or 1.5mm lift could be enough. "Fixed height" of skate carriage would be so that I have +/- 0.5mm adjustment for Matrix blades and rest of the blades I would manage with shim plates which would put between blade and skate carriage. Alternatively I could have own carriage for both blade types. This modification I might to do / test anyhow. I can always come back to original design if it would not give any improvement. Perhaps I could start to even sell conversion kits to IE users :)
Frequency converter is still waiting the installation. With that I could adjust the spinning speed so that I can keep cutting speed same even wheel is getting smaller. Of course I could also try affect of different speeds. Why I haven't I applied frequency convert if I already have it? Because I hate all additional boxes and cables. Every time when I quit sharpening, I need to pack my all equipment so for this explains also why I need to have portable machine.
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Was it cheaper to replace the motor, then to use a 240VAC 50 Hz to 12VDC power supply, to power a 12VDC to 125VAC 60Hz (sine wave) inverter?
Could you briefly recap why you decided preferred the Incredible Edger over the substantially cheaper low end machines from Blademaster and Wissota?
I believe the question was for me. I purchased Little Edger + 220V transformer from Sid. Little Edger is available only with 110V/60Hz electric motor. After testing few times the original Little Edger, I realized that didn't like using transformer. Plugging cables here and there was not what I wanted, so I replaced the motor by my selves to 220V/50Hz version. Both motors does have speed adjustment knob. Basically Little edger is using motor which can be found from the Ebay with search word 3" 120w mini bench grinder
Electric motor to Incredible Edger you cannot replace so easily with some other brand. There you need to use original motor, if you break your motor.
I have to apologies about long reply for next question.
I started sharpening’s with Ice Step 500 machine. http://www.novaicerink.com/index/skates_sharpening/0-22
It’s basically cheap copy from the SSM-2. Why I did buy that machine and why I even started to sharpen figure skates, that I can explain more detail in another thread what I thought to open in some stage.
Even though using of Ice Step 500 for figure skates was not optimal, I learned quite a lot from that machine. In moneywise it was not so smart investment, as I did spend even too much money to improve it. SSM-2 type of swivel arms machines does have anyhow one excellent feature. Bearing system in the arms is such that it does not care about the dust and movements of the axis are nearly friction-less. For this friction-less I loved as you can feel in your hands what you are doing….Except you are using that “height fine adjustment roll” on front of the wheel.
Biggest problems of these swivel arm machines is that they do not have proper height adjustment and there is no any adjustment to get blades to level (parallel to grinding wheel). This adjustment is mandatory on figure skate blades. Arms are not either so rigid, which can be issue if you are using machine without guiding roll on front of the wheel. If the arms would be super rigid, this “height fine adjustment roll” on front of the wheel could not be used. In SSM-2 you are basically tilting the blade with this guiding roll and not lifting the skate holder it selves. If you are using guiding roll, it is recommended to use skate holder which has a kind of guiding rail integrated…example this https://ssmprodukt.com/produkt/h-10g-figure/ Why I recommend this kind of skate holder? Because roll cannot be set so that it would take contact from the area where chrome has removed and chromed are has other smaller geometrical deviations.
If you are using swivel arm type of machines without guiding roll, you may find out possible parallelism deviations between the swivel bearings. You have so many possible deviation sources which directions are changing when arms are different angles to each other’s. On top of them arms bends slightly from the weight of skate or pressure what you cause by your selves by hands. In this means machines where skate holder is laying against the table are “bullet proof machines”. We can pretty sure that table is flat and rigid. This feature made me interested about Wissota machines.
When I started to consider new machine, I had already experiences from Ice Step 500. I had also Sid Broadbent Skateology manual. In this publication Sid is talking about the benefits of small wheel machines. When I looked the blades what I had sharpened with my swivel arm machine and compared to them to blades which were sharpened by someone else (so called professionals), most of the cases I didn’t notice any significant different in frontal area erosion. What I could see was that often curvature of frontal area of the blade were flatter than in new blades. Typically the area between the toe picks and where the hollow grinding ends didn’t have smooth transient joint to other curvature. Is this the hump what Sid is talking wasn’t clear to me.
This might be just my personal opinion, but the picture and description in Sid manual didn’t give me clear understanding why large wheel machine causes faster erosion to frontal area of blades or when they have been ruined with large wheel machine. It won’t either give good examples how blades are looking if they have been sharpened with small or large wheel machines or how the real blade looks when there is that so called hump behind the toe picks. My understanding from Sid sketch is that sweet spot in the blade gets concave. It was clear to me what it means, but in my opinion such a phenomena is more user fault than machine fault. This most critical spot of blade is anyhow pretty far from the toe picks. The area between the toe picks and hollow grinding remained at that stage mystery to me.
When I was looking in to my bank account and premises where I do the sharpening’s, it was clear that double or triple head machines with integrated vacuum cleaner were out of question. It seems that Blademaster is using partly same units in portable and non-portable machines. Table is just bigger to get needed space for several units.
Even though the smaller wheel was all the time in my dreams, Wissota was still one of my options. Reason was that it has robust design in good way. Not too many moving parts, price was reasonable, there was own skate holder for figure skates, those machines were used on few other figure skating club and even by the sharpeners whom were classified as a professional figure skate techs. Machine was also stock item on sales agent on my country, means I do not need to take care any customs duties etc.
It is heavy machine and made from cast iron, which is good from the vibration point of view. There two features are absorbing vibrations which are coming mostly from the wheel unbalance. Personally I would appreciate these two features more than the light weight. For this reason I would not put the machine on “pipe stand” like Bill made. At least I would fill the pipe with sand to get more weight and absorb vibrations. => if you fill the church bell with sand, it stops ringing.
Negative things on Wissota are large wheel and fact that skate holder is laying and moved on table where grinding dust will fall even you use vacuum cleaner. You can reduce the friction by polishing and waxing the table, but it wont clear out this issue.
Two other options what I had where Incredible Edger and Blademaster BRPD1. Both with 3” wheel. When I compared the prices with these two machines, I realized that there is not so much price difference that it would help me to choose between these to machines. So what people do when they have two good option and they have difficulties to choose between them? They use Google and Youtube to find other people experiences. In that time there was totally zero videos how Incredible Edger is used and just a very few articles what to read. From the Blademaster I could find just their brochure which includes one picture and few lines description.
Even though Wissota is excellent machine, in my opinion it is more for hockey skates. Large wheel is good for hockey, but not when you should get close to toe picks. This is the main reason why I didn’t choose Wissota. Just a foot note…one guy who is using Wissota was “arguing” with me if wheel size matters or not matter. He told me that he has used new and used wheels and there is no any difference. I can agree this, but he missed the point that he has never tried real small wheel machines. So when Wissota was out, I had to choose between Blademaster Incredible Edger. Main reason why I did choose IE was the nearly friction-less axis movements which lowed on swivel arm machine. Another not so crucial reasons was that IE supposed to be on stock and Blademaster had few months delivery time for 50Hz machines.
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Back to drifting issue. No matter if the drifting is caused by levers, blade movement on skate holder, blade geometrical deviations, or something else I will never trust that ones adjusted blade would remain in same position while I grind it. I will monitor edges evenness roughly every 5 pass-trough. If I need to make adjustments, then more frequent.
I wholeheartedly agree, anything more than 5 passes and you don't know if you are still moving toward perfectly level or going too far. Depending on the situation, I re-check the edges at a similar frequency. If I know one edge is far off-level, I might go longer while I keep an eye on the witness marks to see how close I am to the low edge.
I have also seen some drifting with the rubber, usually happens when I have a heavy skate in the holder. I suspect the extra weight shifts the carriage just enough to release the stuck rubber. My carriage is only 1 year old, so I'm sure it's tension in the rubber rather than wear. When I put heavy skates on the carriage, I roll the carriage back and forth a few times before I do anything else, just to release any hidden tension.
I don't understand why anyone would think that setting up the machine for one blade would also set it up for the second blade. It might work if both blades were level to begin with and the manufacturing was consistent enough. Not something that I would ever bank on. When I skate, I use both my blades, but there are many things that I do differently with each blade. My favorite forward stop is a tango stop onto the RO edge. I probably use that stop 90% of the time that I stop when moving forward. My favorite backward stop is on the LI, and I'm not very good at getting a nice slide on the RI. So just stopping (which actually happens quite often) wears the blades differently. I don't do much jumping, but the kids I sharpen for get really chopped up edges when they are learning new jumps, particularly when their free foot lands on top of the toe pick of the other skate. I had one skater who did a program where she jumped up and tapped her ankles together, which inevitably hacked up the inside edges of both blades. I was really glad when she was done with that one. I told her I didn't see the sense in sharpening out the nicks until she was done replacing them, and she agreed. We would have ground through those blades in 8 months otherwise.
Once I set up and sharpen the first blade, though, the height adjustment on the wheel is usually close as a starting point for the second blade. I measure the distance from the holder to the edge of the blade in two places (near the stanchions) when I clamp the blade in the holder, and use that same distance measurement every time (except on some tiny blades that had shorter stanchions, which doesn't come up much). Having that same distance every time makes it feel more consistent for me. Of course, if the blade has a 7' vs 8' vs something-in-between rocker radius, it's going to feel different, but I still feel like there is an advantage in being consistent.
