New thread opened to share tips and toughs how to improve surface finish on skate blades sharpening. Power tool users can example share their experiences from the wheel types what they use or have tried. Experiences from the hand held polishing tools or methods would be also interesting to hear. Sharing example pictures and videos from the good and poor sharpening are very welcome.
There are already some post on thread http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8453.100 but I will try to contact moderator that she/he would move some post from that thread into this thread.
Ultima Matrix blades https://youtu.be/x52rFQP-jiU
John Wilson blades https://youtu.be/Pd0uqrFR_T8
It would be interesting to hear if someone has experiences from the wheels which fits to Wissota. Experiences from the figure skates and hockey skates are both interesting.
Mod Reply: Specify which posts/thread drift should be moved to a new topic. Be aware that post are organized by date after moving/merging topics, so these posts will be a the end of the discussion. ☺
Post moved from thread http://skatingforums.com/index.php?reportsent;topic=8453.msg103406#msg103406
Re: Wissota powered skate sharpener review
« Reply #108 on: April 10, 2021, 01:40:27 PM »
During the years I have tried so many different chemicals to improve surface finish. I have tried example, pure water, WD-40 + several other spay oils, Chemico valve lapping paste, ski waxes, Accu-Lube stick, Blackstone Fine Shine, metal polishing wax, etc. etc. Main conclusion has been that almost all of them improves less or more surface finish. They main issue is that most of the ingress very deep in to the wheel and you need dress quite much from the wheel before it gets clean. For this reason I prefer to use "cutting oil" which viscosity is close to water.
I know this is anyhow wheel type and size dependent. Example Blackstone Fine Shine didn't work in my IE, but in Blackstone and hockey skates it worked well. Its viscosity and consistency was very close to 10W-30 motor oil. I have to say that Fine Shine bottle was not mine own, so I cannot be 100% sure if content really Fine Shine or has the skate tech filled it by him selves.
Unfortunately I have quite many big projects ongoing so I could not make you comparison with / without polishing wax finishing. Here is anyhow link to picture where I sharpened one pair of skates by using different polishing wax on both blades. In right foot blade used wax which is for aluminum and left foot blade I finished by using wax which is for silver and gold. I could not identify any differences on the surface finish. If you can see some differences in the pictures, it is impossible to say if they are from different view angle, light reflection or camera´s own adjustments. I should have some fixture which would ensure that pictures from left and right foot has been taken as identical setup as possible. Even this is not 100% perfect test, I can confirm that polishing wax was not bad at all. It is not anyhow going to be something what I use.
It is recommeded to download the picture so that you can zoom in to different areas of the blades.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0alp5m8ev5aobnu/Polishing%20wax%20test%20IE%4050Hz.jpg?dl=0
What comes to the surface finish, I would say that its quite obvious that chatter-marks and coarse grinding will not improve the glide. I have one skater whom used to bring his skates for me. From my proposal they started to sharpen skates in one another skate tech (due long distance). Skater was happy for his skates until they did come to competitions which were kept by our club. Father of the skater did see me on the rink and he asked if I would have time to sharpen their skates. There was some hassle why their skates were not sharpened well before competitions. I said that I can do them, but there is always risks if you change the skate tech just before your competition day. They said that skates are so dull that they rather take the risk than try to survive over the competition with the dull skates. In next day I asked their feelings about the skates. They said that skates glide is so much better that the speed what you can gain is almost scaring. I didn't change ROH, so mainly improvement did come from the better surface finish. Since that they have used again my sharpenings.
It is anyhow fact that quite many skaters don´t recognize any difference in the skates even you believe that improvement what you have made is so remarkable that skater should notice the difference already in the first stroke. This should not anyhow be any excuse for skate techs to make poor quality. Unfortunate fact is that too many skate tech makes sharpening s just to earn money and not to help skaters with best possible sharpening what they can do.
Added after the original posting:
I tried some new mixture for another pair of Wilson blades. I was more satisfied to this new mixture than metal polishing wax. Link to new picture: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhg7ihzeb7g7bjd/Polishing%20test%20IE%4050Hz%20-%20own%20mixture.jpg?dl=0
Interesting.
You are getting a nice sheen on the metal with your methods.
Because some of the methods use liquid cutting fluids, are you getting any fling of oils from the fast-turning grinding wheel?
Quote from: Kaitsu on April 24, 2021, 11:08:05 AM
Post moved from thread http://skatingforums.com/index.php?reportsent;topic=8453.msg103406#msg103406
Re: Wissota powered skate sharpener review
« Reply #108 on: April 10, 2021, 01:40:27 PM »
Added after the original posting:
I tried some new mixture for another pair of Wilson blades. I was more satisfied to this new mixture than metal polishing wax. Link to new picture: https://www.dropbox.com/s/hhg7ihzeb7g7bjd/Polishing%20test%20IE%4050Hz%20-%20own%20mixture.jpg?dl=0
Please tell us more about your new moisture. The results look beautiful.
Quote from: Bill_S on April 24, 2021, 11:25:38 AM
Because some of the methods use liquid cutting fluids, are you getting any fling of oils from the fast-turning grinding wheel?
The amount of liquids are so small and I put them always on blade, that I do not have any problems to getting dirty. Liquids sticks either to steel dust or wheel or it is sucked by vacuum cleaner.
Attached picture from my wheel housing which is not cleaned for couple months. In that time I have tried many kind of liquids and waxes.
Applying too thick or too much "cutting liquid" or waxes clogs the fine wheels and wheel is not cutting steel anymore. When its not cutting anymore, wheel starts to "surf" on blade and that leads usually not so sharp edges. What I have experiences, same "cutting liquids" which works in IE does not work so well in Wissota and/or opposite.
The lack of slurry slung from the wheel is good to hear - otherwise that would be a major concern, especially with white figure skating boots.
I addition to enhancing the finish, a liquid or melting wax might impart a little extra edge life to the blades too. The thin edge might be cooled enough by the liquid or wax to resist loosing temper at the very edge. That's where the heat of grinding has a very small conductance path to be absorbed into the "heat sink" that is the rest of the blade.
Your experiments show that it is possible to get a smoother finish. These kinds of experiments are intriguing.
Here is example from the poor sharpening. Most probable reason is dull grinding wheel. Those whom will make "plug & play" sharpening s wants often save money in means of wheel wear. In the other words, they will sharpen several skates without dressing the wheel. For the skaters it mean that he/she skates with the "sandpapers". I wonder why so skaters does not pay attention for this, even it would be so easy to identify.
https://youtu.be/lr691LHC8Ms (https://youtu.be/lr691LHC8Ms)
Generally speaking sharpening of the figure skates seems to be comparable to the magic. People are not so willing to open their tricks secrets.
Goodness, that's dramatically bad! The sound while rubbing down the length tells it all.
That's pretty close to the finish our rink produces on carbon steel blades. The finish they produce on stainless hockey blades is not as bad.
Skaters who decide they "can't wait" to get their skates sharpened (I'm occasionally out of town, rarely more than a few days at a time) have reported that carbon steel blades sharpened by the rink they feel like they are skating through sand. And they also get a tiny roll-off on the tail of the blade . Edges will be ground to match existing level, which is great if the edges were level, but not so great if they were uneven.
I'd rather skate on dull edges any day, although I suppose you could get a good workout by skating on blades with limited glide.
Latest example from the poor figure skate sharpening. How many mistakes you can find?
In addition to most classical mistakes, these blades had something what I have never seen before. As usual, story tells that these blades have been always sharpened by professional figure skate technician. Based on what I can see, there has been possibly several experts or someone has used Dremmel to "finish" the grinding.
https://youtu.be/pm4OuhVvnF8
Wow, great example of terrible work. Consistently terrible, too, since they really put in the time to roll up that heel while they played with multiple edge angles. Plus they nicked the drag pick (not much and probably not important, but still, it's something we should be avoiding). That front multi-profile must feel really odd as you roll forward. It's almost like a serrated edge up there. I guess if you skate fast enough, the change in curvature will go by pretty quickly, and typically only really be felt on spin and jump entrances. Of course, what is it that makes a good spin or jump, generally? A good entrance. EEEEK.
The part that bothers me the most is that the tech must have not even looked at the blades after sharpening to not notice the problem. Or the first person that sharpened them had a small-diameter wheel, the next had a medium-diameter wheel, and the third had a large-diameter wheel.
When I was first learning to skate, I had a friend that I skated with (still do) who had the loveliest forward spins. This was at a level when achieving a one-foot spin was what we all really, really wanted to do. Somehow, she could just rotate and rotate. She said she just felt like she was on the head of a nail, all she did was stand there.
A few months later when I started sharpening skates, she gave me her blades to sharpen. Right at the front of that skate, there was a flat spot where someone had ground the roundness off of her profile. Interesting. I explained that her blade curvature had been damaged, but also that she needed new blades anyway because they were getting old. New blades...and spinning was never the same for her again. She had learned how to use her "customized" equipment, but she hadn't really learned how to set up or control a spin. The silver lining was that turns on her left foot became much smoother.
After that experience, she has never had the rink or the local sports shop (now closed) sharpen her skates again.
That last example looks to me like someone messed it up on purpose, so they could make that video. :)
But I could be wrong.
Quote from: Query on September 29, 2021, 08:51:01 PM
That last example looks to me like someone messed it up on purpose, so they could make that video. :)
Thanx man, it´s pleasure to see how much I enjoy trust of yours :(
Skates were purchased online. As purchaser had previous experiences from the ruined blades, they were asking from the seller about skates sharpening history. Seller was assuring (like they always do) that skates has been always sharpened in local professional figure skate tech. I do not know if they asked pictures from the blades frontal area, like I always advice people to do when they buy used skates. Nevertheless when they received the skates, purchaser was contacting me. He wanted me to sharpen them and check the frontal areas as the shape wasn't looking smooth curve. I recorded the video to show for them what all has went wrong in previous sharpening s.
I made cross grinding to frontal area so that they at least look a bit more pretty. Here is link to before after situation of same skates. You can perhaps judge which one is made by me or if they are both made by me. https://www.dropbox.com/s/xx0wdg5s3662g1c/Before_after.jpg?dl=0
Sorry, I wasn't criticizing you. I thought someone else made the video. 88)
The cross-grinding looks really good. Do you use the Little Edger? I haven't added it to my machine yet, but I keep thinking about it. I haven't recovered the cost of the upgrade yet, but I'm getting close. It would be nice to be able to cross-grind.
