I disagree about the scratches--if you look at the view before and after polishing off the rust, the same scratches are present on the blade before it is given the rust removal treatment.
Oh - I did the wrong freeze frames. Some of the scratches appear at some angles, but not others. So this is another case where tiny, tiny changes in lighting and viewing angle can radically change what you see... What a nuisance.
>tstop4me wrote
The $60K question: How do you plan to control the blade thickness profile in your proposed scheme?
I don't plan to do this. I don't personally believe there is much difference (at my low skating level) between parallel and other side honings - except possibly dovetail cut, which would be really difficult to produce this way, but which alters the included angle of the edge. Though there are people who claim the difference between different forms of side honing is significant.
At my skating level, I probably couldn't test the effects in a meaningful way, because the precise way I skate isn't consistent enough to perform well enough controlled experiments to eliminate placebo effects, or my personal prejudices about whether the difference is significant. E.g., some people have claimed that some forms of side honing create longer and/or faster glides - but I'm not good enough to keep my how deep my edge is perfectly consistent between two trials - and the ice might change roughness or temperature in the intervening time. Again, some people have claimed that some forms of side honing make it easier to turn and or land a jump - but once again my technique isn't consistent enough to perform well controlled experiments. I suspect the time I would waste on the experiment would be better spent practicing skating, or doing something else fun.
I have always found it interesting that some people have claimed you can skate faster if the blade is tapered thicker up front (sort of like a rain drop), and some people have claimed it is better if it is thinner up front. That is one of the reasons I have been skeptical of claims about side honing.
Likewise, one very experienced coach told me that parabolic side honing helped her daughter land jumps. But it was the opposite for her. I wondered if the other poorly controlled factors in blade shape might have produced that differences in performance.
If one did want to try side honing, I suppose one could take a micrometer and measure the thickness at many points, and iteratively try to achieve a given thickness profile with the abrasive slurry. I admit that that would be slow and clumsy, but it wouldn't require any tools I don't have. But maybe some form of sandpaper would be better - because one could apply it to a very thin layer at the bottom of the blade, and abandon that layer if one didn't like it.
At a guess, there are probably machine shop tools which can do side honing faster and perhaps better. I don't know what commercial blade makers use. But good machine shop tools are very expensive. Not something your average skater is likely to buy.
Maybe side honing could be imposed by some of you with powered sharpening machines - sort of a machine shop tool, but one that several of you have already bought - if you made or bought a guide - somewhat like a rocker bar, but of course with much less curvature. I'm not experienced enough with such machines to how that would work, and how you would mount the skate blade at the correct angle to use it without the rest of the skate or blade getting in the way, but perhaps one of you could figure out a way.
I wonder if this abrasive is significantly different in application or effect from Bar Keepers Friend.
I haven't had much if any call to remove rust from the particular stainless steel alloy my current blades are made from, because I try to take good care of them. Except when I had flood damage - but there was so much rust on those blades that nothing could have saved them.