This might be just my personal opinion, but the picture and description in Sid manual didn’t give me clear understanding why large wheel machine causes faster erosion to frontal area of blades or when they have been ruined with large wheel machine. It won’t either give good examples how blades are looking if they have been sharpened with small or large wheel machines or how the real blade looks when there is that so called hump behind the toe picks. My understanding from Sid sketch is that sweet spot in the blade gets concave. It was clear to me what it means, but in my opinion such a phenomena is more user fault than machine fault. This most critical spot of blade is anyhow pretty far from the toe picks. The area between the toe picks and hollow grinding remained at that stage mystery to me.
I think what Sid is trying to show is that because the larger wheel makes contact farther behind the toe pick, if there is a slight user error, it is more likely to damage an area that is important. I find that the angle of the lowest tooth (drag pick) makes a big difference here. Ultima blades have a drag pick that leaves a large open angle between its underside and the NSZ on the blade. Wilson and MK tend to have picks that have amore acute angle in that location. The larger the angle, the easier it is to get close to the toe pick without grinding the pick itself. On a small-wheel machine, it doesn't make a lot of difference, but on a big wheel machine, the larger angle is more protective of the spin rocker. Sid stresses that at the moment the wheel touches the blade, the blade needs to be moving or you tend to grind more material at the contact point than elsewhere along the blade. If you sharpen blades that are unmounted, the vacuum can suck the blade right onto the wheel and catch you by surprise. It's easy to avoid this if you expect it and have enough tension in your hands to overcome the vacuum, but it's a bad surprise the first time you experience it. Overall, I completely agree that user error accounts for most of the really bad sharpenings at the front of a figure skate. Actually, I'll go further and say that user error accounts for most of the bad sharpenings of all blades.
If I would continue with eccentric bearings / bushes, I would make them to have less eccentric. I would say that 1 or 1.5mm lift could be enough. "Fixed height" of skate carriage would be so that I have +/- 0.5mm adjustment for Matrix blades and rest of the blades I would manage with shim plates which would put between blade and skate carriage. Alternatively I could have own carriage for both blade types. This modification I might to do / test anyhow. I can always come back to original design if it would not give any improvement. Perhaps I could start to even sell conversion kits to IE users :)
Let me know when you decide to make a conversion kit!
Rich Griffin (a former dance competitor and coach in Colorado Springs) mentioned at one point that he was working on a laser attachment for the IE so he could line up the blade without having to use witness marks and run the wheel against the blade. I don't know if he ever did it, but clearly if he did, he didn't market it.
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Kaitsu: What is the diameter of the mounting hole of the 3" diam wheels supplied by Sid for the Incredible Edger? I believe you've also used wheels supplied by Blademaster. Do those have the same diameter mounting hole, or do you need to modify or adapt them? Thanks.
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Yes I have been using original Ice Fine (white) wheels as well as Blademaster Ruby wheels. Mounting holes in both wheels is 3/8". Blademaster (at least Ruby) wheels are slightly slimmer than Sid´s wheel and they do not have any paper labels which makes them position even lower. If you want that dressing in you wheel looks symmetrical, you need to either adjust spindle cartridge height or put some shim under the wheel. I have adjusted the spindle height.
Event though Blademaster wheels are sold as a weight balanced, don´t let them mislead you. They are not weight balanced with better accuracy than any other brand. Actually their weight balance has been worst than in any original IE wheels what I have balanced so far. This is the reason why my Blademaster wheels were just laying boxed couple years before figured out how to weight balance wheels. Balancing the wheel before putting it into machine and forgetting all balancing washers is one of my "secrets" why I get so good surface finish. This same trick works in every grinding machine. Highly recommended to everyone whom sharpens skates. If you have not seen my videos, check these...
Ice Fine https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc
Blademaster https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=34s
Every wheel can be sold as a weight balanced if you don´t just tell in which accuracy. New Ruby wheel weight is 65.5 grams and unbalance can be 3 grams. Ruby wheel is super hard compared to Ice Fine (white) wheels which are aluminium-oxide wheels. In ruby wheels you can see sparks while you dress them. As it is so hard, it keeps its shape better than Ice Fine which is pretty soft wheel. For this reason I use Ruby wheels also on Little Edger cross grinder which can attached to the Incredible Edger. I haven't notice any significant difference on surface finish between these two wheels. Both provides excellent surface finish when they are balanced and when you have learned how they behave.
If you are interested to see how different wheel sizes looks on 10 1/4" Coronation Ace , check this...https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhyz75w7kpuh7bj/Wheel%20sizes.pdf?dl=0
Rich Griffin (a former dance competitor and coach in Colorado Springs) mentioned at one point that he was working on a laser attachment for the IE so he could line up the blade without having to use witness marks and run the wheel against the blade.
I never run machine against the blade just to get witness marks. In such a way you are creating small humps here and there. What I do is that I "paint" the blade with red or blue marker pen and then I turn the wheel with my finger to get witness marks. Sometimes I make one or two thin transversal line also while sharpening to see that that I am removing material all over after my height adjustment. I have seen blades where edges were even, but there was like two ROH side by side. It can happen that you only focus to ensure the edges are even, but you are not noting that wheel is still removing material just from one edge.
If the edges are un-even when I start sharpening, I will adjust the witness marks so that I am removing material just from higher edge. I need to control the progress every few passes. Remaining marker pen traces helps to estimate if I am overcompensating the edges unevenness. Marker pen warns also if I have adjusted mistakenly my diamond quill wrongly. I am confident that this marker pen trick has at least same accuracy than laser pointer or line laser. Its doable at any machine with few dollars.
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Thanks again for an informative, detailed response.
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If you are interested to see how different wheel sizes looks on 10 1/4" Coronation Ace , check this...https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhyz75w7kpuh7bj/Wheel%20sizes.pdf?dl=0
I never run machine against the blade just to get witness marks. In such a way you are creating small humps here and there. What I do is that I "paint" the blade with red or blue marker pen and then I turn the wheel with my finger to get witness marks. Sometimes I make one or two thin transversal line also while sharpening to see that that I am removing material all over after my height adjustment. I have seen blades where edges were even, but there was like two ROH side by side. It can happen that you only focus to ensure the edges are even, but you are not noting that wheel is still removing material just from one edge.
If the edges are un-even when I start sharpening, I will adjust the witness marks so that I am removing material just from higher edge. I need to control the progress every few passes. Remaining marker pen traces helps to estimate if I am overcompensating the edges unevenness. Marker pen warns also if I have adjusted mistakenly my diamond quill wrongly. I am confident that this marker pen trick has at least same accuracy than laser pointer or line laser. Its doable at any machine with few dollars.
I don't paint the whole blade, but put 3 marks at the front, mid, and center, and hand-turn to find the alignment like you do, and it sounds like we do the same thing in terms of leveling out the edges. If one edge is low, I remove from the higher edge, check after a few passes, and when the edges are level, then I sharpen down the center. In my experience, it takes at least two slow passes, generally three, to get a perfect radius down the center after shifting the wheel position. I check the blade for level, consistent sharpness on both sides, and use a radius gauge to make sure the radius is identical at four points along the blade. Otherwise, as you say, you end up with a strange parallel double radius in the groove.
The person that trained me would create the little scallop you mention, which he felt was "erased" by the following sharpening. I didn't like that idea very much.
You have me curious about the Blademaster Ruby wheels. I would need to shim or adjust the spindle height, which seems pretty straightforward.
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The person that trained me would create the little scallop you mention, which he felt was "erased" by the following sharpening. I didn't like that idea very much.
Fully agree. I really appreciate your way of working. "Like I would look in to the mirror" :)
You have me curious about the Blademaster Ruby wheels. I would need to shim or adjust the spindle height, which seems pretty straightforward.
Please note that they may sell them only in 6pc sets. At least I was forced to buy 6 wheels. In the beginning I was very disappointed when I had 6 wheels what I didn't like. With my experience I would say that you need to balance them before you can be happy for them. Means that you should also buy some tool to balance the wheels you have. If I would be you and I would have nice stock of wheels, I would use my moneys to cross grinder. I am confident that cross grinder brings you more benefits than these wheels. Perhaps its different story if you can buy just one wheel to test them, but still you might suffer from unbalance. These wheels does not have same marking as Sid´s wheels, so without weight balance marking it is pure lottery where you put your weight balance washer. In my blade master wheels Sid´s balance washers didn't have enough unbalance to get Blademaster wheels in to the balance.
See page 5/24
http://www.newenglandhockeybags.com/blademaster_pricelist.pdf
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It looks like Blademaster USA will sell single wheels. I'm going to order two to try.
A couple of questions:
Has anyone tried the Blademaster Gusto Glide product?
Any ideas on where to find a simple small grinding wheel balancing stand? I don't think I need anything as complex or expensive as I'm finding in my search attempts.
I ordered the Little Edger. Just like with the IE upgrade, it's an expense that will be worth it for me in terms of satisfaction in my work. By the end of the season, I may be at the point where I've done enough sharpening that these upgrades will be paid back. The more I learn, the more I want access to improved capabilities.
Kaitlyn--is that clear epoxy plus a small washer) that you used to balance the wheel on the photo?
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Has anyone tried the Blademaster Gusto Glide product?
I haven´t tried Gusto Glide but if you try it, please let me know your experiences. I have tried several different similar products and noted that something what works on example Blackstone has not worked in my machine. This is I guess wheel and different cutting speed dependent. As your wheel is spinning faster than in my machine (50Hz vs 60Hz), there is risk that you will get different end results than what I can get.
Any ideas on where to find a simple small grinding wheel balancing stand? I don't think I need anything as complex or expensive as I'm finding in my search attempts.