I went through my machine yesterday before sharpening and fine-tuned the adjustment on some of the rollers. I think there had been some slight movement over time. As always, I can't be sure that it feels amazing because I know I tuned it up, or if I'm really detecting a change...but it feels great. I used to have to set up and break down the machine between uses, which I felt always added some potential inconsistency. Now I have a dedicated bench where it stays set up and I love being able to just walk in and use it whenever I'm ready. Now I can see that having it set up all the time has its downside, which is that you aren't carefully checking everything when you set it up, so I'm creating a "pre-flight checklist" for myself to get around that.
Quote from: supersharp on October 01, 2021, 01:36:15 PM
Do you use the Little Edger?
Yes, I use Little Edger. Every skate tech whom sharpens figure skates should have cross grinder. I cannot anymore think about sharpening figure skates without cross grinder. I really do like Little Edger even though I have not figured out how to use worn out wheels on that purpose. I am using almost new wheel. What sometimes disturbs is, that you cannot make cross grinding in same setup as normal sharpening. As you explained in some post, Ultima blades does have often different curvature on frontal area of blade than Example Wilson blades. In cross grinding point of view this means that you need to either turn Little Edger slightly different angle or alternatively blade in skate holder. Its common at least in my case that I do both, other ways longer blades collides to "normal wheel". In practice these both changes height and and you need to adjust your skate carriage different height than what is was or would be on hollow grinding. This might be better on table top double head machines where both wheels centre should be always on same height.
Even the Little Edger has some weaknesses, I would never-ever give it away. I paid quite a lot just from the Little Edger brackets. With this I mean that I removed the original 110V motor. Now I have unused 100V motor and 110V to 220V transformer just laying, but I would do same decision at any day. It was worth of it. As you can probably expect, cross grinding requires also some learning process.
Quote from: supersharp on October 01, 2021, 01:36:15 PM
I went through my machine yesterday before sharpening and fine-tuned the adjustment on some of the rollers.
This is important maintenance activity on Incredible Edger. Remember to check also that you don´t have any clearance on hinge of diamond dresser. If you have clearance in there, you will copy all vibrations to your wheel and finally to the blades. Making diamond quill more rigid and making ROH specific quills is one of my undone improvement plans. Take a look example Blademaster diamond quills thickness => https://blademaster.com/web/en/replacement-quills/535-tsm680n.html
Ps. Do not trust to quills scales. You can compare them to wooden pencil. When you use your pencil, markings position remains same even the tip of pencil wears. I will always measure ROH adjustment from the tip of diamond.
Do you find that cross-grinding creates too asymmetrical an edge shape, and that you need to turn the skate around and grind a little more to make it symmetric?
In theory cross-grinding must create an asymmetric shape, but I'm not sure how big the asymmetry actually is.
I guess one issue with a cross-grinder is that you don't dress to create an ROH - as the wheel wears out, the ROH gradually goes down.
https://blademaster.com/web/en/figure-skate-sharpening/4-3dr.html
Is this the ruby wheel that you use?
Quote from: supersharp on October 02, 2021, 06:28:44 PM
https://blademaster.com/web/en/figure-skate-sharpening/4-3dr.html
Is this the ruby wheel that you use?
Yes, see https://www.dropbox.com/s/zd4f3gti64c1y6e/Blademaster%203-DR.JPG?dl=0
Quote from: Query on October 02, 2021, 02:23:37 PM
Do you find that cross-grinding creates too asymmetrical an edge shape, and that you need to turn the skate around and grind a little more to make it symmetric?
I guess one issue with a cross-grinder is that you don't dress to create an ROH - as the wheel wears out, the ROH gradually goes down.
I need to apologies my English skills. Its not always so easy to explain these technical things in English and use correct terminology. Its not even so easy in own home langue. For this reason I do like to take photos and use them to show what I mean. There is clear misunderstood and I will try to explain my cross grinding issues more clearly.
See: https://www.dropbox.com/s/arr2o5t00l1yxqy/Little%20Edger.pdf?dl=0
Wheel is dressed to be "flat" but angled. Angled dressing is mandatory on Incredible Edger which has linear longitudinal and transversal axis. This is linear axis system is exceptional compared to almost any other sharpening machine. In practice this means that you cannot affect with skate holder / with your hands in which angle blade contacts to the cross grinder wheel. In IE you need to either change blade angle on skate holder or rotate the electric motor of Little Edger. Quite often I do both. I have tried to adjust my cross grinder wheel height so that center points of normal wheel, which is in horizontal direction, and cross grinder which is in vertical direction, would be the same. In practice this is not possible.
If I have made normal ROH grinding blade should be 100% in level, right? It would be nice if you could do cross grinding right after that without need of adjusting skate holder height or changing the blade angle on skate holder. In reality this is not possible with Little Edger. Table top machines with double head should not suffer from this same issues. In those machines both wheel center points should be very close to each others and you can turn skate carriage to any angle you want without remounting blade on skate holder.
Wheel diameter on your cross grinder defines the "ROH" on cross grind area. In table top machines cross grinder wheel diameter is typically much more larger and wider than in Little Edger. Is hollow needed also on cross grind area, that is I guess dependent on how far from the toe picks cross grinding is made. I would say that smaller wheel is bonus also on cross grinding. At least you have some hollow all the way up to toepics. Check this video to see how Bruce Hurd uses Little Edger. Pay attention to cross grind length while its made and in finished blades. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tWd_K5iBI
I am sure you are interested to know if I make cross grinding before or after normal ROH grinding. I do both. If the blade frontal curvature has been ruined from reason or another, I will try to repair this part of blade before making the normal sharpening. With this way it is easier to get nice intersection between the cross grinding and hollow grinding. Sometimes I note after the hollow grinding that I would like to make also cross grinding. Typical cases are that have forced to remove a lot of material from the damaged blades. In such a case its hard to estimate beforehand if cross grinding is needed or how much you should grind to keep nice smooth intersections between these two grindings. Another plausible case is that I notice after the hollow the grinding that I would like to fine tune how intersection area of hollow grinding and gross grinding looks. I want hollow grinding end visually as symmetrically as possible. Asymmetric end of hollow grinding causes always doubts if hollow is grind in to the middle of blade or not. Bruce Hurd uses this same visual technique to define datum on Gold Seal Revolution if hollow is middle or not. See above linked video.
Wow - the incredible edger looks much simper than I thought. Sort of like sharpening a skate using a grinding wheel on a Dremel tool, or electric drill. Hopefully easier to align.
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sharpen skates using a grinding wheel held by a lathe, with a vice mounted on the lathe axis. It would help if the vice could be finely adjusted across the axis, and rotated, then locked.
I think it was my question, not your English that was unclear.
I assume the incredible edger wheel rotates in only one direction.
Sharpening a knife (at an angle) on a flat grinding stone produces different edge shapes if you push into the stone than if you pull away from the stone. I assume that is true for cross grinding too. So, even if you get the two edges the same height on a cross grinding machine, they should have a different shape.
I think. But I don't know from experience.
I read once that a lot of Europeans use cross grinding machines to sharpen skates. I wondered if they turn the skate around or reverse the motor direction to even things out.
Query: The cross-grinding is generally in the NSZ, so I don't think it matters that there may be a slightly different shape due to push-vs-pull with the single grinding rotation. Interesting to think about, though.
Kaitsu: Excellent pdf showing the Little Edger, thanks!
I'm looking forward to adding the Little Edger to my machine, and fortunately I have a box full of old blades to use while I build some familiarity with it.
Quote from: Query on October 04, 2021, 11:43:44 AM
Wow - the incredible edger looks much simper than I thought. Sort of like sharpening a skate using a grinding wheel on a Dremel tool, or electric drill. Hopefully easier to align.
I believe you are now mixing Incredible Edger and Little edger. In the Incredible Edger wheel is spinning horizontally (parallel to the blade) and it is used for making actual sharpening. Little Edger is additional small motor unit for Ingredible Edger. In that wheel is spinning vertically (perpendicularly to the blade). With Little edger you are grinding the area which you cannot reach with horizontal wheel (due wheel diameter / toe picks). As the Little Edger is mounted to the end of guide rails, you cannot grind whole blade with that. You cannot change the wheel rotation direction unless you are using frequency converter. Even thought some machines are rotating clockwise and some counter clockwise, I haven´t seen or heard from any skate sharpening machine where you could change the wheel rotation direction.
Quote from: Query on October 04, 2021, 11:43:44 AM
I wonder if anyone has ever tried to sharpen skates using a grinding wheel held by a lathe, with a vice mounted on the lathe axis. It would help if the vice could be finely adjusted across the axis, and rotated, then locked.
Using lathe sound so exotic that at least I cannot figure out how would you do it. I have thought several times if cheap CNC milling machines would be enough accurate so that sharpening s could be made with them. Could I keep the blade profile unchangeable or even make the my own profiles? If I would be millionaire, I would develop CNC grinder for skates.
Quote from: Query on October 04, 2021, 11:43:44 AM
Sharpening a knife (at an angle) on a flat grinding stone produces different edge shapes if you push into the stone than if you pull away from the stone.
I would say that phenomena what you described comes more from the operator than the grinding direction. Or alternatively I just don´t understand you description properly.
Quote from: Query on October 04, 2021, 11:43:44 AM
I read once that a lot of Europeans use cross grinding machines to sharpen skates.
Cross grinders are newer used for actual sharpening. ROH would be huge (flat) and blade where machining traces are perpendicularly to gliding direction would not glide so well. In hockey s cross grinders are used to blades profiling or to remove very bad nicks or gouges from the skates. Gross grinder is used for this purpose mainly because it removes material much more faster than if wheel spins parallel to the blade. After cross grinding hockey skates are sharpened normally. See this video => https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PuL5l9pXphk
Quote from: Kaitsu on October 04, 2021, 01:47:37 PM
I have thought several times if cheap CNC milling machines would be enough accurate so that sharpening s could be made with them. Could I keep the blade profile unchangeable or even make the my own profiles? If I would be millionaire, I would develop CNC grinder for skates.
Several companies - e.g., CAG already makes (semi-)automated profiling machines for skates. (CAG machines are most frequently used for hockey skates, but they advertise usage for figure skates too. I think many CAG machines are now computer controlled, and they have always allowed some types of customization.
Last I knew, Jackson Ultima (for Matrix blades), Paramount, and JW had advertised that they use laser cutting CNC techniques to shape the profile. Someone who used with water cutters told me they could probably do the job too. Unfortunately, laser cutters and water cutters with sufficient power aren't cheap enough for the average skater to buy. I'm not even sure your average pro shop could afford it.
Among other things, using a laser or water stream leaves the sides of the blade intact, because you don't scrape the sides of the blade against something - so you can keep a beautiful smooth surface finish.
