How to get good surface finish to blades and how they look?

[supersharp]

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.

[Kaitsu]

Link to first buffing test "results". https://youtu.be/RKHt4dxda6g

[marc]

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

[Kaitsu]

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.

[marc]

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!

[tstop4me]

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.

[Kaitsu]

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.

[Kaitsu]

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.

[Kaitsu]

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. 
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.

[marc]

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?

[AlbaNY]

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. 

[marc]

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!)

[Kaitsu]

In 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.

[Kaitsu]

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?

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.

[marc]

Ok kaitsu!!!
Cette idée me paraît très intéressante!🙏
alors je vais tenter de faire un peu moins creux et plus souvent

[Kaitsu]

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.

[Query]

Here 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.

[marc]

Marc, 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