I am using modified version RC cars tyre balancer. Similar balancing stands are available also for RC propellers. These magnetic "levitation" balancers are super sensitive, but they have few problems. Specifications does not often tell how heavy part they can carry and for which hole diameter conical mounting pieces are made. In the cheapest models the shaft it selves can have also some runout. Still I have been able to balance the wheels to acceptable level. I will hardly ever try to even get 100% balance as it will change anyhow slightly when you have dressed wheel few times. This means that you to repeat the balancing from time to time. Its good to have already balanced spare wheel always available.
Kaitlyn--is that clear epoxy plus a small washer) that you used to balance the wheel on the photo?
I hope Kaitlyn does not mind if I reply behave of her 88)
You need to keep in mind that added weights needs to be easily removable. Its very difficult to know / estimate how much you need to add weight. It requires several trials before acceptable balance is found. You can to use imagination to add weight. I have been using hot glue and often cut pieces from the steel washers. Anything which increases the weight and stays on wheel can be used. Be aware risk of flying object when starting the machine first time. Area where you can put your weights if quite narrow, so keep that also on your mind when adding weights. Even you could think that you need to add weight just to the lightest position, it happens often that weight needs to be added in to several location or wider area than just small spot.
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Kaitsu - Thanks for replying for Kaitlyn, she is probably too busy sharpening skates to be reading an online forum.
Autocorrect is sure that "Kaitlyn" is the real expert, haha. So sure that even when I un-correct the change, it will change it again later when I'm not looking.
It seems to vary by which device I log in on. I just took a screenshot of this message and I'm going to post and see if Kaitlyn got in there and redirected the message to herself. She kind of likes to be the center of attention.
I'll order the Gust Glide to try, if they will ship it here. We are functionally on an island since there is saltwater in front of us and ice behind us, so most things come in by air.
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I'll order the Gust Glide to try, if they will ship it here.
Can you share your experiences related to Blademaster Gusto Glide?
I hate to tear into a working tool for experiments like this, so the experiments will come slowly over time.
http://skatingforums.com/index.php?action=post;quote=104236;topic=8710.0
Unlike Bill, I love different experiments when I try to find even the smallest improvements in my own sharpening. Of course, I also don't want to modify my machine without the possibility to restore it to original condition if the end result is not pleasant. Quite rarely have I achieved any significant improvement even though I have tried really many different things during the years. Things has often gone even worse, but you can’t learn anything new if you don’t even dare to try. It often requires a little encouragement to challenge yourself to start something new.
This time, Bill got me encouraged to test vibration measurements with my cell phone. I didn’t know such applications existed and even if I did, I would have easily rejected the idea by simply blaming the poor accuracy of the acceleration sensor. I am still not convinced of the accuracy of the acceleration meters of mobile phones, but the measurement may anyhow be more informative than the water glass test I mentioned earlier. Time will tell if this app is usable or not.
I have to say that measuring vibrations is pretty far from my specialty, although I work on different measurement tasks. The measuring the vibrations is much more mathematical than the measurements that are more familiar to me. Acceleration and velocity are terms used in vibration measurement. Honestly, the difference between these two terms are not so clear to me, even there are nice videos which explain these things. Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcHjDLCJxfI
Because of this, I am unable to say with 100% certainty whether we have even measured the same thing with Bill´s or whether it is a matter of high measurement uncertainty of cell phones or a different applications. Bill´s results looks too good to be true. Difference between the running and non running condition is so small.
Nevertheless, at least our company vibration measurement expert got a good laugh today when I told him about my cell phone experiment. In any case, I’m pretty sure that comparing the numbers alone between the Bill´s and my measurement will not tell the truth between the Wissota and Incredible Edger. Although Wissota is structurally much better in terms of vibrations, Wissota cant be so overwhelmingly good in means of vibrations. We have some difference in the measurements, that is for sure. Either in the application, in the cell phones sensor accuracy or we measure something completely different parameter. Its a pity that results are comparable. VIBRO Lite was not available for Android. Even we would have been using same application, I am quite confident that cells phones are not enough accurate measuring tools for this kind of purposes. I believe the app what I used might use some "digital zoom" functionality just to give nice chatter to the charts ;D
Application what I used is myFrequency - Pro. https://myfrequency.jimdofree.com/english/
Attached is a link to the very first measuring results. https://www.dropbox.com/s/mifngnvpwqp7fow/Vibration%20measurement%20results%20IE.jpg?dl=0
The Incredible Edger guide rod design is more sensitive to vibration and the vibration levels are not the same across the guide rods. I need to have a little more experience with whether the app is usable at all. Based on one measurement, at least the measured frequency changed at different locations of the rods. Whether it was just a coincidence, it will be cleared out later. At least something similar can be felt in the hands as well. This is one interesting experiment among many others.
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Kaitsu, do you sharpen mainly for fun, or are you trying to make a living out of being a skate tech.
Most skate techs who try as many things as you, are professional skate techs who specialize in serving people who are willing to pay extra for better service.
Do you skate much yourself?
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Kaitsu, do you sharpen mainly for fun, or are you trying to make a living out of being a skate tech.
Do you skate much yourself?
Sharpening skates is just a hobby for me. If I would make it for living, then I would have been sold my soul to the devil. What do I mean with this?
Think about how much you would be willing to pay yourself for sharpening of your skates. Then think about how much you would like to earn per hour by yourself. I would guess that to cover your payroll and other expenses, it would mean that you should sharpen minimum 3 pairs of skates per hour. If you would work 8 hours a day without breaks, you would make about 24 pairs of skates per a day and 100 pairs in 5 days. Would you even have such amounts of skates for each week and how well would you be able to focus on one pair of skates with such large amounts? On top of all this, you would use all the remaining free time and moneys to develop your methods and tools.
Here, I think, is the explanation for why the sharpening s of the skates are often so bad. Anyone whom is trying to earn a living by sharpening skates cannot spend one hour on one pair of skates like I use as a average. Sometimes one pair of skates can take several hours when I photograph them and explain to the owner of the skate what kind of problems I have found. It is interesting that when you investigate, measure and photograph blades to explain something to someone else, you will also learn new things by your selves.
Unfortunately I have never even wear figure skates. I must relay on other peoples feedback. This is really weakness of mine as I cannot test things by my selves. For this reason I will do lots of measurement for the blades so that I can convince my selves that I have made my best to ensure happy skating moments.
Most of the skaters are small kinds which are not able to give so detailed description what they would like to have or what kind of problems they are experiencing. Skates either feel good or bad. Often they do not notice even if the sharpening would be terrible. I know there are skate techs whom uses this as a opportunity, by choosing that small kids does not deserve to get best possible sharpening. What I have seen from the blades over the times, my assumption is that lots of skaters has never skated with properly sharpened blades. They cannot even know how they would feel. This is sad but true.
What is also sad, that Figure Skating Association of our country does not even try to improve the situation by increasing the skater knowledge related to sharpening s. If you are beginner in sharpening and ask help from them, they just say that they do not have competence. They advice you to call some known skate tech. They are like F1 team whom does not have any mechanics on their team. You can also perhaps guess how much you can get help from other skate techs, if they try to get their living from the skates sharpening. I have faced these all issues in the past and I can fully understand why some people keeps Marc crazy as he purchased power grinder and tries to learn figure skates sharpening. Sometimes you can feel that whole world is against you and no-one wants to help. This is the reason why I try to help others.
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It is commonly discussed topic if wheel size matters. Those whom has read my postings, knows what is my opinion. Here is one example case from the blades which has been sharpened with large wheel machine. I cannot restore the material which is already removed, but I can try to make them a bit more close to correct shape by making cross grinding behind of the toe picks and repair grinding toe pick. In these blades touch point length (or so called non-skate-able zone length) was basically same in the new blades, even-though you can clearly see the erosion behind the toe picks. Such a erosion should be tried to avoided.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvkxetdrfr39c63/Typical%20big%20wheel%20blade.jpg?dl=0
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Sharpening skates is just a hobby for me. If I would make it for living, then I would have been sold my soul to the devil. What do I mean with this?
The only way it could possibly work would be to also sharpen hockey skates and to have a large hockey community that wanted excellent edges. What I see the most on the hockey side here is that they want sharp skates and they spend far less time thinking about the edges aside from having bite. The narrower hockey blade makes the edges less distinct and when your overall plan is to run like a maniac, you want grip and you want to be able to stop when you need to. My observation here (could be different elsewhere) is that the majority of hockey skaters are wearing their skates too loose to really have much control of their edges anyway. They talk about profiling but most don't really understand how to set up a favorable profile for themselves based on their own balance point and their playing position.
Higher-level hockey players that love the feel of good edges exist, they are just far fewer in number because a lot of hockey skaters are much more interested in puck handling and how to actually play the game than they are in the skating itself. That is a completely legitimate way to set your priorities. It's just different than figure skating, where the edges really are everything.
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When query posed the question to Kaitsu, I was eagerly awaiting the answer.
The worst thing is that you, kaitsu, you don't skate, and neither do I! (just the dad of a 10-year-old skater at the national level which is the highest level in France)
Sharpening something you can't try is weird and frustrating at the same time.
Being myself a company manager, I quickly understood that it was necessary to make at least 3 pairs of skates per hour and joined kaitsu on this figure!
Just yesterday, the rental/initiation skate sharpeners and rink employee learned that I tried to sharpen and thought I was dumb, strange, weird, crazy and even wondered where I came from!
It tends to make some rink employees jealous that I try. fortunately the parents of the skaters support me.
I don't know how long this story will last, or where it will lead, but at the very beginning there was no question of traveling 120 kilometers, to sharpen, and take the risk of an accident or other.