You wouldn't really need a CNC grinder. Just create a form to guide the relationship between the blade and the cutting or grinding tool. To some extent they already exist - e.g., rocker bars. MK used to make a form that created their rocker profile, but no longer sells it. Anyway, part of the process of making a high quality skating blade is to "temper" (soften) the steel, the re-harden only the part closest to the edge, to fairly precise specs. The hardened edge helps sharpenings last longer, but the tempered part is (I think) needed so the blade doesn't break because it is too brittle to absorb shock. That isn't something a CNC grinder could do in of itself. Blades look really simple, something that you might think could be cut to form with a jig saw and guide, but maybe they are actually fairly difficult to make well.
Its quite obvious that all modern blade manufacturers are using laser to cut the blades from the bigger metal sheets. What happens after that is what matters for me. Wilson seem to use manually operated cross grinders or belt grinders to improve laser cut surface finish. No matter if we are talking about plasma, laser of water cutting, they never make perfect square cutting. Thicker the material is, bigger the deviation is. See example pictures from this page => https://www.hera.org.nz/quality-requirements-thermal-cutting/
Even the laser cutters are pretty accurate, I would claim that they cant beat CNC milling machines in accuracy. On top of that at least Wilson seems to make two manual grindings for the profile. This is the reason why profiles in the final products are not so precise. I have recently recorded video how Coronation Ace Lite profiles rocker radius looked after the factory sharpening. No matter if rocker radius would not be 100% perfect from the factory, its for sure that there is not such a person whom could improve the profile accuracy by manual grinding. More you grind the blade, more you will charge the profile from the original.
I do have templates to grind rocker radius but aligning the template and blade is real nightmare. I have done it only twice and in both times I saved the blades which deviations I was able to identify without any measuring devices. Deviation were so obvious. Even I have 7, 8, and 9 ft templates, I cannot use them for blade most important area. Even I would have accurate templates for whole profile, its not so simply to copy profile from them. Not at least if you want to be super accurate. Follower roller should be in same center point with wheel and its should have same diameter than grinding wheel. Other ways wheel and follower roller does not have same contact point.
Why I would like to use CNC machine instead of templates is that my "templates" would be digital. I would not need to order "hundreds" expensive templates. What comes to to GAC, I believe the marketing hype and reality are a bit different. In the time when I was looking new machine, I was looking also GAC. Their promo videos didn't convince me. In the other hand all I know about this machine is the videos seen on youtube.
Here is one example from the factory sharpening. This is presenting less or more the worst case situation, but hopefully gives clear impression why blades should be sharpened before taking them in use. https://www.dropbox.com/s/8xcg3dfexn0ijeh/Factory%20sharpening.jpg?dl=0
Really interesting, thanks for the plasma cutting attachment.
I see a lot of factory sharpenings that look almost okay (which is a better surface finish than our rink produces) but the edges are off level, usually in a parallel manner. I don't think they spend any time trying to center the ROH on the blade; they are just putting a groove in it.
Ultima blades are generally closer to level than Wilson or MK in my experience. SkateScience doesn't bother to put a radius on the blade at all. I think they correctly assume that if you are buying their blades, you understand that you need to have new blades sharpened. It does take significantly longer to do the first sharpening when the blade is flat, so I have come to appreciate the grove that the other manufacturers provide, even if it is off level.
One of the pieces of information that is included when you look at blades for sale is often ROH. I am mystified as to why the manufacturer claims the blade has an inherent ROH. I've had parents ask me if they should order a particular blade, it has a 7/16" ROH, is that okay for their skater? I just tell them to ignore the ROH because I will give the skater what they are used to skating on or adjust to a more favorable ROH if needed. Generally this is only necessary if the new blade is a different width, which changes their edge angle at the same ROH. If they are skidding on the new blades and they weren't on the old blades, we need to address it. Although from a skater's perspective, I think correcting the skidding with improved technique is often an opportunity that should be embraced to some extent. I've had a few skaters that want their blades really sharp all the time because it masks their unbalanced technique better. I can sharpen them every 2 weeks if they want, but I always emphasize that the blade life is going to be short. Of course they say it's fine...but then are in complete disbelief when I tell them that the blades are ready for replacement.
I have one adult skater who finds it very challenging to adjust to a fresh blade with the original profile after letting her blades get old and flatter. She says "promise me you will make me get new blades earlier next time", so I do as requested. A year later, she is still "almost ready" to get around to order new blades. I keep reminding her that she is making it harder on her future self, but of course she says that she is being kind to her present self by keeping the blade the same. "As soon as I get better at XXX we can change it" but then she never feels like she is enough better at XXX. Maybe she would be better at XXX with a blade with a new profile, I suggest. "Hahahaha" is the answer.
My new Little Edger is supposed to ship today or Monday, so maybe I can at least restore some shape to the front of her blades when it arrives. Fortunately I have dozens of old blades to practice with before I attempt to gently adjust a pair that is in actual use. Exciting and terrifying all at the same time.
I guess I am less picky than some of you. I skated fairly happily on (old style) Ultima Matrix blades with factory sharpenings. I found their edges far better, more consistent, and sharper than what the majority of pro shops could provide, including what very high end skate techs provided. (Though in fairness, I didn't realize that Mike Cunningham had to be asked for an extra sharp edge - he believed most skaters were better off with relatively dull edges, so that they wouldn't have to change the way they skated before and after sharpening.) For the most part, only a careful hand-sharpening seemed to do as well or better, from my perspective.
I guess part of the problem with using rocker bars is that you want the profile to have a continuous direction at points where the rocker curvature changes - e.g., for the tangential direction of the main rocker curve at the point of change to be the same as the tangential direction of the spin rocker curve at that point. Am I correct that CNC (computer controlled) cutting or routing machines can easily do that? (But that unfortunately such machines are pretty expensive, for the individual skater?)
I have seen CNC routers and CNC cutters that seem to shape wood pretty accurately. Perhaps the wood piece could be used as a guide for a conventional grinding machine, just like a rocker bar? Ideally, the sharpening machine would have a fence along which the CNC cut bar would slide with the skate clamp, and it would push in the blade by just the right amount.
Query, you need to remember that blade manufacturers has changed slightly their strategy from those times when Matrix runners were still replaceable. In the past blade manufacturers made quite deep hollows, at least based on their web pages. You could see on manufacturers technical data that ROH could be 3/8" or 7/16". Now-a-days most of the manufacturers makes ROH to be somewhere 9/16" - 5/8" and they don not even try to make sharp edges. There is two reason for this...I would say. Most important for them is cost saving. Another is that they believe that flat hollow extends blade lifetime. When the hollow is anyhow skater specific, hollow is made so flat that in theory skate tech should remove material just from the bottom of the hollow and not from the edges. Reality is anyhow that hardly ever the edges are even and typically edges are also dull or even rolled. Their nice idea to extend blade lifetime is ruined when they make edges to be uneven. I have to say that Ultima makes typically better quality on edges evenness than example Wilson.
Facts is that many things on figure skate´s sharpening is matter of opinions. Someone likes more flat hollows and some likes more deeper. Someone likes that hollow is deep, but blade is anyhow dull. Unfortunately skates techs does not have Chrystal ball which would tell what the skaters really wants to have. Often skates are just dropped with instruction that please sharpen them. Sometimes skaters might give some advice's, but still there is risk that you are talking about apple and skate tech believes you are talking about perry. Example I got call from one of my fried whom normally makes hockeys. Figure skate coach did bring him his skates and instruction was that deburring has to be made so that with the nail tests, blades should have same sharpness to both directions. ROH was not changed and in the deburring skate tech tried his best to make what was requested. When the Coach went into ice with sharpened blades, he said "These are way too sharp". I always say that good sharpening is result of co-operation of skater and skate tech.
Here is example from the Matrix Legacy at factory condition. https://www.dropbox.com/s/w989c2l9bhmoudv/Matrix%20grinding.pdf?dl=0
Its totally possible that someone likes this kind of blades. In that means skate techs may do wrong assumption by making sharpening in the way how she/he believes to be better for the skater.
Here is I possibly one example from such a skate tech assumption. Customer ordered new boot, blades and mounting for them but no sharpening. This is what they got. https://youtu.be/WUyeMs-Oyy4
I can guarantee that this is not factory sharpening. Its sad that this retailer seems either to try save some service time by making pre-sharpening for all blades on their stock or either they believe to make good customer service by sharpening blades without request. This same issue happens almost every time when people buy skates form this retailer. It happens even the customer specifically highlight that NO sharpening, meaning that do not touch my blades. It same as you would buy a brand new car and when you go to pick it, you will get car which paint surface is "polished" with sand paper and sales person saya that we only thought your best.
When I was ordering blades from different retailers, I made very clear that I will ship blades back to them if they are not in factory condition.
I didn't realize factory sharpenings were using larger ROH than they used to. Interesting. As far as I can tell, MK, JW, Ultima and Paramount no longer list factory ROHs.
ROH is only one component of skate sharpness - and not always the most important one.
I think effective "Sharpness" is mostly determined by how abruptly the cross-blade direction changes at the edges, and by whether the tip of the edge extends straight down. E.g., if you round off the edge after sharpening by stoning it at an angle (to "deburr" it), as most skate techs do, it won't act very sharp even if you use small ROH. And if the edge is bent sideways, it acts even less sharp.
Those of us who like "foil edges" can get very sharp blades even on speed skates, with no hollow curve (i.e., ROH=infinity).
(But foil edges are fragile, and don't last as long as less sharp edges. In fact
https://scienceofsharp.com/2015/01/13/what-is-a-burr-part-2/
which has beautiful micrographs of sharpened razor blades, treats foil edges as a defect to be removed. But I treat them on skates as the true edge that just need to be polished smooth, and bent to be vertical.)
Back to your original topic, I don't care much how blades look - but I think that smooth surface finishes, both below and on the sides, makes blades glide faster and longer. I don't know if there have been any scientific studies about that. But there have been many studies that show ships and boats with smooth finishes require much less energy to move. So military ship builders spend huge amounts of money to make ships smooth.
I'm not sure, but maybe smooth finishes glide more quietly on the ice too.
It is true that the way how you deburr the blade after grinding affects how the skates feels. More aggressive hand oil hone vs example fine grit oil hone and the angle how you hold the hand hone all affects. If you want to get ridiculous sharp skates you make deburring with Sweet-Stick or similar stick sharpener. I have seen also such a cases.
I would like to buy high quality microscope but 1000$ is way out of my hobby budget :)
Quote from: Kaitsu on October 30, 2021, 09:02:12 AM
I would like to buy high quality microscope but 1000$ is way out of my hobby budget :)
To match the "Science of Sharp" imagery, you would need a decent electron microscope - significantly over $1000. :) I suggested he create skate blade images, for blades sharpened in different ways. He said I would have to give him the blades, and pay a few hundred dollars. I'm not that curious.
