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.

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!)

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. 

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?

Second Pair of Gloves
Second Pair of Socks
Extra Knit Cap
Hand Warmers
Leg Warmers
Bunga Pads
Speed Jump Rope
2x Resistance Bands
Extra Shirt
Normal and Microfibre Towel
Tissue
Lip Balm
Tripods for Smartphone Recording
Wireless Headphones
2nd Phone for Rink Recording and Music
Blade Guards
Hand Sanitizer
2x Muscle Rollers
Athletic Tape
Neosporin
Mouth Guard
Bottle for Hydration
[Sometimes] Hair Dryer to warm up my boots
During Summer:  Extra T-Shirt.  I don't like going home in something I've sweated in.

More and More, I've been leaving my Zuka behind and just bringing the duffel and my skates.  At some rinks I always bring the Zuka to sit on, though (and because I know less people and don't leave as many things lying out).

I'd love to have first bragging rights for using a mill for mounting blades or roller frames, but you earned it!

Glad that you found this simple device useful.

I joined this forum just to post a thank-you follow-up to Bill_S for his post.  Great post Bill, just the sort of content I love finding on the internet!

Details:  I have built several of the wooden boot holders Bill described to accommodate different sizeshe of boots and find them to be invaluable for precision drilling into skate boots.  I mount the holders in a vise bolted into the t-slots of the work table on my small mill, an early 1960's Clausing 8530, I'm basically using it like a drill press for this application but the two axis adjustments on the table make it really easy to line things up.  Since I am a quad skater I am drilling holes all the way through the soles and the heels into the boot interior, so being able to limit quill travel / depth of hole with a simple adjustment on the mill is a really nice feature, I'm sure most quality drill presses have this option as well. Oh, I didn't bother using pocket screws, my holders are sort of rough but adequate, but since I'm basically drilling twelve holes into the holder each time I mount a pair of quad plates to boots I view the holders as consumables.  One note, because for quad skate mounting I need to drill all the way into the interior of the boot, and because smaller boots can be quite narrow, I sometimes have to manually tilt the boot on the holder to ensure that my holes are oriented so that the heads of the bolts that will affix the plates to the boots don't land in an inappropriate place in the footbed, e.g. at the edges of the heel cup or in the sole stitching.  Having the stability of the boot holders makes this operation much safer than hand drilling.

Quote from: Query on March 17, 2025, 06:40:40 PMI was under the impression that the Gold Star also changed the rocker in the tail - i.e., that MK and JW use "secondary rocker" differently. I believe what you and JW call secondary rocker is what others call "spin rocker".

Are you sure the Gold Star does not alter the rocker in the tail too?

What do they mean by the "complexity" of the "secondary rocker" on the Gold Star being somehow different than other blades?

I'm going to ask the question on their Facebook page too, but they may not respond.

I cannot find a specific number for the secondary radius on the Gold Star, but form cursory view it looks like a Gold Seal with a 7' main radius than anything else.

It's possible that it has two a similar setup to the CorAce/Pattern up there, but the transition point off the Main Radius is only slightly further back than the MK Pro/Gold Seal.  So, the overall rocker profile will feel slightly more aggressive (more curved, practically speaking) than an MK Pro, but not to the extent of something like the MK Phantom - which has a more aggressive transition point from 7' to 17".

By "aggressive" that, I mean the main glide rocker radius transitions to a smaller secondary radius further back, which would make the blade feel more aggressively curved than otherwise.

The Phantom has a 8' section under the heel/at the tail (IIRC), but I honestly think this is more to balance out the profile so that it isn't a death trap (slipping off the tail of the blade) due to how aggressive the rocker profile is otherwise.  Even if they did this on the Gold Star, it would have no impact on how the blade performs - the same way adding side airbags to a car doesn't affect how it drives.

I honestly don't think the Gold Star is going to be significantly different from a Gold Seal up there.  The major difference will be in how aggressive the rocker profile is.  IMO, 7' Blades are harder to skate on.  They require more control, core strength and stability, etc. because of how maneuverable they are.

Very cool video!

I had assumed the reverse would be true - that the chrome removal would be done using a complex grinding wheel, giving one a slight dovetail shape, that would slightly decrease the included angle (of bite).

I wonder how typical this is for new HD Sports blades.

The video is a little bit mean to HD Sports. No matter how well you do something, it is always possible to do better. They aren't a precision machine shop, creating parts to a .0001 inch precision, and charging thousands of dollars or more per blade to do it. They are creating a relatively crude tool to cut into the ice so it doesn't slip sideways. Perhaps their prices could be lower - but people continue to buy from them in large quantities.

Of course, many (most?) skate techs use a flat stone to round off the edge itself as well, to get rid of any sharpening burr that might be formed. That also affects effective sharpness a huge amount - but doesn't change the bite angle.

Plus that type of flat stone use would create exactly the shape that the video shows, because the stone is usually tilted slightly inwards towards the center of the hollow. Is it possible that was how that shape was created, rather than the chrome removal process? And if so, we don't know whether that reshaping was done at the factory, or at a pro shop.

Alternately, some skate techs, especially those using fine grain grinding wheels, and some people using hand tools, push the sharpening burr vertically, to create a much sharper blade than the bite angle would indicate - unless you count the near-zero bite angle at the end of the created foil edge.

And I believe, but haven't proved (because my microscope isn't that good) that most sharpenings create a ragged edge, sort of like a saw blade (but less regular) that might also dig deeper, and therefore act more sharp.

Also, I think much of the time, possibly most of the time, when people think they need a sharpening, they could instead just straighten the edge.

In other words, bite angle is but one of many factors in effective sharpness. Important, but not always the most important.

And without more information, we don't know whether the inward tilt that the video shows was created at the factory, or at a pro shop.

Like discussed earlier in another thread, we should talk bite angles instead of ROH. Then we would speak "same langue". Like already pointed out by others, same ROH will give different bite angle if the blade thicknesses varies. This should be noted example if you change from Coronation Ace to Coronation Ace lite.

Unfortunately it is not so simple that blade thickness would be the only thing in blades which is affect to the bite feeling. My favorite topic is this &#¤%&" chrome removal grinding where they basically ruin the blades, if nowhere else. These specific blades has now 7mm ROH, since 5/16" was not deep enough and I can expect that problems still continues until she changes blades. I already have challenges to dress the wheel to enough small ROH.
https://youtu.be/bBdq03asRpI