Eclipse Dance blades

[Bill_S]

I recently purchased some Eclipse Dance blades from a vendor on eBay for only $118 shipped. They were advertised as new, and came shipped from Skater's Landing in Connecticut in the original box. The size is 10-1/4".





They are "thinline" blades, with the lower quarter inch having been ground thinner than the rest of the blade. The skating edge thickness was a consistent 0.127" measured with a Starrett micrometer at three points from front to back. I measured just one blade. Freestyle blades run about 0.150" to 0.160" at the edge.

The upper, thicker part of the Eclipse Dance blade measured 0.153"



Country of origin was Canada.



The toe picks are unlike those shown in Riedel's online ad for these blades. The ad shows blunt center picks, but these are very sharp with a slightly rounded drag pick.

 

I don't know which is the most current pick, but if it's important to you, call Riedell for clarification.

To give an idea of the pick size, here's a toe-to-toe comparison between the Eclipse Dance blades (left) vs. MK Professional blades (right)



The mounting screws included in the box were only slightly magnetic, leading me to believe that they are stainless steel. That's a nice touch.

[Bill_S]

These blades came sharpened. Because I've heard that Riedell blades ship with flat, cross-ground bottoms, I don't know when that happened prior to shipment. It could be that Skaters Landing did it as a courtesy before shipping it to me. I have heard that Skaters Landing is a reputable dealer, so I would expect that their sharpener knows their craft. The sharpening looks OK, but a future measurement will confirm that.

The weight of a blade measured 330 grams. For reference, Jackson Ultima dance blades weighed 305 grams, and Coronation Aces weighed 360 grams.

The stanchion height compared to a few other blades is given below.

Blade         Front           Rear
Eclipse
Dance        1.813          1.953

Ultima
Dance        1.93"          2.030"

Ace            1.876          1.881

MK Pro       1.856"        1.894"

They are a bit higher in the rear than the freestyle blades that I'm used to, but not to the extent of the Jackson Ultima blades I've measured. Oddly, they are a bit lower in front than the freestyle blades.

I traced the rocker and compared it to the Ultima Dance blade. The main rocker is very similar, but the spin rocker shows some slight differences. The Eclipse is about a quarter inch shorter than the already-short Ultima. That will be interesting to try on the ice.





Heel lift when the front was pressed down to contact the drag pick was about 0.85"



This measurement will change with repeated sharpenings, so it's merely a benchmark at this point.

[tstop4me]

These blades came sharpened. Because I've heard that Riedell blades ship with flat, cross-ground bottoms, I don't know when that happened prior to shipment. It could be that Skaters Landing did it as a courtesy before shipping it to me. I have heard that Skaters Landing is a reputable dealer, so I would expect that their sharpener knew their craft. The sharpening looks OK, but a future measurement will confirm that.

Any marks on the mounting plates that indicate that these blades were previously mounted (i.e., they aren't truly "new")?  It's odd that they come sharpened.   Some online sellers will sharpen, but with an added charge.  With a cut-rate deal on eBay, it's unlikely that the seller would throw in such a freebie (and, if they were to, you would think they would ask you what ROH you want, since Eclipse specifically markets their unsharpened blades as accommodating a custom hollow).

At any rate, the whole point of your purchase of the Wissota sharpener is that you want full control over the sharpening of any blade, once it leaves the factory.  That's what you were expecting when you purchased the ostensibly new Eclipse dance blades.  Perhaps you should raise this issue with the seller.

[Bill_S]

There are no screw head marks on the mounting plates. If they were previously mounted, the blades would show it. I am confident that they haven't been mounted before.

New, these blades cost $279. Paying less than half of that for an experiment, I can tolerate little things like the sharpening.

I'm a little short of time today, but I do hope to get to the rocker measurements as soon as I can, then on to forming skating impressions.

I've always been curious about dance blades and their unusual characteristics. I suspect that they will take some getting used to.

[Bill_S]

Well, I can now say that the sharpener of these blades didn't do a great job. In the graph below, I can see lumpy curves especially around the spin rocker area on both left (green) and right (red) blades. I suspect that this sharpener initiated the cut there, and then ground to the end of the blade. It's harder to establish the cut at the beginning when the skate is being advanced to contact the grinding wheel. For comparison, I also included the curve of my current Coronation Aces (olive) that I've hand sharpened for over 12 years. Its curve is smooth without any wobbles. Its rocker shape is something that I'm very used to.
[click to enlarge]



Unfortunately, once some high/low spots are ground in, it's hard to eliminate them with further power sharpenings. I just wish that my Pro-Filer fit dance blades to smooth the curves. The good news is that the lumps/divots in the rocker are only the thickness of a couple of sheets of paper.