The Science of Sharp guy didn't think optical microscopes could produce comparable imagery to an electron microscope - but it is possible something comparable could be done with a super-resolution optical microscope. The one my brother uses at Intel costs about $30,000,000. He also uses electron microscopes, which have comparable resolution (I guess they can see different details). Alas, I doubt Intel would be interested in examining skate blades - they are too busy trying to fill the demand for digital processors, and many people there already work 80 hours/week.
Quote from: Query on October 31, 2021, 09:28:00 PM
The Science of Sharp guy didn't think optical microscopes could produce comparable imagery to an electron microscope - but it is possible something comparable could be done with a super-resolution optical microscope. The one my brother uses at Intel costs about $30,000,000. He also uses electron microscopes, which have comparable resolution (I guess they can see different details).
Not sure I'm reading this right. Are you saying that your brother uses an
optical microscope that costs 30 million dollars? If so, what is it? [ETA: I thought you might be talking about the new generation of confocal microscopes. I checked those prices. A high-end unit is on the order of $500K. So I'm still curious as to what fetches $30M.]
If you look at a Wikipedia article
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Super-resolution_microscopy
you see that merely confocal microscopes are not at the top end in resolution. You need to use other things to see the effects of an out of place atom on electron band states that can mess up some semiconductor devices.
I don't have the exact reference or manufacturer handy, though another of my relatives works (in sales) at the company that produces it.
A "super-resolution" microscope is one in which one obtains a preliminary 3D shape model, then iterates the image processing by modeling defraction effects. That is iterated until, in this case, you obtain about 1/10 wavelength resolution, probably in the far ultraviolet. To some extent that is achieved by taking advantage of fluorescence effects. (I don't know how that helps. Perhaps since fluorescent photons are emitted from the surface itself, so don't have to go through as much diffraction. Also, such effects would be great for detecting band state energy changes, which lie at the heart of what makes solid state ICs work.) In principle a single atom out of place or of the wrong type (or even the wrong isotope, though that is partly because decay energies are enough to switch the state of small semiconductor devices) could mess up a small gate size semiconductor device. I don't recall the exact resolution, but I think it was well under 100 nm - I think they can sort of seethe effect of out of place atoms on electron band states. As with MRIs a lot of the cost is for the superomputing chips and the software that do the processing, combining information from multiple shots - and because few people buy these devices.
By the way, their electron microscope do destructive testing. The beams of electrons dissect the chip, stripping off layer by layer. They can reverse engineer competitive products, by seeing their exact structure. Though, if I remember right, that only had about a 100 nm resolution - but the processing was much faster than the highest resolution optical microscope. I used to know a grad student at the University of Maryland, who used the prototypes, developed by a professor there. I once saw an RFP for a $100,000,000 10 nm or better resolution microscope of the same type - possibly for use by people like the NSA. Don't know if it was ever filled, or what the current technology is. The NSA apparently has a significant amount of money to work with too.
My brother works in quality control. It is an area critical to the semiconductor industry. In particular, doing it "right" has allowed Intel to have a higher yield (% of successful devices) than competitors, and has put the, AFAIK, at the top of the CPU market, with AMD as their only real competitor in top end CPUs. (It helps that a new production line at the smallest gate sizes that are commercially practical runs about 10 billion USD - a serious barrier to entry that killed most of their competitors.) But Intel works everyone very hard, with very long hours. My brother is the oldest person at his plant that isn't in management. And, if my brother tells it right, they are viciously competitive, even to the point of some people trying to steal or undercut other people's work. Just about everyone else there who isn't a manager is in their 20's, who mostly come straight out of grad school. After they burn out, they move on to other companies - but having Intel on the resumes sounds good. Intel also has great pay, great health insurance, and some other great bennies- but because the workforce is so young, and doesn't stay long, they don't bother with a pension plan!
Personally I sleep too much to have ever worked 80 hour work weeks, so I could never have worked there, nor would I have wanted to. I think there would have been no time to skate or hike or ski or kayak. Yuk. But a lot of grad students in physics and engineering dream of working there.
This is way off-topic, BTW, but I think companies like Intel mostly don't push microscope technologies, in terms of resolution. (What does? See https://news.cornell.edu/stories/2021/05/cornell-researchers-see-atoms-record-resolution.) What they want are fast results, to keep very expensive production lines going with high yields. Also the $10 billion production plant figure I mentioned was a figure Intel has thrown about on public media in connection with next generation plants to reduce the ongoing chip shortage - and it is conceivable they hope to be subsidized by the U.S. government, and have padded that figure a bit to match that hope. I don't know if current generation plants are really that expensive.
I do not believe we need microscopes that cost millions of dollars to produce good ice skate sharpenings. I think we can mostly feel when we have edges that meet our needs. I'm also not sure if the extent to which skating is affected by surface finishes - either in the hollow, or on the sides - has been well established. I believe it is affected significantly, as I think does the o.p., but some people, including much better skaters than me, and including some professional skate techs, don't think surface finishes are all that important. Some skate techs don't even bother cleaning up the metal filings from their sharpening machines very often, and I think most don't use a lubricant or polish when they sharpen.
So my interest in looking at skate blade edges and finishes under a microscope is to some extent more a matter of curiosity than anything else. I was also trying to find an efficient way to teach beginning skate sharpeners. I thought being able to see the results of sharpening attempts, and matching them against good results, would help. I've so far only used an old rather low end CCD microscope, that I can only connect to an old computer. You can get that the modern equivalent type now for about $25. Much better ones exist, that would show much more, for as little as several times that. But I don't know how to actually translate what I would see under a microscope into how well the blade skates. E.g., is a somewhat ragged edge desirable to prevent skidding? I don't even know what optical resolution size is needed to see things that might affect skating, which makes it hard to decide what type of microscope would be needed.
I was talking more about this kind of "home microscopes". https://www.dinolite.us/en/products/digital-microscopes/usb/edge-series-all/am4517mztl (https://www.dinolite.us/en/products/digital-microscopes/usb/edge-series-all/am4517mztl) and Query dives directly to scanning electron microscope (SEM) type of microscopes which are used example to investigate metals micro structure, chemical structure and nano level of photographing. They are nice equipment's and it would be interesting to investigate why some blades are much harder that the others...even they are presenting same brand and model. But if we land back to reality, this video is presenting the microscopy level what I would like to reach https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJT5BVt7c5c (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QJT5BVt7c5c)
For example, see timeline 3:50 - 4:15
I'm not certain, but I think you could get the level of photographic detail in that video with a $50 USB microscope, or possibly a $100 microscope.
I don't know why, but something is missing from the Dinolite product specifications: the real (not interpolated and/or digitally edge enhanced) source pixel size, and the optical resolution. Without those, you don't know how much detail you can see. I have been guessing that I want want both to be no larger than 1 micron, maybe .1 micron, for ice skates - but I'm really not sure. Unfortunately, a lot of microscope providers don't list these things - but the Dinolite product is expensive enough you would hope to know them.
Some people instead list "magnification". But magnification depends partly on the size of the display screen, not just the size of the source pixels, so you don't know how small the details are that you can see.
Also, that microscope only provides 1280x960 pixels. (I don't know if that is an interpolated size. And to add complexity, most CCD cameras have a "color mask" - e.g. some source pixels might be red, some green, some blue. Software then tries to guess how to interpolate and extrapolate that to red, green and blue values at every pixel, much like is done on low to moderate price consumer market cameras.) But assume you can adjust and focus it to have about 1000 true pixels across a .15 inch thickness ice skate blade, which you probably can't quite manage. That gives you a pixel size of about .00015 inches - or about 3.81 microns. Maybe, by the time you are done, about 5 micron optical resolution?? Not great.
But I don't know if it is good enough for skate blades...
Celestron makes a number of USB microscopes at an intermediate (non-professional) level, that many online reviews have rated well, though they are more expensive than what I suggested. Some can be bought used - though you have to be careful - some older USB microscopes or their software are designed to import images only to old (e.g. Windows XP) computers. I'm sure there are other reasonably good brands too.
The knife edges shown in that video might not be what you want on skate blades. You don't want to cut hair (a fairly hard substance at a microscopic level) with virtually no effort - you only want to sink into soft ice just enough to prevent skidding, but not so far that it slows the glide much. So you don't want the narrow edge angles on that knife - you want edge angles that are almost 90 degrees wide, perhaps augmented by a foil edge - see below.
As I said before, I do like relatively sharp skate blades. The burrs the person on the video want to remove, is what I want to keep, on my skates. I just want those burrs to be more uniform along the whole edge, and to be polished and straightened into a thin plane. That is a "foil edge". Those foil edges, I think, sink into the ice, about up to their length, preventing cross-blade skidding, but are too thin and short to slow the glide much. (Foil edges mostly aren't rugged enough to cut hair, metal, or to some extant, hardwood. They don't have to be, on skates.) Such foil edges stop skids even on fairly rough ice, because they cut through the poor ice on top, whereas an edge formed just by the intersection of a hollow arc with the side of the blade sometimes doesn't, especially if that intersection is "deburred", i.e., deliberately blunted.
I do already have 30$ USB microscope and I am not happy for it. As Query already referred, still pictures they can take are often with very low pixels. I am a bit scared that Dinolite´s 1000$ microscope does not provide any better image quality.
There are two things what I would like to see more clearly than with normal digital camera.
1. When removing the burs, I have noted that I will turn burr easily to hollow side and not actually removing it. I would like to see the same what I can feel with my fingers.
2. I would like to see what happens for grinding traces and edges if I try to polish hollow with hand honing. So far my polishing trial has mainly made edges dull.
Here is example from the blade where I made hand polishing with PBHE 15 microns root radius hone. I got some steel dust in to the white table, but its almost impossible to see any difference between the power grind and hand honed blades. At least with my eyes. Blades in the picture are exactly same. One picture presents situation before polishing and another after polishing.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/qrmotqab2odbs5n/Which%20one%20is%20honed.jpg?dl=0
It's almost impossible not to hit the edges a little bit with the radius-honing tool. Maybe there is a way to mount it to the IE to use the guidance rails for a final plush of the radius? It would need to be something that could clamp on in exact alignment with the grinding wheels, and then the blade would already be perfectly aligned with it.
Quote from: Kaitsu on December 06, 2021, 04:56:42 AM
I do already have 30$ USB microscope and I am not happy for it. As Query already referred, still pictures they can take are often with very low pixels. I am a bit scared that Dinolite´s 1000$ microscope does not provide any better image quality...
Your posts have pretty good image quality, though they aren't super-high detail. The camera built into my smartphone can't do nearly that well, partly because it doesn't focus very close.
