The sharpness/"biteyness" has calmed down, but in its place I discovered that I could not even feel my left outside edge, much less actually get on it.
If you start with very sharp un-dulled blades, and don't keep super-great care of them, two things might happen:
1. A very sharp edge can break off. Especially if you walk on them outside the ice, without putting a blade guard over them. One step is sometimes enough.
2. An edge bends over. If you CAREFULLY feel your left outside edge with your finger (brush your finger as lightly as you can across the width of the blade), does the edge still point down, or has it been bent to one side? You may be able to see that with a magnifying glass - but not likely - you need a microscope to see the details of edge.
There was no need to wait 8 weeks. You could have taken it back to a skate tech whose technique you preferred.
In the future, either don't go back to the new skate tech, or tell them you want the blade dulled a little. If you have no choice, dull them yourself.
The easiest thing to do to fix your skates is to take it back to a good skate tech whose technique you like.
If that isn't practical, or you are a do-it-yourselfer, you can re-straighten your edge, or dull it, with a very fine grain flat grinding stone. Lubricate it with water (oil works too, but can be messy to carry in a skate bag).
1. To straighten an edge, at least if it has bent to the OUTSIDE, stroke the stone along the side to push the bent part straight. (If it is bent to the INSIDE, you might first try to push it to the outside or center with the stone.)
2. To dull an edge, continue stroking it, but finish by drawing the stone a little across the edge so it points slightly inwards.
Some people on this board use a "steel" (such as is used to straighten kitchen knives) instead of a flat stone. I don't have enough familiarity with steels to describe the technique in detail.
On another note, it isn't necessarily the case that your new skate tech is "bad".
Some figure and hockey skaters like very sharp blades. Others, like you, prefer somewhat duller blades.
Most skate techs dull the edges a little after they sharpen it, unless they are asked to do otherwise. But a few keep it very sharp, unless asked to do otherwise. It takes a careful slow technique to make it super-sharp - but some skaters - especially some hockey skaters - really love it that way, because they can use the extra bite to stop and change direction faster. I used to love super-sharp blades, because I hadn't learned how to orient my skates right, and it was the only way I could make edges work. I also like them sharp while skating on outdoor or rough ice, because they cut through the surface junk, and on very cold ice, which is harder to penetrate.
In addition, you get the sharpest edges on the powered bench tools that most pro shops have by using a fine grain wheel. A medium or coarse grain wheel (and especially a "rental" skate wheel) doesn't create very sharp edges. Your new tech may have used a very fine grain wheel.
Finally, not all skate techs use the same "radius of hollow" (ROH), by default. (The sideways curvature across the bottom of your blade.) A good skate tech would have measured your radius, by fitting a tool against the bottom of your blades, and tried to match what you had before. (There is also a purpose-built tool that measures the depth of cut, that some skate techs love to show off to impress you that they have all the right tools - but it is almost meaningless when applied to dull blades, because the edges have worn off. It is also almost meaningless when applied to ultra-sharp "foil edges" that extend beyond the arc of the hollow.) It is quite possible your new tech used a smaller radius than you were used to - resulting in more curvature, more depth of cut, and a thinner edge angle. That would make it feel much more sharp. It would also waste a lot of the metal - i.e., reduce the blade lifetime.
BTW, many hockey skate techs remove about 1 - 2 mm (.04 - .08 inches) of steel every time they sharpen, or order to remove nicks, compared to the approximately .003 inches a good figure skate tech typically removes. At that rate, your figure skate blade would last only a few sharpenings. There aren't many skate techs that know that little about figure skate sharpening, but I've met a couple. On top of that, there are horror stories about hockey skate techs with no knowledge of figure skates who round off the toe pick and the back of the blade, and remove the felt "sweet spot" at the front that you might otherwise use to determine where to balance on your blade when you turn and spin. That can also happen if someone puts figure skates in an automated machine designed to only sharpen hockey skates. One really bad sharpening can make figure skate blades completely useless. (Some hockey players claim that skate techs who only understand figure skates have messed up their hockey blades too, but that is hard to believe, because figure skate people are inherently good.
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I once took my blades to a tech who sharpened my blades so off-center that if I stuck the skates blade-side-down on a table, they leaned way over. So I only had an edge on one side.
The best skate techs know how to sharpen both types of skate well. The problem is, most pro shop managers give their employees minimal training, and they are often trained by other skate techs who aren't experts either. In addition, time is money, and some pro shop managers want their techs to spend less than a minute total / pair. That doesn't give them time, for example, to change the ROH, or the grinding wheel, between blades. Nor does it give them time to take measurements, or check their work. It may not even give them time to adjust the wheel height, which would give you a poorly centered grind, like you say you have. Or to use a different blade holder - some figure skate blade holders force the blade to be straight while sharpened, so that even if the blade is slightly warped, the edges can be even and well centered throughout the length.
Take the cost of replacing your blades into account when choosing a skate tech to sharpen your blades. E.g., if it costs you $150 - $600 per blade pair (I have no idea what types of blades you have), and you only get 3 sharpenings out of them, that's $50 - $200 wasted per sharpening - much more than the cost of the sharpening. Plus the time and money you waste trying to skate and take lessons on badly sharpened blades.
BTW, I'm not scolding. A lot of us have only learned by making mistakes. Including me.
Topic: Tales of (Equipment) Woe (Read 8440 times)