And then last night, I took the risk of trying to sharpen a pair of a competitor who was sharpened by the employees of our ice rink.
I thought and pondered all day whether it was good or bad. And this skater hadn't skated so well in a very long time.
I had finally succeeded for her. And tonight I was really moved to the point of shedding a few tears.
I know it's not perfect, yet, but I made this skater a happy skater and that is my big reward.
I owe this thanks to you.
Kaitsu: I share and understand everything you just said in your last messages.
Supersharp: I helped myself with a cross-grinder to finish the 2 centimeters behind the pick and for the moment I'm doing a bit like that.
https://youtu.be/2MKXLYiVIvI
Quand query a posé la question à Kaitsu, j'attendais avec impatiente la réponse.
Le pire c'est que toi, kaitsu, tu ne patine pas, et bien moi non plus!(juste le papa d'une patineuse de 10 ans au niveau national qui est le plus haut niveau en france)
Affuter quelque chose que tu ne peux pas essayer est étrange et frustant à la fois.
Etant moi même chef d'entreprise, j'ai très vite compris qu'il fallait faire au moins 3 paires de patins par heure et rejoint kaitsu sur ce chiffre!
Pas plus tard que hier, les affuteurs de patins de location/initiation et employé de la patinoire ont appris que j'essayé d'affuter et mon pris pour un nul, étrange, bizarre, fou et se demande même d'où je sors!
Cela a tendance à rendre certains employés de la patinoire jaloux que j'essaye. heureusement les parents des patineurs me soutiennent.
Je ne sais pas combien durera cette histoire, ni où cela amènera, mais au tout début il n'était pas question de faire 120 kilomètres, pour affuter, et prendre des risques d'accident ou autres.
Et puis hier soir, j'ai pris le risque d'essayer d'affuter une paire d'une compétitrice qui était affuté par les employés de notre patinoire.
J'ai pensé et réfléchis toute la journée, de savoir si c'était bien ou mal fait. Et cette patineuse n'avait pas aussi bien patiné depuis très longtemps.
J'avais enfin réussi pour elle. Et ce soir j'était vraiment ému au point de verser quelques larmes.
Je sais que c'est pas parfait, encore, mais j'ai fait de cette patineuse une patineuse heureuse et cela , c'est ma grosse récompense.
je dois cela grâce à vous.
Kaitsu: je partage et comprends tout ce que tu viens de dire dans tes derniers messages.
Supersharp: je me suis aidé d'une cross-grinder pour finir les 2 centimètres derrière le pick et pour le moment je m'en sors un peu comme cela.
https://youtu.be/2MKXLYiVIvI
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Marc: I don't think you don't need to skate to be a good skate tech, though most do. In a sense, it is machine shop work. Some of the best skate techs figure out what skaters need by watching them skate, and I think skating experience helps with that - but many skaters give skate techs feedback on their work.
Kaitsu: If you spend 1 hour to sharpen a pair - that is extremely unusual.
It is not hard for a skate shop located at a popular rink to find enough customers to sharpen an average of 3 pairs/hour. Many keep busy all day, taking several minutes / pair.
Rental skates are often sharpened very fast - sometimes 20-40 seconds/skate. (But are almost never sharpened well!)
I would say Mike Cunningham averaged 5 minutes - and he specialized in serving elite skaters. Though I think he actually spent more time fitting people for skates, and helping them with skate problems. He charged $20/pair, compared to he $5 the cheapest area skate shops charged. He required appointments, because while his shop was open, he worked almost continuously - and he only worked on figure skates. He did a good enough job to be well respected. He was the official USFSA sharpener at many international competitions, including some of the Olympics. People drove several hours to get to him, and a few flew in from far away places like Japan, or mailed him their skates or blades. So a lot of very experienced skaters and coaches thought he did a very good job working that fast.
Likewise, there are skate techs who work reasonably close to full time working for one professional hockey team. They sharpen almost continuously during the game.
Even using hand tools, I can generally do what I want in a few minutes at most. That is partly because I sharpen often, and mostly just do regular touch ups - if it has been a while, I might spend 5 minutes/skate.
Of course, it takes a lot more time for someone who is currently learning, to do a good job.
BTW, many less successful pro shops have trouble attracting enough customers to make a profit. Especially if they aren't in a rink facility, or get a reputation for doing a poor job.
But at an hour a pair, you couldn't make a living at it anywhere I know of.
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It would be great if everyone who sharpens could give an estimate of how long it takes to sharpen a pair of skates.
Skates in good condition requiring no cross-grinding and having no edge defects that require removing more metal (such as a long defect on one edge where they skated over something in the ice, leaving a big skiddy area that must be removed) take me about 45 minutes or pair now that I am not doing hand work.
If I add in cross-grinding, it can easily take an hour.
I always start by spraying the boots with a smell-reducer, straightening the laces and lacing them all the way up to get the laces out of the way. It's a good opportunity to inspect the laces and let the skater know if there are weak spots.
If the soles are leather, at the end I apply some Obernauf Boot Treatment to the soles and heels to keep the leather happy. I also check for loose screws. If the boots are new and I'm mounting blades, I use SnoSeal on leather soles before I mount.
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I'm probably spending 45 minutes per blade average. I spend much of the time setting up, and then checking edge level and sharpness between passes.
I spend much more time if someone gives me blades with badly uneven edges. I can't use the Sharpie mark in the hollow to setup in that case, and I have to take a lot of passes to get them level again, re-checking with each pass. For healthy blades without a ROH change, I try to get them sharp in less than 5 passes to preserve blade metal. It often takes at least 3 sharpening passes to show new metal edge-to-edge.
I check mounting screws on blades too. Instead of lacing the boots, I tie them together and tuck the extra length inside the boots to prevent them from getting caught on anything. Loose laces near a grinding wheel rotating at speed makes me nervous.
If someone gives me new blades to sharpen, I trace the blade profiles onto paper and file them away for future reference.
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Wow. How much of those times, were spent in the actual sharpening, rather than skate examination and preparation?
I'm guessing you two are talking about blades that haven't been sharpened in a long time, right? Presumably a touch-up sharpening, done within about 40 hours or less of the last sharpening wouldn't take nearly that long?
I realize there is a practice effect, and you shouldn't expect to go as fast as someone who spends hours sharpening day after day, year after year. And none of you have bought the $20,000 - $30,000 machines that busy pro shops buy, which might slow you down a little.
I've never seen any professional skate tech, including an acknowledged world class expert, take more than 10 minutes / pair just to sharpen - and rarely that long. Mostly they take several minutes / pair typical. The ones who IMO shouldn't be in business, sometimes go faster than that - but they often sacrifice edge quality.
Some techs might spend a couple extra minutes checking that the screws are all still tight, and they might check for warp.
I'm faster using Pro-Filer hand tools, on my own blades. I modified my tools to work efficiently with my blades, which are all now old style Ultima Matrix 1 runners, all of the same thickness. Matrix 1 runners were not warped. and on a short length hand tool, that wouldn't have mattered much anyway.
All I do (and mind you, have had over a decade of practice) is:
1. Wet the blades (several times during the process) to lubricate the hollow and edges. When I used oil, I only needed to do it once, but water makes less mess.
2. Feel the edge to decide whether the edges are still good but just knocked over. If so, it takes me a minute or so / blade to straighten the the edges.
3. If they need sharpening, I take about 10 - 15 strokes on the Pro-Filer / blade - and once in a while another 5-15 each to re-establish the sweet spots.
(If it has been a while since my last sharpening I might take 20 or 30 strokes on the coarse stone first.)
I reverse the orientation of the sharpener several times during the process to insure that the edges are even. It helps that I've modified the tool a little to get the centering and gap width right for my blades.
4. I polish and straighten the edges with a flat hand stone.
5. I sometimes check screw and bolt tightness with a screwdriver.
This is usually all over in a few minutes / pair for touch-up sharpening, maybe 10 minutes otherwise, 15 very rarely on the outside.
On rare occasion, I take a few minutes to check the profile against my photocopied or traced profiles. Very Infrequent, because hand tools remove very little metal / sharpening.
Since all the Matrix I blades were of the same thickness, I don't need to re-adjust gap thickness or centering.
I always use the same ROH. Pro-filer abrasive cylinders are durable enough not to need redressing. Once in a while I wash them.
I don't need to check edge levelness any more, because the sharpener orientation reversal and the adjusted gap width, together with practice, guarantees they will be level. Since you guys presumably sharpen many different blades, perhaps you need to.
I don't need to untwist the laces, because I've switched to good quality round nylon parachute cord. It doesn't twist, and essentially never wears out (being of kernmantel design), though like anything else it can get dirty - so I've replaced them once. Once or twice I've re-melted the ends to be easy to pull through holes. But those things are so infrequent as not to count here.
Upon very rare occasion I use a micrometer or calipers purely out of curiosity to see how much metal I've lost, but that is completely unnecessary, and doesn't count.
On quite rare occasion I might re-wax the soles of the boots - but that has nothing to do with sharpening.
Also on quite rare occasion, I might modify or re-cut myself some insoles, if the old ones have gotten squished out of my desired shape - but again that has nothing to do with sharpening.