What type of camera did you use for those pictures? Did you use a macro lens? Or were the pictures you posted made with your USB microscope?
To a very crude approximation, the size of detail you can see is inverse to the distance at which you can focus. You could order glasses that let you focus very close - e.g., the prescription where you add enough to get a spherical correction of +12.00, the highest correction that Zenni Optical, a discount glasses provider, will provide. For me that would focus at about 2". I thought about that when I ordered my last set of glasses. That won't help you take pictures, but you can see more than with normal distance glasses. I didn't do that - the closest I ordered was for 8" - which is certainly better than longer distance glasses, but not as short as I should have ordered for maximum detail.
One issue, with any microscope, is that you need a way to hold the microscope still relative to the blade, so you don't get motion blurring. And it should be at the optimal distance from the blade, so it is in perfect focus. You may also want to play with the lighting angle, and maybe even to play with polarization, to enhance contrast. I don't know whether a color filter would also affect image clarity much. But if you can increase depth of field - by using a smaller aperture (which needs a longer exposure), that might help you get a good clear image. But you sound pretty technical, so you probably know all that.
Quote from: Query on December 08, 2021, 08:32:50 PM
What type of camera did you use for those pictures? Did you use a macro lens? Or were the pictures you posted made with your USB microscope?
Photos are taken with Samsung S7 and S20 without any additional macro lenses.
I really am not an expert on adjusting exposures etc. I know their principles, but I have been too lacy to play more with them. Manual focus is mainly what I use. As you said, photography is playing with lightning and view angles. Its interesting to see how much you can change the photo just by finding correct view angle and lightning. Sometimes it takes long time and several trials to get good photo. For this reason I have couple thousands photos just from the skate blades.
Quote from: Query on December 08, 2021, 08:32:50 PM
One issue, with any microscope, is that you need a way to hold the microscope still relative to the blade, so you don't get motion blurring.
You are absolutely right. More you magnify, more stable the camera has to stay as it magnifies all your tiniest movements. In my cell phone I use always timer to avoid shaking while it takes photo. Another issue on microscopes is that its much more difficult to change view angle and shiny steel does not make things any easier. Even you can adjust the USB microscopes lighting, its causes still lots of problems. Often they also magnify way too much.
Here are some example photos from the same damaged area on the blade:
https://www.dropbox.com/s/guyvn9uwlkycoin/1.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19h5xuhp6qbctdb/2.jpg?dl=0
https://www.dropbox.com/s/19h5xuhp6qbctdb/2.jpg?dl=0
I probably have change to test Dinolite 5 Megapixel USB microscope at January (2022). I will post test pictures if I get that change.
I find it very difficult to get good images of blades. I think lighting is a huge proble, particularly with the reflection off the steel. You need just the right angle to reveal chatter and texture. At this point, I'm using old blades as test cases, writing the info on the diff with a sharpie, and saving them for comparison, because the photos aren't an adequate representation of the finish I'm getting.
Maybe we should start a thread on photo tips for blades?
Some new invention. I am a bit skeptic how well this really works. I believe it will not polish the edges which are actually used. Polishing the areas which does not even contact to ice does not make sense. If they are able to polish edges, they must have genius invention not to round the edges while polishing. My assumption is that this may work on hockey skates with very flat hollows.
I have sent them some questions, but they never replied to me. Perhaps I asked too difficult questions when I requested high quality pictures from the polished figure skate blades and explanation how they prevent rounding of the edges. I asked also price. Rumors says that this device costs several thousands $.
https://diamond-sharp.com/en/diamond-sharp-en/
https://youtu.be/o7ece2JuZV0
"Thanks to better edge guidance, gliding on the ice is much more efficient and stronger than with a standard ice skate."
It looks like pretty standard "edge guidance" when you watch the video. I would love to hear their explanation.
I confess I don't understand Russian (if that is what it is), so I don't know what they are saying.
If they polish too much, they will create a significantly thinner blade. Presumably the blade is designed the way it is, with a specific thickness, in order to skate in a specific way. Perhaps some might not like the thinner blade. I wonder if they remove too much?
I didn't see the second video the first time I looked at Kaitsu's post about the Diamond Sharp.
The skate tech never checked to see where the wheel was hitting the blade, never checked for level...I am not favorably impressed. I'm still curious about how they get that finish, but I definitely do not want that guy near any of my skates.
Quote from: Kaitsu on February 21, 2022, 01:13:11 PM
Some new invention. I am a bit skeptic how well this really works. I believe it will not polish the edges which are actually used. Polishing the areas which does not even contact to ice does not make sense. If they are able to polish edges, they must have genius invention not to round the edges while polishing. My assumption is that this may work on hockey skates with very flat hollows.
I have sent them some questions, but they never replied to me. Perhaps I asked too difficult questions when I requested high quality pictures from the polished figure skate blades and explanation how they prevent rounding of the edges. I asked also price. Rumors says that this device costs several thousands $.
https://diamond-sharp.com/en/diamond-sharp-en/
https://youtu.be/o7ece2JuZV0
* According to their website (https://diamond-sharp.com/en/diamond-sharp-en/): "With the
patented Mirror Sharp polishing machine, we have started a revolution in grinding." <<Emphasis added.>> The principals in the company are listed as Carsten Brunet and Markus Lausberg. Since the website proudly boasts, "Diamond Sharp - Mirror Sharp: The Revolution Made in
Germany" <<Emphasis added.>>, I searched the patent database of the European Patent Organization (EPO). I searched under each principal's name separately and came up with this one relevant result: https://worldwide.espacenet.com/patent/search/family/073198196/publication/EP3819081A1?q=pn%3DEP3819081A1. They have filed patent applications with the German Patent and Trademark Office and with the EPO. Neither application has issued as a patent; they are both pending, according to the information on the EPO site as of this date.
* The applications are in German. My German is really rusty, so I punted to the English machine translation provided by the EPO (machine translations to other European languages are provided as well). This is purely a goodwill service for convenience of patent searchers,
not an official translation.
* Here are the English machine translations of the first three claims from the EPO published application:
1.
Transportable device (1) for processing a surface (2), in particular the running surface, comprising a blade (3), in particular an ice skate blade an electric drive, arranged in a housing (4) designed in particular as a portable and/or rollable case, for rotating a surface treatment agent (5) mounted rotatably in the housing (4) and designed as a polishing wheel
and a control device (11) arranged in the housing (4) and having actuating means for controlling the drive of the surface treatment means (5),
characterized in that the surface treatment means (5) has a treatment zone (17) in the area of the circumference, which comprises a cross-sectional area with a slope and/or a taper (20) and/or a chamfer and/or a rounding (21).
2.
Device (1) according to Claim 1, characterized in that the surface treatment agent (5) comprises a textile fiber material such as felt, in particular containing wax and/or a diamond additive, such as diamond dust, or made of textile fiber material such as felt, in particular containing wax is formed.
3.
Device (1) according to Claim 1 or 2, characterized in that the processing zone (17) of the surface processing means (5) is slightly narrower than the width of the runner or than the distance between the runner edges (26), so that during the surface processing of the runner (3) the edges (26) of the runner (3) remain unprocessed.
* My summary of key points. The independent claim 1 (broadest scope claim) does not place any limitation on whether or not the edges are polished. The dependent claim 3 (narrower scope) specifies the thickness of the polishing wheel to be narrower than the distance between the inside and outside edges of the blade such that the edges are
not polished. The dependent claim 2 (narrower scope) specifies a polishing wheel made at least in part of textile fibers, such as felt. The felt is treated with wax, diamond abrasive, or a combination of wax and diamond abrasive.
* When I have time, I'll read through the entire application to see whether they discuss polishing the edges themselves. But I agree that polishing
only surfaces that do
not contact the surface of the ice is a waste of time.
ETA1: I've read through the application. They do not address polishing the edges. On the contrary, they claim that it's preferable
not to polish the edges such that they stay sharp. English machine translation of Paragraph [0042] of the Description:
[0042]
A lateral view of the polishing wheel 5 resting on the skid 3 can be seen in Fig.
2C can be removed.
During the machining of the runner surface 2, the disk 5 rotates at at least 3,000 rpm, and the runner 3 is guided along the polishing disk 5 in a horizontal direction, preferably in the opposite direction, i. H. so that processing zone 17 and skid 3 have opposite directions of movement during processing.
A polishing paste 22 can be used between the runner 3 and the disk 5 .
A particularly good result in the surface treatment of the runner 3 is achieved when the polishing wheel 5 is a little narrower than the distance between the runner edges 26.The effect of this is that the runner edges 26 are not processed during the finishing process, the edges 26 thereby remain "sharp" and the runner 3 becomes "more sharp-edged". <<Emphasis added. Not clear to me what "more sharp-edged" means. That could be a machine translation issue. I'll check the original when I have time. ETA2: Yep, the runner is sharper if you choose not to dull the edges by polishing them. Imagine that!!!>>
This measure means that the runner 3 has better gliding properties with regard to cornering stability and/or changes in direction or load.
Quote from: Query on February 21, 2022, 09:43:16 PM
I confess I don't understand Russian (if that is what it is), so I don't know what they are saying.
If they polish too much, they will create a significantly thinner blade. Presumably the blade is designed the way it is, with a specific thickness, in order to skate in a specific way. Perhaps some might not like the thinner blade. I wonder if they remove too much?
?? The device polishes the surface of the hollow. How does that affect the thickness of the blade? Here, I'm using the common convention for "thickness" as the distance between the inside and outside edges. Are you using "thickness" to refer to some other parameter?
Excellent research, tstop4me! Very interesting and quite puzzling as to why so much effort is made to have a mirror-smooth hollow.
Quote from: supersharp on February 22, 2022, 11:54:00 AM
Excellent research, tstop4me! Very interesting and quite puzzling as to why so much effort is made to have a mirror-smooth hollow.
Yeah, no reference to any supporting technical data (not required in a patent application). Just this brief, unsubstantiated statement in Par. [003] of the Description:
"A highly polished running surface of the runner has a reflective shine and a correspondingly smooth (running) surface. The runner with finish processing has better running and gliding properties and thanks to the features of the device described herein, these improved surface properties of the runner compared to the prior art can also be reproduced at any time at the place of use of the runner."
Makes no sense to me. And even if it did, I wonder what the price of their dedicated polisher is vs. the price of another sharpening station outfitted with a polishing wheel (assuming you don't want to swap grinding wheels and polishing wheels on a single station).
I definitely would not want to be switching grinding wheels to polish unless I had a second setup. And even with that, if the alignment of the second grinder was not identical, you would risk affecting the edges, and would have to go back to your primary grinder. You would have to exactly measure the ROH in order to duplicate it on the second machine, and getting the blade lined up perfectly centered...sounds like a lot of room for disasters.
