Should a pair of blades wear at the same rate?

[Christy]

Apologies if this has been discussed before but a trawl through several pages and a couple of searches didn't reveal anything.

I have 10 month old MK Pro blades and they've been sharpened 3 or 4 times and are currently in need of sharpening. A friend was looking at them tonight and commented that the dull bit on one blade was around twice the height / thickness of the dull bit on the other blade, meaning that one had been sharpened way more than the other.
I took a look when I got home and there is definitely a big difference between the two blades, and one side has almost no dull part left on the blade at all, and the blade does look shorter.
My understanding is that the dull part is the part that is sharpened and once it's gone, there's no life left in the blade, but surely I should expect them to last more than 4 sharpenings?

[Skittl1321]

Yes, blades should last WAY more than 4 sharpenings!

My right blade always goes before my left blade though. It's my own fault. I use the right foot for all my stops.  I also do scratch spins (right foot) way more than backspins (left foot) so that uses the blades more too- maybe it evens out that I land jumps on the left; but for sure, the stops wear down the right blade.

[FigureSpins]

Didn't you say in an earlier post that a sharpener had damaged your toepick at some point?  There's a necessary balance between the height of the bottom toepick and the rocker edge in order for the skater to roll up to the toepick for edge jumps.  If the prior sharpener hacked off the bottom toepick, the only way to restore the blade to working order is to lower the steel edge on the blade so that they're correctly proportionate.  The restorer does that by repeatedly sharpening the edge to remove more and more of the hard steel until they get the necessary adjustment.  I think that's what happened to your lower-edged blade.

That's why it's so important to choose a good skate tech for sharpenings.  While blades can sometimes be salvaged in this manner, it does shorten the blade life.

Our skate tech says that the hard steel of a blade goes above the chrome reveal, so there are more sharpenings left in the life of the blade once that reveal line is gone.   I had never heard that before, but that reveal line is handy to see if a rocker is flattened or the blade tail was sharpened improperly.  That's how to judge used  blades - the reveal line should be about the same height from rocker to heel.

One of the beginners at our rink bought a pair of used skates for cheap and the poor kid was so uncomfortable during lessons. She couldn't bend her knees or glide; swizzles and turns were forced.  When I looked at the blade, the rocker was flat and the tail reveal was almost all gone.  (That's usually a sign that someone sharpened them as hockey blades, not figure blades.)  Her mom bought a good pair of used skates with MK Pros that had a lot of life left on them from one of our high-level skater's dad.  The skater was doing great on them within minutes of stepping onto the ice. 

[Christy]

FigureSpins - it was my very old and very cheap pair of skates (fortunately) that the local sharpener chopped the toepicks off, which is why I now travel some distance to get my MK Pros sharpened.
The long distance sharpener hasn't mentioned any issues, and is the only person who has sharpened them since new.

[Loops]

Our skate tech says that the hard steel of a blade goes above the chrome reveal, so there are more sharpenings left in the life of the blade once that reveal line is gone.

My new skate sharpener/ head coach said the same thing, except with the caveat that the steel is a little softer so more frequent sharpenings are in order.  I thought my blades were dead, but he said I could probably get the season out of them.

But my drag pick has never been reduced (on my 30! yo MK Profs) so now with the flat rocker I drag on ev.er.y.thing.  If I weren't getting new blades (hopefully) next week, I'd ask him to take them down to size.