I've only twice spent anywhere the time you are talking about:
1. I once tried to give a pair of Ultima Dance runners the profile of MK Dance blades (a not very successful experiment, because profile isn't the only difference), using a basic bench grinder, completely killing the hollow and probably creating some unevenness, Basic bench grinders are very poor tools for that purpose, so I took a lot of time doing it, including many intermediate shape checks. I then took that pair to a pretty good tech. He complained that it took him 15 minutes to re-create a good hollow - but he always used a fine grit wheel (which is unusual, though I knew another tech who sometimes did an initial pass or two with a medium grit wheel, then switched to fine), and did a good careful job. But I assume that sort of major modification is not what you other folks are talking about.
2. I once tried to rescue blades that were badly rusted in a minor flood. I did a poor job, because too much metal needed to be removed. I forget whether I eventually threw them away, or took them to a professional shop with a powered sharpening tool.
So: help me understand what takes 45 minutes, on powered machines that are presumably designed to be a lot faster?
You must be doing things I don't.
Perhaps you two spend time talking to your customers, to see what they want changed, whereas I only do my own skates. Does that take a lot of time?
I assume you are switching between many different types of blade, which may be warped, and of different thickness from each other. So maybe you need to de-warp, and spend time centering and level checking.
You are perhaps not always using the same ROH (though I assume you know some professional techs set aside different wheels for different ROH?). Powered machine wheels are fairly soft, so they can be easily redressed, but the downside is they need to be redressed once in a while even if you keep the same ROH. But I assume that is fairly fast - a minute or so for an experienced tech?
Do you often have to clean out gunk from the grit? Once I switched from oil to water, the equivalent operation went away. I don't need to unclog the grit, because I use water rather than oil. Does that take a lot of time and how frequent is it?
Some of you re-polish the sides of your blades. By doing things to make the gap of my tool smooth (e.g., tape - maybe I should have used wax), I don't need to re-polish the sides of the blade. Does that take a lot of time?
Or perhaps you are talking about initial sharpening, before a hollow has been established? Even so, I though that would be fairly fast using a coarse wheel or cross grinder? That does take me some time, and I once or twice took new runners to a professional tech with a machine.
Something else?
I really thought you would all be a lot faster with powered sharpening tools.
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At least 50% of my sharpening time includes measurements. I measure blades before I even go to the sharpening machine. I do also remove bad nicks, rust and burrs already before starting the machine. When I know the blades condition, I can paint the blade with marker and dress the wheel to ROH what I want to use. Then I try to level blade based on witness marks so that I would not remove unnecessary material from the blades.
Actual grinding process goes this way…1-2 passes, measure edges evenness. Adjust skate carriage (if and when needed), 1-2 passes, measure edges evenness, adjust skate carriage (if and when needed). Dress wheel enough often to ensure that wearing wheel does not mislead you to make wrong height compensation. This is repeated until edges are even and sharp. Then I still do last two final passes to ensure best possible surface finish. In both final passes wheel is dressed. Note that I use 120 grit wheel and machine which has much lower cutting speed than large wheel machines. For this reason I need more passes than example with Wissota. Also way too sensitive height adjustments on IE skate carriage requires often some extra passes before I am happy to the edges evenness.
After power grinding next step is deburring, final visual inspection, measurements so that I know what I have done for the skates and finally I apply sticker which tells when skates has been sharpened and which radius. Final polishing with towel and skates are ready.
Process would be same even I would have 20-30 000$ machine. Only difference compared to example Wissota would be that in double or triple head machine you have integrated vacuum, bigger table and nice hood with light which protect your eyes and perhaps your lungs. Double or triple head machines makes also possible to use different wheels simultaneously so you could have example skate carriage and wheel which works better for hockey, with hockey ROH and another wheel / carriage for figure skates. Or if you are making figure skates only, you could have two or three different wheels in use all the time. In that means they can save time and money. Wheel speed adjustment you may also get if you put so much money to the machine.
Even the skates would be in very good condition, I need to use nearly same amount of time for measurements and skate leveling to my machine. Most of the skates has been anyhow used about 3 months, 4-10 hours per week. They require therefore longer time to get sharp. As a average I use about 1 hour for one pair of skates.
During the weekend I got good example case from our local sport store which uses SSM-2 machine for skates sharpening. They are those whom use 5 minutes to sharpen skates. This skater had two pairs of skates which required sharpening. Parents went to this local sport shop to ask if they are specialized also to figure skates sharpening. They said, "yes, sure we sharpen also figure skates". They sharpened both skates, but when she went to ice, she could not skate with them. Coach said that she need to sharpen skates and girl said that they are just sharpened. Parents got my contact details from coach and they called me by asking, if I can sharpen their daughter skates. In that time they called, I didn't know that they have been just sharpened on other place. If you take a look linked picture, you can probably understand why she had problems.
In this girl skates, one pair of skates had 3.4mm thick blades and another pair had 4.0mm blades. I am quite sure that both pairs were sharpened with same setup. I have seen in same sport shop how they did sharpen figure skates so that skate was not on skate holder at all. The guy was using only roller which is in front of the SSM-2 wheel as a guide and he kept the skate on his hands. After some passes he raised the skate and eyeballed the hollow. I think he thought they were well done as skates were given to the customer. Poor girl, I would say.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/94xyavsznbviz1l/5%20minutes%20sharpening.jpg?dl=0
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At least 50% of my sharpening time includes measurements.
Apparently you measure the ROH and the thickness of the blades.
With proper equipment, that could be over in 2 minutes. A few minutes more to adjust the machine accordingly, if you have optimal tools - e.g., the blade holders whose height you adjust for thickness in discrete clicks. I understand those holders cost a lot extra.
But you imply it takes about 30 minutes to do measurements.
So what else do you measure in that time? Do you recheck the rocker profile every time? Do you recheck the relationship between toe pick height and blade height every time? What else?
If a figure skater has significant nicks, they are probably doing something wrong. (Though they could get nicks if they skate outside on dirty ice.) On clean ice, there really isn't a normal way to get that, unless two blades collide, or if the skater handles the skates wrong before or after skating.
Rust also means they are not taking good care of their blades.
Maybe it makes sense to teach them how not to get those problems?
Most of the skates has been anyhow used about 3 months, 4-10 hours per week
Yes of coarse that increases time, at least for the 10 hour/week case. In such a case some skate techs start with a coarse wheel, and only finish with a fine grit wheel. And the ones who don't believe in super-sharp blades might only finish with a medium grit wheel. But no wonder you have to dress the wheel twice. If I waited that long between sharpenings, it would take me more time too - because the Pro-Filer "coarse" stone isn't very coarse. I suspect most people who sharpen their own blades with that kind of tool don't wait that long, because it is not much trouble to sharpen.
Maybe part of the reason you take more time is that you don't know what bad things have happened to the blade, because you aren't the skater. So you need to look for problems the skater could have caused.
Another case that would take extra time is if someone skates on "synthetic ice". By which I mean plastic, possibly covered with a lubricant. It is a lot harder on blades.I tried it, and felt I needed to sharpen again after 20 minutes, though a coach at the synthetic ice rink told me most people there skate for an hour before re-sharpening. They could spend a lot of money sharpening and replacing blades, though the coach said they use cheap blades for synthetic ice.
I try to give my blades a smooth finish on both the hollow and the sides, but I don't try to create a mirror finish. I wonder how much that affects skating. It would be hard to do with the tools I have.
Yes, some skate techs do a horrible job. Some of them would probably do a horrible job if they had the best machines and they took hours doing it. But as I said, some of the best techs in the world average about 5 minutes/2 blades. But they have had decades of practice, and all the best tools. Maybe if you get more practice, and get the right equipment, like the blade holder you can adjust in discrete steps, so you don't have to spend so much time centering, you will get faster.
You didn't mention de-warping the blade. Do you use the holder that straightens the blade while sharpening?
It would be nice if someone made blade holders and mechanisms that are self-centering. It sounds like you are spending a lot of your time centering. Maybe companies that make sharpening machines should be encouraged to do that. The best hand tools effectively are effectively self centering. So are some knife sharpeners. You shouldn't have to spend so much time on that.
BTW, I didn't mention that I also sometimes use a magic marker on the hollow before sharpening, so I can tell if when I have finished sharpening. It took me a long time to figure that out.
If I am not going to skate within a few minutes, I carefully dry and sometimes wipe my blades with an oiled cloth. So I get no rust - I do that after every time I skate too. That takes very little extra time, but I think it is a big deal, that everyone should learn. It also helps that my blades are stainless steel. I'm ashamed to admit it took me a long time to figure that out too. It should have been obvious.
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I skate with most of the skaters I sharpen for. Most of them are kids, they all have known me their whole skating lives. I can tell them about how to take care of their skates until I am blue in the face and it will make almost no difference...and I suspect this is pretty much a universal situation. Most nicks come from blades hitting the other blade on various moves and failed jump attempts, and that is not something that is going to change. Adults take better care of their skates in general, because they paid for them and are more mentally equipped to pay attention. Even with adults, though, they can be quite resistant to taking my advice about replacing hard guards that are damaging their blades and can be quite slow to replace blades that have been worn so long that the profile is flattening. Most skaters at our rink put about 60 hours on their skates before they get resharpened, so I rarely am handed skates that are going to only need a few passes through the machine.
If I worked at a rink or a big pro shop, I would need to increase my productivity in order to make money, but that is not my situation. I'm an engineer, I like to focus and find ways to optimize the final product, and I am willing to take some extra time to produce a really good product. As Kaitsu said, I don't have $20K-$30K equipment in my shop, but I have a good machine that can create superb edges if you are willing to pay attention. I have been sharpening skates with this machine since 2006, so I am not slow because I have limited experience; in fact, I take longer to sharpen now than I did at first because I have learned more about how to produce edges that I am very happy to skate on myself. It is a definite advantage to be able to experiment with changes on my own blades and test them before I try these things on someone else.