I've been trying to come up with a system for aligning and controlling hand tools so I can use them as a final polishing step, but all my ideas so far don't quite work. I'm happy with the final product of the grinder, but of course I am always striving to make it even better. At this point, doing a very slow, careful final pass on the grinder is producing the best overall product so the only hand-work I do is de-burring of the edges. Hand polishing after machine grinding creates an even smoother final finish, but it can't be controlled adequately, so it reduces the perfect centering of the hollow...so the blade is smoother but has worse geometry.
I've skated on both versions (grind only vs grind and follow with hand tools) and the machine grind geometry gives a better skating experience than the smoother but less consistently shaped hand tool polishing. And ultimately, that is the final test.
I did indeed assume the surface finish was on the sides of the blade. Oops.
BTW I've known some very good skate techs who sometimes did use a second (fine grain) wheel, after doing a rough cut with a coarse grain wheel.
The point is: the real edge is created by the fine wheel. The coarse wheel is just used to make major shape changes - e.g., if the blade hasn't been sharpened in a long time, or it is desired to alter the rocker profile.
Quote from: Kaitsu on December 11, 2021, 10:18:36 AM
I probably have change to test Dinolite 5 Megapixel USB microscope at January (2022). I will post test pictures if I get that change.
Delivery of microscope took a bit longer than I thought, but here are now the very first test pictures taken with Dino-Lite AM7915MZT and using Extended Dynamic Range (EDR). Used stand was RK-10.
https://www.dino-lite.com/products_detail.php?index_id=130
https://www.dino-lite.com/products_detail.php?index_m1_id=4&index_m2_id=6&index_id=18
Pictures are taken from the blade which I have used in 20 pass test.
That does a nice job. It looks like a big step to standardize your photos for sharpening comparisons.
Pictures look pretty sharp, for the picture size - which is 150x112 pixels.
As a curiosity, can you increase the resolution, and create a higher JPEG quality, or an uncompressed original, or are those fixed?
Query - click on the photos to see an enlarged version. They are way above 150x112 pixels when you click on them.
Nice optics! Based on the bottom edge on the bottom photo, the resolution is fairly close to diffraction limits - unless the ringing effect is produced by a digital sharpening algorithm.
Regardless, I bet this is much better than you need to see sharpening defects that significantly affect skating.
I'm jealous.
Nice photos! This will be such a good tool for comparison. I want one!
Did you do any edge honing or wiping with a towel before these photos? I'm curious about what the burrs look like. I can usually see some with no magnification, but have never seen a good view of them with a microscope.
Now I'm trying to come up with justification for this being a defensible work expense, haha.
I also want to add my compliments for such a beautiful intersection of cross-grinding and sharpening. I might print that and hang it in my workshop for inspiration.
Quote from: supersharp on March 18, 2022, 03:37:18 PM
Now I'm trying to come up with justification for this being a defensible work expense, haha.
Such pictures would make a great ad - if you wanted more sharpening business.
But since I think you said you don't, maybe it would be a great ad for a class on sharpening their own offered to your sharpening customers, so they use you less.
If you were closer to my location, I would love to take such a class myself.
I have not done any edge honing but I have wiped blade with a towel.
Microscope is not mine, so in that means there is no reason to be jealous. Luckily I have access to this device since I would not use so much money to this device just due the skates. It provides quite nice photo quality, but still I feel its too expensive compared to needs what I have or where it can be used in skates sharpening. Most of the cases my phone camera provides enough good photo quality when I want to explain something for the skate owners. Here is link to photo which is taken with cell phone form the same blade. https://www.dropbox.com/s/la6l9ykqcb3sggh/Samsung%20S20.jpg?dl=0
I didn't have so much time to play with this microscope, but based on my experiences, its extremely difficult to get grinding burrs into photos. I would like to see them, but practice has shown that they are much more easier to feel than see. Example this photographed blade does have clear grinding burr, but I could not get in to photos. However I will still try that in better time, since I would like to have such a picture to my training material. Attached couple other photos which shows that its hard to judge what you actually see on them.
I have planned to photograph also some grinding wheels to see their grit composition, just for curiosity. I agree the statement what was mentioned in video what Bill shared that more coarse wheel does not automatically mean more coarse surface finish. My plan is to study also this during this year with measuring actual surface roughness values. Due the hollowed shape, this is not anyhow simple task and requires special device. Surface roughness measurement from the flat surfaces I could do any day without any problems.
Your cell phone produces a pretty good image - probably good enough.
You must have a phone camera with very good, consistent close focusing. Mine can't do that.
Or do you use one of the clip-on microscopes or clip-on macro lenses that attach to cell phones? Some are pretty cheap, and I've thought of buying one. I've wondered if they work well enough, and whether they even could work, with the auto-focusing built into particular phone cameras.
I've had trouble imaging burrs too. You need to get just the right angle and distance.
I think part of the problem is that most optical microscopes have very poor depth of field. I.E., you need to be at exactly the right distance to be in focus. So My best attempts have only shown a tiny portion of the blade edge. I think I would love the 25-30x surgical microscope/telescopes some surgeons attach to their glasses, or wear as prescription glasses - but they cost at least a few hundred U.S. dollars, and the best cost more, so a surgeon said.
Someone told me that professional grade "inspection" microscopes sometimes have a larger depth of field - but are also quite expensive.
I've mentioned that I recently bought mail order eyeglasses from Zenni Optical for which I modified my prescription to focus best at 8 inches. That lets me see details better than my usual reading glasses, but I think I should have modified it to focus at about 2 inches to see even more detail. The problem is, they only sell strong prescriptions like that in lens materials that are a good deal more expensive than their usual lenses. Perhaps because they need a high index of refraction to reduce the distortion that a thick lens creates? And of course, it would be hard to take a good picture one could post on this forum through eyeglasses. And I'm not sure I could use eyeglasses that focus that close, because my two eyes would need to look in different directions to see on the same thing.
Quote from: Query on March 20, 2022, 10:23:00 AM
Do you use one of the clip-on microscopes or clip-on macro lenses that attach to cell phones?
No, I do not use any clip-on macro lenses. Tripod or steady hands, manual focus and correct lightning are enough to get pretty nice photos also with my cell phone.
As promised, I took some microscope photos from the grinding wheels what I had easily available. I recommend to download the photo, so that you can zoom in.
Here is link to photo which is 10mb => https://www.dropbox.com/s/yl7vdsqh91co1ae/Wheels%20structure.jpg?dl=0
I have to say that this microscope is really nice tool, but unfortunate expensive.
This verifies my expectation that the Blademaster ruby wheel is finer than the ICE fine. It creates a nicer surface finish on my machine, as long as it is balanced. Otherwise, there is too much chatter and the final product is worse instead of better.
I notice what might be a semi-periodic pattern in the some of the pictures of the hollow, such as Katsu's "Hollow lashes or burr" image.
If you had to guess, is that a result of the way the abrasive grains are attached to the surface, or does the dressing device bounce as it dresses the grinding wheel? In the latter case, is there a way to eliminate the bounce, to create an even smoother surface?
Or am I wrong, and there really isn't a periodic pattern?
Quote from: Query on March 26, 2022, 12:30:48 PM
I notice what might be a semi-periodic pattern in the some of the pictures of the hollow, such as Kaitsu's "Hollow lashes or burr" image.Or am I wrong, and there really isn't a periodic pattern?
Yes, there is kind of snake skin pattern which comes visible with camera or microscope. Surface which looks almost mirror finish by eye isn't anymore so shiny when you use enough high magnification. If you wonder how much this kind chatter pattern affects to the blade gliding properties, try to imagine same magnificated picture from the blade which looks terrible already by eye. As you can see from the linked picture, also different view angles changes quite a lot how camera lens sees details. I need to warn that file size is quite big.
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0ogf8oqyurd2mcq/Surfcase%20comparison.jpg?dl=0
Quote from: Query on March 26, 2022, 12:30:48 PM
Is there a way to eliminate the bounce, to create an even smoother surface?
If someone else than Query has some ideas how to get rid of this bounce, chatter, snake skin pattern or what ever it is wanted to be called, please share your ideas.
One solution would be use more coarse wheel, but that is not option is my case. In my opinion it would be just problem hiding. If I would like just to hide this issue from the camera lens, I could use some acid to make surface to be matt. Some kind of hand polishing is I guess needed, but how to make it without ruining just sharpened edges?
We need a way to mount a hand-polishing cylinder in exact alignment with the grinding wheel, so we can use the skate holder to guide the blade along the exact pathway the machine takes. If this could be reliably lined up, I think we could get a superior finish, but I'm not sure if the skater would be able to notice the improvement. On compulsory figures, it would probably have been worth it. Possibly not important for freestyle.
I would love to have those Matrix blades with replaceable runners just to be able to test a variety of different treatments on the runners. Then you could change runners on one boot and see side-by-side if you feel any difference. I guess I need to win the lottery to fund my skate sharpening research...except that I don't buy tickets (the only lottery we have in Alaska is the Nenana Ice Classic, once a year: https://www.nenanaakiceclassic.com/ which I also usually fail to remember to enter).
We have no compelling reason at this time to assume that such very small differences in abrasion patterns - which are dominated by along track scratches - even matter. E.g., that they create significantly different drag, along track, or cross track, or other effects.
I suppose you could even argue that the scratches increase surface area, so pressure is decreased. Ice physics seems to be a very complicated field, with relatively poor numerical models, including some arbitrary parameters. Some empirical literature in ice physics have shown that effective friction goes down when pressure decreases, but I'm not sure of the details. But if were true with constant weight (which I'm not sure of - maybe it is only true with constant area), the friction with along-track blade scratches might actually go down slightly, as completely unintuitive as that would be. I don't think we can know without actual measurements. And it probably isn't worth the effort, because ordinary skate techs don't go to the amount of work to create smooth surfaces that you guys are putting into this.
Or maybe the dominant effect would be to slightly increase cross-track friction, which might be a good thing, because it lets you push against the ice better. After all, increasing cross-track friction is the major point of having edges in the first place.
Or maybe the dominant effect would depend a lot on ice temperature and surface texture, the composition of the blades and the water used to make the ice, the skater's weight and skating style, or what trick the skater is performing.
Sid Broadbent has a picture of a fancy jig on a lever arm, forcing a skate to move along a circular path across the ice. I don't know what he actually did with it, but I suppose he could have measured drag. Such a device could in theory be used to measure how various surface finish artifacts affect skating. Even if one did that, that is a pretty crude model of what happens during figure skating, which is a lot more complicated than gliding in a circle.