I took a close look at the right blade rocker tracing close-up above, and can see the "lump" located about an inch behind the toe pick root when compared to the Ultima Dance blade.

I'll attempt to skate on them later, perhaps early next week. That might give me a clue about how significant this measurable wobbling is.

The Eclipse Dance curves show the effect of higher heel stanchions, which is something that characterized all three Jackson Ultima blades that I've measured. I had a hard time adjusting to spins when I tried one.

It's very possible that I won't like these, even if I disregard the ground-in lumpiness in the spin rockers.

BTW, the "no skating zone" between the toe pick and where the blade touches on a flat surface is about 1.25". Any irregularities there would not affect anything.

The sharpenings start about 3/4" back from the toe picks.

[Bill_S]

I did some quick calculations on the spin rocker radius and the main rocker radius for both blades. The spin rocker was calculated at the 1.5" spot behind the toe pick root, incorporating the 1", 1.5", and 2" points. The main rocker calculations were centered on the 6.5" spot, and used the 5" and 8" points for the three points required.

Blade      Spin rocker radius        Main rocker radius
Right             25"                                 7.3 feet
Left               27"                                  7.1 feet

[tstop4me]

Do you have an estimate of the ROH that the sharpener put in?  I'd be interested if they went with Eclipse's recommended 1" ROH (which some of us suspect might be a typo, but various online sellers parrot it).

[Bill_S]

Great question. The sharpener put about a 3/4" radius (!) on the blade. It's a shallow hollow!

[Query]

If you don't want a mail order company to add their own sharpening, you have to request that they not do it. Most mail order companies have traditionally done so by default, on MK and Wilson blades, and I suspect it is pretty common on Eclipse blades, precisely because they don't sharpen them at the factory.

I hope you enjoy your new blades this time!

I bet 3/4" doesn't satisfy you, and that you will feel you need something sharper.

AFAICT from your picture (I could be wrong), the toe pick is more aggressive than MK Dance blades, in part because of the angle the teeth stick out at. On MK Dance blades, if you accidentally touch your toe pick a little, especially when skating forwards, it barely affects your skating, because the pick doesn't dig in. It's one of the most important features of MK Dance. Like I said, I could be wrong.

[Bill_S]

For this eBay purchase, I didn't deal directly with Skaters Landing. It was through a third-party individual who apparently deals with a number of shops. (FWIW, I learned that her daughter was on Team USA in Ice Dance competitions a while ago.)

It's hard to tell the exact pedigree of these blades and whey they are sharpened that way. For the money savings, I'm will certainly gain some experience with thin dance blades even if the spins are wonky. Then I might try to sharpen out some of the irregularities. I've now got the means to quickly grind away metal - for better or for worse.

[Bill_S]

I thought that it might be useful to compare the rocker of the Eclipse Dance blade with the Ultima dance blade (UB115). I chose the right Eclipse blade to use because the the sharpener left its original curve more intact.

[Click to enlarge]



You can tell that the main rocker of the Ultima is a larger radius. You can also see that the Eclipse flattens out a bit in the front before the spin rocker. I don't know if the sharpening did that or not, but it's there.

The 'no skate zone' of the Eclipse after the toe pick touches is 1.25", so the "knee" in the red Eclipse curve, located 1" from the base of the toe picks (left side of the graph), shouldn't affect anything.

[Query]

The 'no skate zone' of the Eclipse after the toe pick touches is 1.25", so the "knee" in the red Eclipse curve, located 1" from the base of the toe picks (left side of the graph), shouldn't affect anything.

Because the blade sinks a bit into the ice, the "no skate zone", measured on a perfectly flat rigid surface, is actually at least somewhat used.

