What are these blades?

[Sk8tmum]

Saw these odd blades on a kid skating this weekend; the stanchions were "split" - sort of like a triangle with the middle cut out of them.  They looked different ... the skater is a competitive freeskater, and I'm pretty sure I saw something similar on a freeskater at Skate Canada last week. Any ideas?

[FigureSpins]

Saw these odd blades on a kid skating this weekend; the stanchions were "split" - sort of like a triangle with the middle cut out of them.  They looked different ... the skater is a competitive freeskater, and I'm pretty sure I saw something similar on a freeskater at Skate Canada last week. Any ideas?

The Ultima Dance blades have triangle cutouts...


Or....could they have been Ultima Lite blades? 



Not quite triangles-more like swirls.  Very lightweight and interesting.  I love the way they look, but I was afraid to try them myself because I'm not a light-weight person and I skate like a linebacker, lol.

[Sk8tmum]

Nope to both. The pair in question had the triangle cutouts front and back, and they weren't dance blades; the Ultima Lite blades are so distinctive (plus my DD has them) that I would have been easily able to identify them.

[FigureSpins]

Oh well, sorry.  I do love to look at those Ultima Lite blades, though. 

How about these: Jerry's ISE Shadow



Now, I'm just going to be silly and post blades that have cutouts.

They couldn't have been these:

Those are the blade Michael Weiss uses to do those cool heel-spreadeagles.  John Watts went out of business years ago.

Are you sure they were cutouts and not triangular-shaped metal, like the Paramount blades?

[MimiG]

GAM G18SS Blades? They have triangle cutouts:

[Sk8tmum]

A) the Gams are the winners I think and
B) I think those Revolution things look amazing. 

My DS needs to move onto Gold Seals; I hate the idea of th weight on his size 11-1/2 feet, but,the torque of big jumps on lighter blades is making it a necessity. If these things are strong ... I suppose I would be living in a fantasy world if they were also to be LESS EXPENSIVE than the current Gold Seal Blades.

What is also interesting is that when I googled Skate Blade Manufacturers to hunt down blades, GAM didn't come up. Hmmm ...

[MimiG]

Yeah, I had no idea Gam made blades until a few months ago when someone asked me for my opinion on their quality... they look nice though, and I've heard some good things about them in my limited research.

[FigureSpins]

I didn't know about GAM blades either, I checked out Graf since someone else mentioned that they have that brand of blades.

Yeah, right, the Revolution blades will be cheaper, pfftttt!  They'll have to reclaim their design and engineering costs.  I was blown away by the blade-making video.  I always thought blades were still cast, not sliced out of sheets.  I'd love to see how they fashion the toe rakes!

[katz in boots]

GAM have been taken over by Jackson.  I was checking out blades on the GAM website recently and found only Ultimas.

[aussieskater]

I wonder if what you're describing is an old Phantom blade - the tail was made as a very large open triangle - a bit of a cross between the Gam blades pictured upthread, and the Freedom blade?  The idea behind the triangle was to allow the other blade to slip off if it made contact during for example a closed mohawk - not sure if the theory worked but would not want to put it to the test!  A couple of higher-level skaters at our rink still have them, and my skate sharpener has a pair of 11-inch he's trying to sell off, but an online search failed to find a picture and it might be that they've been discontinued.

[Sk8tmum]

No, the Gams shown are the ones the skater was wearing; the "open" spot behind the toepick was also there.  In terms of Gam blades, yes, I believe that they have been subsumed to the Ultima juggernaut; however, given the number of complaints I've heard about the finishing quality on them, maybe, it was inevitable. 

[retired]

I just bought a pair of Gams, there are some good deals on sell offs if you luck across them.