There have been a lot of attempts to sell people proprietary technologies to decrease friction in hockey skates. E.g., there have been attempts to heat blades, and there are the flat bottom V sharpening techniques. People give away the equipment to professional hockey teams, who maybe try them out. If what someone who used to work for such a team told me is correct, the professional teams usually drop them after a brief trial, but the advertisers still use their trial for advertising purposes, and don't mention that the technology is no longer in use by a significant number of professional players.
It seems to me that after a while, one should have some degree of skepticism about things that sound good, but might be insignificant or even counterproductive.
As far as how the blades look, it seems unlikely that spectators in the stands can see such minor imperfections in the hollow of the blade.
This is how blades looks after ~60-70 hours of skating. Very typical example. Remember to pay attention to your skate guards cleanliness and choose wisely!
Wow, that picture is amazing. I sound like a broken record(oops I guess that dates me, haha) because I'm constantly telling skaters to clean their guards and to replace them periodically when they have a lot of grit embedded in them...I'm going to show this photo to everyone that complains from now on.
This weekend, I bought a "corner grout cleaning" scrub brush at Ikea. The bristles are angled and I think they'll work for cleaning out guards.
https://www.ikea.com/us/en/p/pepprig-scrubbing-brush-for-corners-70499538/
j'ai un client qui était rectifieur /usineur (j'espere que cela traduit bien!)
il pense beaucoup que de polir avec une meule un peu comme celle là (après avoir affuter bien sur) rendrait super brillant la zonz affutée.
J'ai bien envie d'essayer. Pensez vous que cela pourrait être un secret de finition optimale?
I have a client who was a rectifier / machinist (I hope that translates well!)
he really thinks that polishing with a wheel a bit like this one (after having sharpened of course) would make the sharpened zonz super shiny.
I really want to try. Do you think this could be a secret to an optimal finish?
https://www.mototacot.fr/2842-414-kit-polissage-pour-l-inox.html
As English in not my home langue, I have sometimes difficulties to understand clearly the difference between buffing and polishing. I guess buffing means polishing with felt wheel (more harder) and polishing is made with cloth wheel (very soft wheel). https://www.cmpionline.com/polishing-vs-buffing-the-differences
Nevertheless, Blademaster is selling 3" buffing wheels for blades polishing. They promise following... "Gives a high sheen to the hollow of the blade without disturbing the skate edges".
https://blademaster.com/web/en/figure-skate-sharpening/2-3bw.html
I have always claimed to my selves and others how buffing wheel just rounds the edges. This even I have never even tried buffing wheel and even one of our ex coach said that one his coach in Canada was using buffing wheel. He said that skates did feel incredible good after the buffing. Since he moved back to Europe, no-one has ever been able to get same feeling to his skates anymore.
What an idiot I have been all these years when I have tried all kind of silly things to polish the hollow. I have tried diamond paste, tooth paste, ski waxes, universal stone and so-one, but I have never tried buffing wheel. This just and only because I believed to know how buffing wheel ruins my sharp edges. Thanks to Marc, today I decided to proof how buffing just ruins the edges. I took my metal buffing set, battery drill and started to polish the blade hollow just by hand held. Surprisingly I didn't destroy the edges in seconds like I expected to happen. Actually I could see clear improvement on surface finish.
My buffing wheel was used and it had already some metal polishing wax which is hard to remove. Wheel was also meant for power drill so it was way too big to my sharpening machine. Preliminary results were anyhow so promising, that I decided to take my bicycle and go to local tool store to buy first 3" buffing wheel what I can just find. It was made for the wood polishing and not for the steel. Probably due this, it was maybe even too soft even it was felt wheel. As it did cost only 3€ / 3$, I decided to try it. I have to say that I was amazed. I was really able to improve hollow surface finish without ruining the edges. Or at least this was the first impression when I tried the edges with my finger. Next step is that I need to find some volunteer whom is willing to test polished blades with the risk that I need to grind them again after the test. Maybe Supersharp is one volunteer even we are living in different side of globe :)
It is for sure that I will order soonest buffing wheels from the Blademaster so that I can compare different buffing wheels. I will publish some video from my very first test during the weekend. Today I am too tired to start editing / uploading video to Youtube. Stay tuned on Youtube.
Marc, many thanks for challenging me!
kaitsu,
je suis ému de lire ton commentaire au point d'en verser une larme.
Cette idée m'est venu de ce client qui par 2 fois m'a parler de polir avec une meule buffing ou polisching avec de la pate de diamant.
je ne te voyais pas commenter mon post et je ne sais pas pourquoi, je pensais que tu aller essayer une meule à polir.
Mon gros problème était de trouver la bonne meule et grâce à toi je pense vraiment qu'il faut acheter la meule blademaster ( et ce qui me gêne c'est que je crois ne pas trouver cette meule en France!!)
Mon client m'a assurer que cela ne devait pas abimer les 'edges' et il me l'a répeter plusieurs fois et même assurer.
Il y a un petit mois de cela, à la patinoire du stage de ma petite fille, j'ai fait connaissance d'un affuteur de patin de hockey qui me disait qu'au Canada ( équipe au plus haut niveau certainement) il polissait avec une meule blademaster mais je n'avais pas trouver la référence!
tout fini par se croiser ici et j'espère que nous allons faire une sacrée avancée dans la finition.
Je pense que Kaitsu, tu es le maître de l'affutage et tu nous le prouve par le post précédent et j'attens avant impatiente les prochains.
Je suis persuadé que tu doit arriver à la perfection.
Au plus vite!!!
kaitsu,
I am moved to read your comment to the point of shedding a tear.
This idea came to me from this client who twice told me about polishing with a buffing wheel or polishing with diamond paste.
I didn't see you commenting on my post and I don't know why, I thought you were going to try a polishing wheel.
My big problem was to find the right wheel and thanks to you I really think you should buy the blademaster wheel (and what bothers me is that I don't think I can find this wheel in France!!)
My client assured me that this should not damage the 'edges' and he repeated it to me several times and even belayed.
A month ago, at the ice rink where my granddaughter was training, I met a hockey skate sharpener who told me that in Canada (certainly the highest level team) he polished with a blademaster grinding wheel but I couldn't find the reference!
it all ends up coming together here and hopefully we'll make a big leap in finishing.
I think Kaitsu, you are the master of sharpening and you prove it to us by the previous post and I'm waiting impatiently for the next ones.
I am convinced that you must arrive at perfection.
As quickly as possible!!!
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 09, 2022, 02:23:04 PM
As English in not my home langue, I have sometimes difficulties to understand clearly the difference between buffing and polishing. I guess buffing means polishing with felt wheel (more harder) and polishing is made with cloth wheel (very soft wheel). https://www.cmpionline.com/polishing-vs-buffing-the-differences
The source you cited distinguishes between "polishing" and "buffing" as follows: In polishing, the abrasive particles are bound to a backing material; e.g., consider sandpaper or an abrasive wheel (such as on your sharpener). In buffing, the abrasive particles are loose and applied to a pad; typically, a liquid carrier (such as water) is used. The size of the abrasive particles used in buffing is also less than the size of the abrasive particles used in polishing.
These definitions are not universal, however. I was once trained in metallography. When preparing samples for microscopic examination, the final stages typically involved polishing the surfaces of the samples. A common apparatus is a rotary polisher. A rotating platen is covered with a polishing pad (fabricated from a variety of materials, depending on the application). And a slurry of abrasive particles in liquid (typically water, but sometimes not) is dripped onto the polishing pad. For routine examinations, the final abrasive is frequently Linde B, an aluminum oxide abrasive with a particle size on the order of 0.05 micron. That's damn fine; and we still called it "polishing".
I later went onto R&D work for even finer surface preparation of semiconductor wafers. We used rotary polishers, polishing pads, and liquid-based polishing agents. We still called it "polishing".
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 09, 2022, 02:23:04 PM
Nevertheless, Blademaster is selling 3" buffing wheels for blades polishing. They promise following... "Gives a high sheen to the hollow of the blade without disturbing the skate edges".
https://blademaster.com/web/en/figure-skate-sharpening/2-3bw.html
I don't get this. You skate on the edges, not the hollow. [Likely Query will inject himself here and point out that if the ice is very soft (such as in an indoor rink with a defective chiller, or in an outdoor rink during warm weather), you
will skate on the hollow. To which I will respond: "If you're skating on slush, the surface finish of your hollow should be waaay down on your list of concerns."] If you skate on a flat and look at the tracing on the ice, you will notice two thin lines spaced apart: an inside edge and an outside edge, not one thick line with the thickness of the blade. Even with a deep single edge, the thickness of the line does not approach the thickness of the blade.
Let's put aside the semantic difference between polishing and buffing. For simplicity, I'll use "polishing" (for reasons I explained above). The purpose of polishing should not be to improve the surface finish of the hollow
per se, but to improve the surface finish of the edges, which of course includes the peripheral regions of the hollow that form the interior surfaces of the edges. There's no point in merely polishing the bottom of the hollow for cosmetic reasons. Polishing the hollow should, of course, not degrade the edges. But to have value, it should disturb the edges; i.e., improve the surface finish of the edges.
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 09, 2022, 02:23:04 PM
As English in not my home langue, I have sometimes difficulties to understand clearly the difference between buffing and polishing. I guess buffing means polishing with felt wheel (more harder) and polishing is made with cloth wheel (very soft wheel). https://www.cmpionline.com/polishing-vs-buffing-the-differences
Maybe Supersharp is one volunteer even we are living in different side of globe :)
It is for sure that I will order soonest buffing wheels from the Blademaster so that I can compare different buffing wheels. I will publish some video from my very first test during the weekend. Today I am too tired to start editing / uploading video to Youtube. Stay tuned on Youtube.
Marc, many thanks for challenging me!
Even to native English speakers, polishing and buffing are hard to distinguish, as tstop4me points out. I think they are used to mean the same thing a lot of the time, even though it makes sense that there is a distinction. Like so many things, if it's a technical term in your field, you have a specific meaning for it (such as cement vs concrete...to many people they are used interchangeably but to an engineer, they are not the same thing at all).
I am very happy to take up the challenge and skate on the buffed/polished/gleaming blades. I'm very curious to see if the edge is truly preserved. I have tested hand-honing blades after sharpening both on my own skates and on others, and everyone agreed that the additional polishing feels great. Since that time, I have tuned my machine better and switched to the Blademaster Ruby wheels, which is giving me a smoother finish than the hand-honing was before. I know that additional hand-honing would get the blades closer to perfect, but it is so easy to slip out of the groove and dull and edge that I have not been hand-honing anymore. When my blades are ready to be sharpened, I can see that the ice has polished the groove to a smoother finish, and I can feel that there is a little bit more drag when I get back on the ice. It has created sort of a love/hate relationship with sharpening my blades, because my favorite stage is sharp enough but getting smooth enough that I have that perfect combination of good edges without anything seeming grabby, and glorious flow. I'm very curious to see if polishing the blade can basically allow me to have this feeling right away.
