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Author Topic: Good or bad sharpening?  (Read 1288 times)

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Offline Kaitsu

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Good or bad sharpening?
« on: February 28, 2023, 12:00:01 PM »
How would you rate this blade sharpening / skate tech skills?

Another thing...
Following thought popped-up to my mind when I was looking these blades and trying to understand why skater feels that her left foot skate keeps caught on the ice even the ROH was more close to 1". I could not see any clear damages on the edges, like burs and when I compared their profile to Pattern 99 profile, which I have printed to transparent film, rocker radius was not flat like I have seen sometimes. It was quite close to 8 ft by eyeball / tracing comparison accuracy (spinning rocker was a bit different story). Normally skaters would complain that blades with such a flat ROH are slipping and feel dull while they are doing one foot turns.

Have you ever considered if blades with flatter spinning rocker should / could have also flatter hollow?
As you probably know, idea of the tapered blades, like Gold Seal´s, is that you have more bite in the frontal area of the blade. This is needed especially on landings. Can same increased bite affect achieved also with flatter spinning rocker? Flatter spinning rocker obviously increase friction in the spins, but that can be compensated with flatter ROH.

...or what is your theory, why Ultima wants to make flatter spinning rockers? I have asked this from the Ultima, but they didn't provide any technical reason. They just said they want to make something different than the others. Personally I have huge problems to understand flatter spinning rocker benefits and it seems no-one is willing to explain me its benefits. Rocker to the toe pick is slower, that is easy to understand. You might also find / stay easier in the sweet spot, but are these things done at the expense of other things?

Offline tstop4me

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Re: Good or bad sharpening?
« Reply #1 on: March 01, 2023, 05:35:16 AM »
* Well, your photo can serve as an archetype for a non-skating zone!   :laugh:

* Maybe the sharpener got his reference axes confused, and thought that's what's meant by concave side-honing.   :laugh:

* It's not just Ultima that prefers flatter spin rockers; Eclipse does too.  That's a shame, since I otherwise like Eclipse.  I don't know why Ultima and Eclipse prefer flatter spin rockers either.  Paramount copies the pronounced spin rockers/high heel lifts of MK and Wilson blades.  I personally skate on Paramounts with the 440C stainless-steel runners. 

Offline Query

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Re: Good or bad sharpening?
« Reply #2 on: March 02, 2023, 04:21:41 PM »
When I moved from JW and MK blades to Ultima (old style Matrix, several models), I definitely had more problems catching my toepick, and I still have trouble using Ultima Supremes (again, old style; I don't have new). All other things being equal (which of course they aren't), I would prefer a shorter radius, and possibly longer length spin rocker area. 

What model blade are they? If they have aggressive toepicks, like the Ultima Supremes, that might be an issue, especially if the skater isn't yet used to them. Perhaps aggressive toepicks might be wonderful for high level jumps, but that comes at a price.

And what model blade were they using before?

I do notice the print on the side of the blade is somewhat worn - I think these blades have seen a lot of use. Which, if the toepicks aren't trimmed, might mean the toepicks are closer to the ice than when new. But I'm guessing from very incomplete data.

You didn't clarify when the skater gets their blade caught on the ice. There are skating techniques which made the blade get caught on the ice less than other techniques. In particular, while skating forwards, it may help to lean backwards rather than forwards. But if the skater has been trained to lean forwards during forward skating (as I was), that's a big change.