Query--The figure skate holder for the IE compresses the blade into a straight line for sharpening.
http://www.iceskateology.com/Skateology/INCREDIBLE_EDGER_Fig..html
I have received skates that have been mounted on a curve and not held flat for sharpening--the first few passes on the blade when it is compressed flat look very strange. The pathway of the grinding wheel looks curved when you start sharpening, but it is actually the hollow itself that is curved. When I see this, I know the blades need a mounting correction, because that degree of curvature is going to cause the skater to over-rotate one direction and fight to rotate the other direction.
Also, every time you remove and replace a grinding wheel, you are affecting the balance because it is impossible to get it perfectly recentered when you replace it. I would much rather do 10 extra passes with a fine wheel than put a medium wheel on and then a fine wheel. That would take far, far longer to do. When you get a wheel balanced and mounted with low vibration--you will not want to remove that wheel until you have to. Just use it and rejoice in the beautiful finish.
I take less measurements of the blades than Kaitsu, but I take close to the same amount of time. If I'm documenting a new technique, it could take a couple of hours since I am taking photos and writing things down. I'm doing this for my own education, so I don't mind using the time. I have an enormous amount of natural curiosity about things and I like to go down those little rabbit holes to see what makes things work. Collaborating with others to see what works for them is also something I am willing to put a lot of time into, because it is so very interesting.
Bruce Hurd, a sharpener who has "guru" status, shows sharpening an unmounted pair of blades on YouTube:https://youtu.be/69tWd_K5iBI
Bruce takes 13 minutes and he is at the top of his game. He has no boots to mess with on this video, which I think makes the handling more nimble so the whole process takes less time. I don't expect to be this fast, and I certainly don't expect to be faster.
I have seen many skates that have received a 3-minute sharpening and generally they are a mess. Done by people who claim that they are so good that they can just see if the edges are level by "eyeballing it". I am a person who has a pretty good eye, but why would I even bother to try to assess the edges with my eye to say "probably good enough" when there is this tool called a square that shows me exactly how level they are?
I have had coaches call and say "skater A had trouble in her lesson after you sharpened her skates" and I have been able to say "I am not surprised, because her skates were so off level that she actually does not know how to skate on level edges". I'm pretty sure our rink sharpens all blades on the same holder settings, so every blade that is not the same thickness as the rental skates has unlevel edges. I expect that it probably only takes 3-5 minutes to do so, since nothing is measured or even eyeballed. They use a large wheel with a coarse stone and don't deburr the edges. A few people have described it as feeling like they are skating through sand. Pretty depressing. I used to tell people to take rec-style blades to the rink for sharpening because it was less expensive, but when I discovered how off-level the edges were, I decided that I can no longer really make this recommendation. It's just not fair to the skater.
I don't need sharpening to take 3 minutes. I am not in a big hurry and I know that I am only charging money to help cover the cost of equipment. I already have a full-time engineering job and I am a skater, so I am not wasting any time, but I like to take good care of the skates. If I see scrapes on the leather on white skates, I fill them in with some polish to protect the leather if I have time. I remove the black marker from being student helpers if I have time. I live in an isolated community with no skate shops, so one of my goals is to try to keep every pair of skates I handle in as good of shape as possible so they can be handed down to a new skater. Do I get paid for taking this extra time to extend the life of skates? No. But I get the satisfaction of being able to get kids into new-for-them skates that are already right here in town, and I know the parents appreciate not having to buy expensive new skates when the kids are just getting started in skating. I remember being a parent and dealing with all the expenses of kids being involved in sports that require equipment--when I was able to inherit used ski equipment for my kids when they were young, I was very grateful. I enjoy being able to provide that same benefit to the next round of parents.
Having a ten-year-old skater run up to you and say "my blades feel amazing, thank you!"...this is what makes it feel worth the time to me.
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In the Bruce Hurd video, he spends most of his time working to get level edges.
When someone tried to teach me to use an old Blademaster machine that was true too - but he wasn't IMO competent, and the ancient blade holder was very hard to adjust. I assumed it would be much faster with better skill and equipment.
So I wonder why self-centering mechanisms aren't more common?
The old Berghmans hand tools did it well, because they could be clamped arbitrarily close to the sides of the runner, and I think it would have been easy to handle side-honed edges by adding compressible foam tape - though I've never had side-honed blades to try it with. The Pro-Filer hand tools were pretty good at it, because they touched the sides of the blade, at least if they had the right gap size - but if the upper runner had some types of side honing, I'm not sure how well they would do. It looks like the new Sparx machines do centering well too - as is appropriate for an automated machine sometimes used by people with little interest in training themselves to do it well. I don't see why other machines couldn't do something similar.
I'm not clear why Hurd had to remove chrome plating from the sides of the blade. All the chrome plated blades I have seen had a fair amount of chrome already removed, from the start. Unless he was sharpening blades past that.
It looks like the Incredible Edger is a well set-up machine in other respects. Nice that it has both cross-grind and along-blade wheels. The blade holder that straightens the skate is a big plus, and looks to be adjusted fairly easily, compared to the very poorly designed one I tried to use.
When I bought Broadbent's book, and talked and corresponded with him, he tried very hard to convince me I needed the Incredible Edger, even as a single skater. But I was trying to save money by sharpening my own blades, and it isn't all that cheap.
I have learned to avoid freestyle sessions because the kids assume I have faster reflexes than I do, and are less mindful of collisions in general, often vying for space aggressively - it was often easier to find mid-day public sessions with only several skaters on the ice, which isn't an option for everyone. So maybe my theory that there should be few nicks in figure skating blades is based on my limited experience. And you have a point that privileged kids who don't pay for their own stuff may be less motivated to take good care of it. I've seen such kids step off the ice in their blades onto dirty surfaces, and sometimes worse. To say nothing of what many people do in rental skates.
But I admit ice dancers sometimes accidentally click their blades together. Not on purpose, but I was taught the blades and torsos should come as close to each other as possible without touching. Normally such a collision only produces a small nick, though I suppose it could be larger after a lift - I wasn't advanced enough, or fit enough, for lifts. The same must be true for pairs skaters, and for Synchro, show and ice theater skaters because they are often close together too. I tried low level Synchro, with a couple of groups. I don't recall any blade collisions, but maybe they happen more often at higher levels.
And there are a few times I step on the back of my other blade.
So - I should take back my statement that figure skaters can be educated to fully avoid nicks. Perhaps that isn't always practical. I try hard to take good care of my equipment, but that isn't realistic for everyone, and I suppose some won't listen.
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In free dance, nicks happen here and there, laces get cut, boots get sliced, even the occasional shin gets nicked. Totally worth it. If I get to fly across the ice upside down, I will happily deal with the equipment repair on both pairs of skates.
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Flat bottom grinding using Super Groover at Incredible Edger => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0VWuuupje7E
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Interesting video, Kaitsu! I wish they had done a good closeup view of the finished flat-bottom groove.
It seems like this type of sharpening is not very robust in terms of having the wheel alignment slightly off and making corrections, since it is removing material from inside the hollow in that V shape.
I need to do more online reading--I remember people being very excited about this type of sharpening when it was new, but it does not seem to have taken over traditional ROH profiles as much as first expected.
I'm curious--Has anyone seen the flat-bottom V in person or skated on it?
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Not me.
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Tips how to detect worn spindle bearings from your IE?
Grinding traces are not straight lines. You will see tiny zic-zac chatter marks which are not in longitudinal direction. Like the wheel would jump up and down while you are grinding. There can be several other reasons why you have chatter marks, so this is not the most obvious sign of worn-out bearings.
You will notice that you will need very sharp diamond quill and you need to rotate it different angle quite often, other ways your diamond quill will start to vibrate and “sing”. Harder the wheel is more easily you will recognize this issue. Original white “Fine” and “Medium” wheels are too soft. Blade Master Ruby wheel is very hard. Before concluding that problem comes from the spindle bearings, ensure that you don’t have any clearances in the swing arm of the diamond quill.
Maybe the clearest sign of the worn spindle bearings is that grinded blade starts to “sing” while you grind it. This singing happens usually is same spot of the blade. In my IE it was close to back stanchion. In table top machines, like Wissota, I have seen how the “singing” happens in the middle section of the blade. At least in the hockey skates.
You may notice that you have difficulties to get sharp edges or one edge feels sharper than the other. This is a bit weird phenomena, but there was clear difference when I changed new cartridge.
You will notice that the way how you dress the wheel will affect where the wheel takes contact on blade. Its like your skate carries height adjustment would change even they dont. This you will notice if you try to get mirror finish with the final grinding pass and you can still see traces from the previous grinding pass in some areas of the blade. Typically in the tail in my machine.
If you have missed these all before and bearings are keeping noise already while idling, this is latest moment to do something for your machine. In Incredible Edger you can buy completely new spindle cartridge or reconditioned cartridge. One option is obviously change bearing by your selves, but you will need special tools like socket wrench for the groove nut. Finding the correct socket wrench is not so easy. Before opening the cartridge, check the belt groove condition. It should look like V and not like U.
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One weakness of the IE is bearing which are used in guide rails. They have pros and cons. Main problem is that each axis has 4 contact points. Guide rails should be super parallel; other ways there is always one bearing which is not contacting. This will increase sensitivity to vibrations etc. Check also your guide rails adjustments before concluding that problems come from the spindle bearings.