I will look for some kind of buffing wheel locally and report back after I give it a try.
Link to first buffing test "results". https://youtu.be/RKHt4dxda6g
super sharp:
I see that you are doing with a blademaster (3' or 8'), and can you tell me if you prefer the diamond tsm 687 or 688 (which has more diamonds and more expensive too, because I have the possibility to buy one or the other?
I also seem to get better results with the 8 mx ruby than the 88r.
kaisu:
I thought I understood suddenly that you are not satisfied with the result, yet it looks quite well polished.
I really believe (as my client who was a machinist/grinder repeated to me) that the best would be to polish with a very fine diamond paste...
I tried with a freehand drill with a cotton wheel + green polishing paste = zero.
I'm looking forward to more....
In France I will not find the blademaster polishing wheel (I deduce that in France nobody would polish ice skates!! and does anyone of you have the opportunity to try it?
Would we be mad to polish? I do not believe...
But still need to find the right material
Hello Marc,
As we both are not speaking English as a home langue, we may have some misunderstandings. When you proposed polishing I already started writing that idea does not fly. To proof that I did decide to polish one blade with hand held buffing wheel and take picture how edges get rounded. Surprisingly I could not round the edges like I believed. This was really unexpected results. For this reason I wanted to thank you that you challenged to proof that I have been wrong all these years. Buffing can really improve surface quality without rounding the edges or disturbing skate edges like Blademaster describes.
Like tstop4me pointed out, polishing the area which does not even contact ice is basically useless, but in the other hand polishing also those areas does not either harm the blade.
Like I told previous post, I have tried to cover my grinding wheel almost with all possible abrasives and non abrasives what I can imagine. Common for all these earlier tests has been that I have not been able to get same sharpness feeling than what I can get without wax or additional abrasives and I have got more severe chatter marks when grinding wheel is clogged and not cutting like it should be. I do not fully understand why edges comes more dull. I need to test using diamond paste or polishing waxes with buffing wheel, but I takes some time before I can do that.
kaitsu:
je suis persuadé que le polissage peut vraiment améliorer la qualité de la surface sans arrondir les bords. (et je comprends bien que nous ne pouvons pas polir les bords(entre le creux et les bords) sans polir le creux ,qui n'est pas en contact avec la glace)
Et je te remercie encore pour tes gentils mots.
J'ai cherché très longtemps la meule blademaster en france et en Europe. cela est très compliqué. Ou la trouvera tu?
Je vais peut etre essayer un fournisseur de meule en France qui a des meules en feutre souple et dure? (si je trouve pas la 3bw)
Il me tarde tes conclusions et je comprends que cela sera long!
kaitsu:
I'm sure polishing can really improve the surface quality without rounding the edges. (and I understand that we cannot polish the edges (between the hollow and the edges) without polishing the hollow, which is not in contact with the ice)
And thank you again for your kind words.
I looked for the blademaster grinding wheel for a very long time in France and in Europe. it is very complicated. Where will you find her?
Maybe I'll try a wheel supplier in France who has soft and hard felt wheels? (if I can't find the 3bw)
I look forward to your conclusions and I understand that it will be long!
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 14, 2022, 01:50:46 PM
Link to first buffing test "results". https://youtu.be/RKHt4dxda6g
If I understand you correctly, you used a felt (or similar material) buffing wheel that does not have impregnated abrasive and to which you did not add free abrasive. Is that correct? If so, then it's not surprising that there was no improvement on the surface finish of a steel blade.
The Incredible Edger has a an optional cross-grinder attachment called the Little Edger. Do you have that? If so, does it allow you cross-grind the entire length of the blade, or just a short section behind the toepick? The reason I ask is that if your goal is to reduce the longitudinal striations caused by the main sharpening/grinding wheel, then, if possible, you want your polishing/buffing operation with a finer abrasive to occur in the transverse direction. When the coarser longitudinal striations are gone and replaced with finer transverse striations, you will know that you have accomplished your task.
Quote from: tstop4me on September 17, 2022, 04:56:15 PM
If I understand you correctly, you used a felt (or similar material) buffing wheel that does not have impregnated abrasive and to which you did not add free abrasive. Is that correct?
Correct, in the video I didn't use any polishing waxes or any other abrasives than buffing wheel, BUT I was still able to get some improvement to the surface quality. Improvement is really difficult to get in to image format so I tried to demonstrate it with the sound. Its very important to listen the difference.
Problem in polishing waxes is that they are abrasive. Since buffing wheel is flat / without radius, any abrasive material what you add to the buffing wheel starts to polish also your blade edges. See the attached picture from the blade what I just polished using steel polishing wax. Buffing wheel alone does not have so much abrasive materials that it would round the edges...at least if you just make few passes. Actually sharp edges cut small grooves to the buffing wheel. I believe I am not going to add any abrasives to buffing wheel until me or somebody else has invented some genius way to avoid edge rounding. Buffing alone removes foiled edges which ice would remove after few hours of skating on ice. It wont polish your blades to mirror finish, but I believe you can still gain some improvement. Note that Blademaster is selling buffing wheels but not any polishing wax for it.
Quote from: tstop4me on September 17, 2022, 04:56:15 PM
The Incredible Edger has a an optional cross-grinder attachment called the Little Edger. Do you have that?
I do have Little Edger. Its mounted to the end of longitudinal guide rods, so its impossible to make cross grinding all the way to the blade.
Making polishing with cross grind type of grinder would be 100 times more difficult that with normal longitudinal grinding. To be honest, I do not want to even consider this option. I let someone else to try that. 8)
Maybe Kim Yu-Na skate tech can try your proposal. See this video starting from 7:30. https://youtu.be/l14Y0XGMYUE
Ps. It seems we are writing too long post, so they have started to limit their length. This this is the reason why I need to post so many replies.
Yesterday, I came across a report of a short track skater (in France) polishing his skates to minimize braking.
So I'm back with this drawing of a hand polisher because I think it might be possible to polish without touching the sharp edges....
What do you think?
In Germany it is offered to polish when sharpening for a bit extra money. I never trusted a sharpening here yet though to say anything more about it. It's something like 4 or 8 euros more?
This reminds me that I haven't used the ProFiler in a long time and walked around on the mats a lot the past few visits to the rink.
Marc, that looks like it would work in the same way as the ProFiler. I'm not sure how much it would help a low level skater like my skating or with the chopped up public ice, but it might feel nice on good ice if smoothed so much more.
No, it's a design I just thought of that's based on the profiler, but instead of going all the way to the sharp edges, it would stop before...
but like you said, it's definitely for very experienced skaters (including and especially my daughter!)
Quote from: AlbaNY on March 24, 2025, 08:22:02 AMIn Germany it is offered to polish when sharpening for a bit extra money.
At least in here they offer "Wax sharpening" which is said to improve surface finish. It costs a bit extra like you said, but this wax sharpening is not polishing. They just use Blademaster Gustoglide, Acculube wax stick, Blackstone Fine Shine or similar. Its applier to grinding wheel just before final grinding pass.
Quote from: marc on March 24, 2025, 08:07:35 AMSo I'm back with this drawing of a hand polisher because I think it might be possible to polish without touching the sharp edges....
What do you think?
https://youtu.be/_jl_juN8giI
If you look this video from the time stamp 2:02, you will see matte areas close to the both edges. That is the area which is actually touching the ice. This specific blade does have either 7/16" or 1/2" ROH. Since you are making much deeper hollows, I assume the area which touches the ice is even more narrow. You should be able to polish these matte areas, otherwise you are polishing just the air cap between the ice and blade.
Short track blades does not have hollow, so there the polishing really matters and is doable.
If you want to improve your daughters blades gliding properties, easier is to do flatter hollow. Since you have own sharpening machine, you can maintain sharpness with flatter hollow even weekly sharpening's.
Ok kaitsu!!!
Cette idée me paraît très intéressante!🙏
alors je vais tenter de faire un peu moins creux et plus souvent
Marc, I am quite sure that you are still thinking how to build this polishing tool. I can easily print you the frame for your tool, but what was your idea, how to make abrasive part for this tool and how did you plan to center in your tool? You have clearly thought that the blade thicknesses varies and you have adjustment for it, but would the abrasive part somehow floating so that it follows the hollow in the blade or what was your plan?
You need to note also that tool scratches blades chromed surfaces if they are not protected with tape.
Quote from: Kaitsu on October 15, 2021, 12:03:21 PMHere is one example from the factory sharpening.
Interesting. What are those little grooves? Do you think they use an extremely coarse grain wheel? Except they seem to be fairly evenly spaced, almost like it was deliberate. At a guess, how did they do that and why?
As far as I can figure out, all those little grooves might make it track slightly better - but they might also increase friction.
But I've recently looked at several blades in stores, straight from the factory. None of them had those grooves.
Anyway, do you have any definite plans on when you might release your blades? Will they come with a good factory sharpening? That would be a great selling point. Paramount actually has made the consistency of their sharpening and profiling a selling point.
Do you feel confident you could do a good job of edge hardening? Sounds like something a blacksmith might learn.
Quote from: Kaitsu on March 25, 2025, 01:07:50 PMMarc, je suis sûr que tu réfléchis encore à la façon de fabriquer cet outil de polissage. Je peux facilement t'imprimer le cadre de ton outil, mais quelle était ton idée ? Comment fabriquer la partie abrasive et comment as-tu prévu de la centrer ? Tu as clairement pensé que l'épaisseur de la lame variait et que tu pouvais l'ajuster, mais la partie abrasive pourrait-elle flotter et suivre le creux de la lame ? Quel était ton plan ?
Il faut également noter que l'outil raye les surfaces chromées des lames si elles ne sont pas protégées par du ruban adhésif.
Kaitsu, yes, I know you can do that, and I thank you for it, but the goal is to try to find a solution for the smoothest possible finish....
As I said earlier, it was when I saw a short track skater who was trying hard to make his finish as smooth as possible that I thought about it again!!
And I'd say that it's much easier to sharpen short track skates than our skates!
Coming back to the manual sharpener, I forgot that the blades are all different thicknesses, and that this scratches the edges, so adding a lot of time to applying tape and adjusting the device for perhaps so little difference in the end....
I think to summarize, I'll stick to the main secrets, namely:
-balance the grinding wheel properly (and I noticed this again recently!!)
-center the blade properly in relation to the grinding wheel
-limit play and vibrations in the shoe holder/bearings/slide