Greetings, everybody!
Perhaps you can shed some light on a recently discovered problem of mine.
My blades - Wilson Excel, of a very old series, over 15 years old, according to the producer! - have been sharpened recently, and appear to not have a spinning rocker, but a spinning FLAT instead. Maybe they were always this way? I couldn't tell, I'm a beginner, only learning my first spins. Anyway, right under the ball of the foot, or the middle support piece of the blade, where the blade's curvature should change from a wide curve (at the back) to a narrower curve (at the front) (I'm checking this by reflecting a lamp in the blade, they use this technique to check car paint smoothness, so why not blade curvatures?), the blade gets briefly but noticeably flatter. And, if I hold it just right, I can balance a pencil on that spot, in a way that has it resting securely without wobbling to the sides, something not possible at any other point on the blade. I'm no expert, but these observations should prove that there's a flat spot going on.
It probably doesn't help that I have boots 10mm too long (305 instead of 295) and I have some trouble digging my toe picks into the ice without feeling my heel starting to slide out of the boot, just a bit, but enough to be uncomfortable. So, I can't seem to reliably find that "sweet spot" for spinning, and I end up spinning on the middle of the blade - otherwise my drag picks start digging into the ice and the spin is gone.
My question is thus: am I allowed to blame my abysmal spinning skills on lack of spin rocker on my blade, and complain to the sharpening service, or on the boot that's 10mm too big, or should it be just fine and I should just get a grip and practice more?