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Interesting video, Kaitsu! I wish they had done a good closeup view of the finished flat-bottom groove.
It seems like this type of sharpening is not very robust in terms of having the wheel alignment slightly off and making corrections, since it is removing material from inside the hollow in that V shape.
I need to do more online reading--I remember people being very excited about this type of sharpening when it was new, but it does not seem to have taken over traditional ROH profiles as much as first expected.
I'm curious--Has anyone seen the flat-bottom V in person or skated on it?
I'm still reading through this so haven't seen if anyone has, but we have this option at the rink. I could try it on some rentals and report back. I'll do normal 1/2" first to get the feel for the rentals since I didn't try figure rentals yet, and then I can try the flat bottom V.
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Alba--it would be great if you could experiment with the flab-bottom V and report back. I have been curious about it but not curious enough to want to invest in the Super Groover attachment. When I am testing changes, I will often make the change on one blade only, then go skate on the mismatched sharpenings so I can have a side-by-side comparison of the differences. If there is a big difference, it's a little strange, but it keeps me from wondering if the difference I feel is because of ice quality or just how energetic or aligned I am on that particular day.
I understand the conceptual idea, but I have a hard time believing it would make a big difference in skating for most skaters. Particularly when we are learning something new and different, we are usually creating some kind of imbalance due to incorrect alignment, making a lot of drag along the blade that could be eliminated with better technique. I'm guessing that FBV sharpening is not going to make me suddenly good at back outside brackets ;) but I am willing to remain openminded.
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Incredible edger users have probably wondered at some point if they could find cheaper grinding wheels than the originals or Blademaster´s. I tried today Chinese wheels, which are intended for sharpening chainsaw chains. They cost $3 each, when the previously mentioned wheels cost ten times as much.
The sharpening was successful, but it does require some handyman skills. First at all, you need to find some way to reduce the size of the disc from 100mm to 75mm. Since the disc is almost as thick as the blade, you have to find also suitable height with shimming. A suitable height can be found by trial and error method. In addition, the center hole of the sanding disc is bigger than machine shafts, so it also needs to be shimmed somehow.
The disc is about as hard as Blademster's Ruby grinding disc, but rougher. However, the surface quality was better than many pro shops. This even I didn't balance the wheel. Perhaps lighter wheel weight helps on this. Probably I am not going to use these discs regularly, so this was more of an interesting experiment. If I sharpen my own hockey skates or figure skates which requires massive material removal, I might use this wheel. A slightly coarser grinding wheel works better on stainless hockey skate blades than a very fine grinding wheel.
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This week I tested two different Blademaster wheels. 3-DR (Ruby) and 3DW (White). Both were brand new. I wanted to investigate which one of them provides better surface finish or is there any difference. Conclusion was that I cannot say that there would be significant difference in the surface finish. Either of the wheels were not 100% in balance, but white wheel had clearly more unbalance. When I look measured surface finish parameters, I cannot say if the differences comes from the measuring uncertainly or are they "real" differences. One measurement from each grinding is too less amount of data to conclude that. However, measured data was quite well in line with visual inspections.
Its hard to get it on photos or videos what you see eye balls, but here is anyhow some youtube video. I hope its helpful for Incredible Edger users.
https://youtu.be/evlAJ9HtPW8?si=xry2i-4hqpegDlTd
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This week I tested two different Blademaster wheels. 3-DR (Ruby) and 3DW (White). Both were brand new. I wanted to investigate which one of them provides better surface finish or is there any difference. Conclusion was that I cannot say that there would be significant difference in the surface finish. Either of the wheels were not 100% in balance, but white wheel had clearly more unbalance. When I look measured surface finish parameters, I cannot say if the differences comes from the measuring uncertainly or are they "real" differences. One measurement from each grinding is too less amount of data to conclude that. However, measured data was quite well in line with visual inspections.
Its hard to get it on photos or videos what you see eye balls, but here is anyhow some youtube video. I hope its helpful for Incredible Edger users.
https://youtu.be/evlAJ9HtPW8?si=xry2i-4hqpegDlTd
How does the surface finish produced with the wheels supplied directly from Incredible Edger compare with that produced with the Blademaster wheels?
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Blademaster doesn't give much info on wheels!
They say
ruby: 120 grit; Ruby abrasive; Cool cutting; Less tendancy to burn the blade
white: 120 grit; 38a abrasive; general purpose wheel for figure blades
But an 8" ruby wheel is
Well suited to both carbon and stainless steel blades.
https://centreline.co.nz/technical-information-and-downloads/grinding-wheel-information/grinding-wheel-markings-explained.html says
38A White aluminum oxide, hard and brittle. Suitable for all kinds of steel grinding...
RA Ruby aluminum oxide, hand and less brittle than PA. Suitable for high alloy steel etc, in precision grinding.
https://www.nortonabrasives.com/sga-common/files/document/Norton_Industrial_technical_data_health_safety_1.pdf says
38A White fused aluminium oxide (99,8% pure). The most friable & cool cutting of the aluminium oxides.
This abrasive is supplied in all types of standard range wheels ideal for use on hard & heat sensitive steels
& alloys. It has traditionally been used for sharpening high-speed steel & cast alloy tools & cutters.
38A is used for cylindrical, surface & internal grinding of tools, dies & gauges.
[ruby] 86A Pink aluminium oxide is a highly refined form of alumina containing a small proportion of chromium oxide.
This addition makes 86A a little tougher than pure white, increasing the strength along the shear planes.
This abrasive is available in a range of mounted points & wheels
Do I understand correctly, that pink is tougher, so can be used at higher speeds or greater pressure, but should in theory create a less smooth surface? Or is that too simple?
What is your take on which should be better?
The Blademaster polishing wheel
https://blademaster.com/web/en/2585-finishing-wheels-3-inch
Polishing wheel; Gives a high sheen to the hollow of the blade without disturbing the skate edges
can perhaps be used to create a smoother finish after sharpening...
I honestly don't understand how it can polish the hollow without dulling the edges. Maybe it is a little like deburring??
Perhaps Blademaster assumes prior machine shop knowledge and experience? Are you able to figure out what wheel is supposed to be used for what, under what conditions?
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https://cr4.globalspec.com/thread/32590/Small-Radius-Balanced-Wheels-for-Skate-Sharpening says
In my experience improper storage has led to wheels becoming unbalanced due to exposure to humidity, water, oils or orientation.
Is is plausible that such minor things could significantly unbalance a wheel or is worrying about that overkill?
I assume most people just leave their wheels mounted on the machine, and don't worry about such things.
BTW, how much money / sharpening do you spend on grinding wheels? Is it significant, compared to your time and the blade lifetime loss? Based on http://www.newenglandhockeybags.com/blademaster_pricelist.pdf ($12.22 - $15 / wheel) I wouldn't have thought so, though maybe shipping costs are significant where you are.
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How does the surface finish produced with the wheels supplied directly from Incredible Edger compare with that produced with the Blademaster wheels?
Surface finish of ICE FINE is comparable to the 3DW. Both are manufactured in Mexico and I cannot see any differences in their grits (just by eye). I would not be surprised if they would come from same manufacturer and would have identical "receipt". Thickness and labeling is different. To compensate this thickness difference you need to use cardboard "shims/washers" which comes together with Blademaster wheels to lift it a bit higher in your machine. Alternatively you need to adjust Incredible Edger spindle cartridge. Other-ways the radius come unevenly to the wheel. It might be just visual issue, but I want blade contact be evenly in the middle of wheel.
If skates are in really bad condition I might use ICE MEDIUM or even ICE FINE. They remove material a bit faster than Ruby wheels. Or at least there is more sparks compared too the Ruby wheel. ICE MEDIUM definitely removes material faster as it is more coarse.
There are two reason why I use Blademaster wheels:
Blademaster wheels are sold in EU. IE Wheels I need to order from US. Delivery times of original wheels are much longer and I need to do customs duties when they are imported. In price wise there is not so much difference between these to brands. In both manufacturers wheels you can almost double the US prices when they are imported to the EU.
I feel that I can get slightly better surface finish with Ruby wheel than any other wheel. Its also more harder than any other wheel I have tried, so it holds its shape better than softer wheels.
There are several things which will also affect to the surface finish. To me it took several years to learn what I need to do to improve the surface finish in the level where I am now. In the first time when I tried Ruby wheels, I hated them. They do have much higher unbalance than original IE wheels, even Blademaster promotes them to be weight balanced. 6pc of wheels were several years in my stock before I tried them again. Since that I have mainly used Ruby wheels.
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Do I understand correctly, that pink is tougher, so can be used at higher speeds or greater pressure, but should in theory create a less smooth surface?
Yes and no. Ruby wheel is much harder/tougher than any other wheel I have tried. This means that is hold better the radius you have dressed to the wheel, but you might need to dress is more often because it wont wear => no new sharp grits unless you dress the wheel with diamond. As long as you cannot change speed of your sharpener, it does not matter if pink wheel would withstand higher rotation speeds.
The Blademaster polishing wheel https://blademaster.com/web/en/2585-finishing-wheels-3-inch
I honestly don't understand how it can polish the hollow without dulling the edges.
I don't understand either. This is what Blademaster replied to me year ago...
How do you get the same radius on the 3BW as the radius on the blade? The purpose of the BW is for buffing only it is not changing or affecting the radius
3BW buffing wheel seems to be quite hard/tough and I think it can be dressed to certain radius. I have never tried them as they should be ordered 6pc sets or from US. I know Supersharp has one of these wheels.