Try marking the bottom of the blade with a pencil (or other graphite dust), and see where skating wears off the mark. (Some people use a magic marker, but I think magic marker ink is too resistant to abrasion to give an accurate result - though I suppose you might argue that water alone might affect the graphite.) Mike C told me that the ENTIRE bottom surface of the blade is often used, though I don't know exactly how he measured that. Of course, that might be more true if you use a blade for jumps, which might dig in more than ice dance moves. Nonetheless, I think you will find that at least some of the no skate zone does touch during skating, and therefore does affect how much you skid and how well you push, which also means that at least some of the NSZ should ideally be occasionally be sharpened too - though I believe the edge there wears out more slowly than on the main part of the blade, and you need to be careful of your toe pick. Using the Pro-Filer sharpening tool, I tape the toe pick before sharpening the area near it. (Sharpening the toe pick itself course should be done very carefully, if at all, because you usually don't want to blunt or reshape the transverse edges. But I'm talking about the lateral edges, on the sides of the blade, not the transverse edges, across the toe pick. And in this simple case, of not modifying the toe pick altogether.)

[Bill_S]

ecause the blade sinks a bit into the ice, the "no skate zone", measured on a perfectly flat rigid surface, is actually at least somewhat used.

Not much though.

Jumps are a different story, but the picks do the work when jabbed into the ice. The blade is along for the ride.

Very few sharpener services grind completely to the toe picks, and skaters still do just fine. With a wheel sharpener, you just can't reach clear to the pick. The Pro-Filer is an exception.

[Query]

Because the blade sinks a bit into the ice, the "no skate zone", measured on a perfectly flat rigid surface, is actually at least somewhat used.
/quote]

Not much though.

How do you know?

The skate sometimes leaves a groove in the ice that is a significant fraction of the height of the drag pick - especially with very sharp blades, heavy skaters, on outdoor rinks that are just barely below freezing.

With a wheel sharpener, you just can't reach clear to the pick. The Pro-Filer is an exception.

Many of the fancier machines also have a coarse cross-grind wheel, which I think can go right up to the pick, if you are super-careful. However, if you want even edges, using a cross-grind wheel, you have to turn the blade around 180 degrees, and do alternate passes. Also, you have to accept the radius of the wheel as the hollow radius.

But I wasn't thinking straight when I mentioned the toe pick: I think a super-sharp toe pick might be counter-productive on an ice dance blade. Though, oddly enough, my Ultima Matrix I runners, including the Dance runners, are extremely sharp (with the factory edge) all the way up to and through the toe pick.

It will be interesting to see how you feel about the blades when you skate. Not just the wobble in the NSZ, but the thin width, and the 3/4" hollow. Since they've already been sharpened anyway, I hope you eventually give them a chance by fixing the rocker profiles. Moving to a more aggressive toe pick is hard - but going from your Ace toepick, to a Dance toe pick, might be a very easy transition. And maybe the slimline coupled with the 3/4" hollow is pretty fast, and has great glide, too. You might like them better than the Aces, given half a chance. However, if I remember right, you have tried a relatively flat hollow before, and din't like it - maybe you will have to change that too, especially since thinline blades are often sharpened with smaller hollow radii, to get equivalent edge angles and similar effective sharpness to a freestyle blade.

Good luck!

[icedancer]

Bill I seriously may be interested in these blades - I will let you know - just my size!!

[Bill_S]

Just to clarify, they aren't for sale yet -  I still want to skate on them. 

I apologize for taking so long to continue testing of these blades. I got distracted by the new Wissota skate sharpener. Getting it set up and gaining experience has taken some time, although it has been an enjoyable process. You know how we skate sharpening nerds are.

I planned to mount them this afternoon following The Rostelecom Cup competition on TV, and skate on them tomorrow morning. I'll continue this thread with my impressions of them for the next week or so.

There's always the danger that I'll like them, and want to use them on one of my new pairs of boots.  We'll see.

[icedancer]

OH!!  That is great - I read your post very quickly and thought you were selling a brand new pair for cheap!

I have a friend who used to use the MK Dance and bought a pair of the Eclipse last year - she likes them fine but they were just a tad shorter than the MK dance and it took her a bit to get used to them and of course you have to get used to any new blade because of the rocker.

[Bill_S]

I did get them mounted today. And holy cow, they ARE short!



They almost didn't work with my skate drying/storage rack. The tails were barely long enough to make contact with the bottom peg.



My current blade guards were too long to work with them, so I put together a new set just for these blades. The blue painter's tape is my method of temporarily waterproofing my old boots during all this experimentation.



I also sharpened them to a 1/2" ROH from their as-shipped 3/4". I didn't even want to try 3/4" because I believed that I'd be slipping all over the place.



I'm all set to roll for tomorrow.

[icedancer]

Very cool!