All wheels does have less or more unbalance even they are new See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A
Balance changes when wheel is getting smaller (looses mass), so re-balancing is needed from time to time.
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But could humidity actually affect balance significantly? E.g., if someone leaves it on their machine, or take it off and store it carelessly, and humidity varies, is that really a possible issue?
I notice that www.iceskateology.com, Broadbent's website, does not list sharpening wheels for sale. Maybe he doesn't sell them any more? If so, maybe he would advise you on alternate wheel suppliers.
I love the things you try to improve the results. That's exactly what your customers should want, and I wish more skate techs did the same, and that their managements allowed them to spend enough time/skate to do a good job.
But saving costs on wheels, and trying the cheap chain saw sharpening wheels? https://wissota.com/support/instructions/frequently-asked-questions estimates 200 pairs of skates / wheel. If you pay about $15/wheel (14.17 Euro), that's only $0.075 / sharpening (about .071 Euro). If one brand does a better job of balancing their wheels than another, or they are more durable, or they are easier to mount on your machine, it would seem like the time savings of using that brand would be well worth it. Am I missing something?
Perhaps you only looked for cheap suppliers because you have an engineering background - and engineers are trained to optimize everything, so you simply can't resist. Or are you looking because Broadbent did stop supplying wheels?
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But could humidity actually affect balance significantly? E.g., if someone leaves it on their machine, or take it off and store it carelessly, and humidity varies, is that really a possible issue?
Sure, if we go to the atom level. What I have noted in practice, is that "gas fumes" causes vibrations to my hands and hallucinations when I sharpen very stinky skates. Its hard to see clearly what you are doing under the all tears. :o
I notice that www.iceskateology.com, Broadbent's website, does not list sharpening wheels for sale. Maybe he doesn't sell them any more? If so, maybe he would advise you on alternate wheel suppliers.
You was sharing in other thread instructions how to use Google search tool. Thanks for valuable lesson. However sometimes all information are not found with the Google. I propose you try to check following web page: http://www.iceskateology.com/Skateology/Price_List.html
I am not sure if the problem is my English skills, but I have tried to explain already couple times that Blademaster 3" wheels are alternatives to the original Incredible Edger wheels. Or was your proposal to ask from Sid Broadbent, if he would advice some third supplier which would compete against his own business?
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But saving costs on wheels, and trying the cheap chain saw sharpening wheels? https://wissota.com/support/instructions/frequently-asked-questions estimates 200 pairs of skates / wheel. If you pay about $15/wheel (14.17 Euro), that's only $0.075 / sharpening (about .071 Euro).
You was calculating wheel cost per one sharpening, but you did miss few things in your calculation
* Most likely 99% of the skate techs need to order "genuine" wheels. They are not sold in local tool shops like chainsaw sharpening wheels. If you order genuine wheel(s) over the seas, it increases the costs even more. Shipping costs should be included in the wheel calculation.
* Wissota´s wheels costs 36$ in US, not 15$. https://wissota.com/product-category/replacement-parts/
* Your calculation was based on to the Wissota´s 7" (177mm) wheel and Wissota estimation how many skate pairs you can sharpen with one wheel. However this thread is focusing to the Incredible Edger which uses 3" (75mm) wheel.
However if we use some math, you will start to see also some other things what you are missing:
* As said, new Wissota wheel is 177mm when it is new. When it is worn-out, its diameter is ~130mm. Incredible Edger wheel is 75mm when it is new and ~50mm when it is worn-out. If we transfer these diameter reductions to the volume (mm3), you will see that Incredible Edger wheels has 4.5 times less material what can be use for sharpening. Means that IE wheel costs per skate pair is higher than Wissota´s.
* Wissota´s bigger wheel diameter means also that its circumferential length is much longer than in IE wheels. Even the machines different spinning speeds are taking in account, bigger wheel removes material ~30% faster than smaller wheel. In theory you need less sharpening passes to remove same amount of material. Ones again IE sharpening is more expensive.
* Chinese chainsaw sharpening wheel costs 5€/pc, including shipping costs. Blademaster 3" wheel costs ~25€/pc + ~15€ shipping costs
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Ah. Now I understand why you might look for wheel alternatives.
So cost/sharpening is one more thing for people who buy sharpening machines to take into account...
I'm sure there are people in these forums who wonder if you think the IE was a good choice, and would be a good choice for others in this forum who are considering buy a powered skate sharpening machine. Is it too early to tell?
It would be a shame for you to stop sharpening. There are so few people with the kind of engineering knowledge and tools you have, or who take the time you do to figure things out, and who post info on their experiments. I hope your customers appreciate how hard you work at doing the best possible job. :) If you stop, they will soon learn most skate techs don't do that.
You've used Pro-Filer hand tools too, right? How would you compare using the IE vs the Pro-Filer? Have you ever try the old Berghman sharpening hand tools, and could you compared them to the IE? (Yes, I know Pro-Filer and Berghman are no longer made.)
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I started figure skates sharpening´s with the machine which is basically bad copy of SSM-2. In that time it was cheapest new power grinder on the market and almost all local hockey teams used same machines. Person whom was "the official and approved" local figure skate sharpener used very similar machine. I was aware of Incredible Edger, and I dreamed about it, but I was too scared to make so huge investment when basically one-one believed that I can learn sharpening. I though that if existing skate tech uses similar machine, even this cheap machine cannot be so bad that I could not sharpen my own daughter skates with it. I used that machine some years. All that time I modified it and to be honest, I used too much money for updating that machine. Only thing I loved in that machine was almost friction-less axis movement (if you don´t use guiding roll in front of grinding wheel). All the rest caused lot of struggling, but I was still make better sharpening´s than existing skate tech. That is mainly because he used 5 minutes to one pair and I did use 1 hour. Shortly summarized, I do have experience also using 6" wheel machine.
Now when I have been using years 3" wheel machine, I would never-ever go back to large wheel machine. Not even the sharpening costs would be lower with large wheel machine. Are the material costs 0.1€ or 1€ per skate pair is irrelevant for me. Even-though IE has many things what could improved, I haven't found better machine from the market (personal opinion). I was considering also Blademaster BRPD1B, but I wanted to have almost friction-less axis movements, like I had on previous machine. Blademaster BRPD1B does have quite small table and I am worried about the friction when skate holder glides on the table. I do know few skate techs whom has purchad lately BRPD1B, so I will try one of those as soon I get change for that.
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I have never tried Pro-filer. I would like to try it, but I have kept it too expensive test when I have power grinder. However I have tried Skatemate. That I cannot recommend anyone. I do have also root honing tools from Precision Blade Honing Enterprises. I didn't like them either, so they all are decors among many other tools I have tested. Idea is in principle good, but I had huge problems to keep them running parallel and in the "bottom of hollow". In some day I might 3D print my own version of "hand hone". Even I am able to get pretty nice surface finish, I would still like to find way to improve it even more.
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3D printing... Interesting idea.
The only 3D printer I ever saw used had an accuracy of 1 or 2 mm - not nearly good enough.
But I know there are much better ones.
Could a competent machinist make a handle (imitating Pro-Filer) with a drill press, plus a saw to make the gap, and then widen the gap with files? Obviously the hard part would be properly aligning and centering the gap on the hole. I guess that would require .0001 or .0002 inch accuracy, to make the edges even. And the hole would have to be just barely larger than the abrasive cylinder - i.e., just barely larger than the ROH - are there good ways to do that, with the tools you already own?
There are a lot of completely junky sharpening tools on the market. If I had started out with one of them, I would have given up.
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In previous posts we have wondered how Blademaster 3BW can polish hollow without disturbing the edges. Today I had change to test Blademaster 3BW buffing wheel. Special thanks to Supersharp making this test possible! https://youtu.be/7gVOcWQUCtk
My assumption is that this wheel is designed to 4mm thick blades and wheel thickness would be "the secret" why Blademaster claims that their buffing is not disturbing the edges. Thickness of one the wheel was varying from 3.2 to 3.3mm, when the wheel what you can see in the video had much thicker sections. Thickness of the wheel in the video was varying much more. Wheels does have some axial runout, so we can expect that they will polish wider area than they are thick. However if the polishing is not going all the way to the edges, is it worth of all the extra effort what polishing requires?
First attempt was not any success, but I still try to figure out if I can solve at least some of the issues. IE was suffering from the very high vibrations, especially in the midsection of the blade. This might be an IE related issue. This video however demonstrates very well my earlier comments related to IE sensitivity to the vibrations / resonances.I believe my IE does have also too low rpm for this wheel type and it would partly the root cause why the skate carriage goes to resonance.
I didn't do any weight balancing for the wheel before using it. Even I could feel clear unbalance, I am confident that wheel balancing would not solve this resonance issue. I might be able to solve blade alignment / height adjustment issues, but high vibration / resonance issue in the midsection is probably tricky to be solved. With my experience power grinders suffers easily from this kind of issues. When wheel is not cutting the steel, it starts to "jump". I planning to test Gusto glide and some other "oils", but based on earlier experiences with other wheels, my expectation is that they do not help. Lets see when I have made more tests.
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Oh. :nvm: Never occurred to me that the wheel could be thinner than the blade. It actually makes it sound like a fairly good idea. If you use polishing fluid with the sharpening wheel, and don't push too hard, would you get much benefit from using a polishing wheel at the end?
Maybe Blademaster tested the wheels properties on one of their heavy duty machines, which might have less vibration than the IE, and might also spin at a different speed?
It sounds like your particular wheel wasn't very well made. Maybe Blademaster did their tests on an earlier prototype which was better made than the final product.