If you get a chance can you measure the length of the blade from just behind the drag pick to the end of the heel?  I would love to see how they compare with my current Super Dance 99 (which are VERY short) and some old MK dance I have hanging around the house...

Awesome!

Thanks.

[tstop4me]

I also sharpened them to a 1/2" ROH from their as-shipped 3/4". I didn't even want to try 3/4" because I believed that I'd be slipping all over the place.

1/2" ROH may still not give you enough bite.  I believe you mentioned in another thread that you weren't happy when you switched from 3/8" to 1/2" on your Coronation Ace.  With the thinner dance blades, the 1/2" ROH will give you even less bite.

[Bill_S]

icedancer: The blade length is just a little shy of 10-1/2"...



tstop4me: I was curious about speed from the combination of a thin blade and a shallow hollow. That's why I sharpened it to a gentle 1/2" to start with.  I'm removing metal in just the hollow at this point. I'll give my 1st day skating impressions in the next post, but I'm definitely going to 3/8" from here.

[Bill_S]

Skating Impressions, Day 1:

I sharpened these to a shallow 1/2" ROH to begin with to see how fast these blades felt. Thin blades and shallow hollows are generally associated with less friction, which can produce more speed. The verdict? - Yes, they were faster. It's not a huge increase, but it was noticeable.

However -unless I was stroking around with deep knees, I had slippage problems with a shallow 1/2" hollow. It was "skid city" with many figure skating turns. An exception were hockey turns where I felt like I was riding on rails. I have a very deep knee bend when doing them and probably look like a hockey player doing them. They did not skid, and it felt like the blades carved a tighter radius. Doing them was an absolute blast on these blades. I suspect that the amount of knee bend I employ for speedy stroking and doing hockey turns compensated for the shallow hollow.

But I can't skate around like that all session for all elements. I need more edge grip, so I'm going to sharpen to 3/8" radius for Wednesday.

Oddly, I didn't notice the shortness of blade at all. Some people can detect a change as little as a 1/4" difference, but for me it made absolutely no difference in skating feel. I did notice that I could do "neater feet" without fear of stepping on a tail, so that aspect of a short blade was very nice. That benefit alone is something I'm putting in the plus column for these blades.

The rocker is different from my favorite well-worn Aces, so that prevented me from doing any good front scratch spins today. Part of the problem is blade skidding at the beginning of the spin. I don't hook on a toe pick, but set my spins on a deep outside edge. The 1/2" hollow was working against me there. I'll test that again on Wednesday with the new hollow. Once the hollow is changed, then I can work on adjusting to the different rocker.

I didn't notice the rear stanchion height difference between my Aces and these blades. The Eclipse Dance blade is higher, but I couldn't blame any single difference in skating feel on that aspect.

I noticed that my weakest three-turn, the LBI, was difficult to do today. I suspect the rocker difference and my lack of comfort with that turn both conspired against me. My RFI brackets were fine, although I skidded some of them.

So, with the 1/2" hollow chosen for today's experiment together with a thin blade, I was skidding a lot. It was readily apparent that bending knees deeper would cure it, but I can't skate for 1-1/2 hours with my butt so low to the ground without my old knees complaining.

But the speed today was really fun!

Edit: My experience today appears to confirm my suspicion that the recommended 1" ROH for these blades on Riedell's web site is an error for all but patch skaters.

[Loops]

Oddly, I didn't notice the shortness of blade at all. Some people can detect a change as little as a 1/4" difference, but for me it made absolutely no difference in skating feel. I did notice that I could do "neater feet" without fear of stepping on a tail, so that aspect of a short blade was very nice. That benefit alone is something I'm putting in the plus column for these blades.

This exactly is why I'm a convert to the dance-length blades.  I like that I don't step on my heel (I have a tendancy to do that in FS length blades).  How do you feel about the toepick on these?  And let's be frank, by toepick, I really mean drag pick.

Eagerly awaiting your assessment after the re-sharpening!!!

[Bill_S]

I didn't attempt any jumps today, so I don't know how they will do for a low-level jumper like me.

I do remember stabbing the ice with the pick after a move to stop motion, and it wasn't any different from my Aces. I might try a single toe as I get a little more familiar with them.

And yes, the short length is really nice.

[Bill_S]

And now the blades have a new hollow. It might be even a smidge under 3/8".  Edge grip, here we come!

Unfortunately, I have to wait until Wednesday morning to try out the new configuration.