A year or so ago I bought vintage pair of Harlick skates planning to use them as quads. So far I haven't gotten to that yet, but these came with Strauss blades that are very interesting to me.
I wish I was still in NY, sharpening, skating often, and thus able to make a good test of them before switching to roller plates. I'm afraid I may not be able to do a test justice since I haven't been on ice since March and lack skill and strength now, but I'm still curious.
They are cross cut in the toe picks and very finely made where I'd expect rougher brazing to the sole plates. Like they are machined or somehow one piece or something? There is no visible sharpening zone but rather a uniform finish to the edge. Besides being cross cut they are also tapered to the heel end. They look quite graceful to me.
Here I only have my pairs of Pattern 99s to compare (whereas I used to be able to check against Phantoms, parabolic Coronation Ace, Gold Seal, and Aspire XP.) They feel like a very, very, very shallow hollow currently, like for figures. I'd be surprised if they were even 1/2"! I'm limited to Profiler sharpenings and do not want to mess up the finish so either have to deal with taping them or risk German sharpeners (which I so far have never done yet with a lack of confidence.)
I'll post photos and tracings and eventually I'll try them out before I replace the blades with roller plates even though I can't give them a fair test anymore probably. It may take a month or two to give them a try after I return to the ice, I expect, but I could show tracings and photos sooner.
Is anyone interested in geeking on these vintage blades? I think they must be from the '80s if not earlier? The boots don't seem so old although clearly vintage in construction, I was led to think early '90s, but Google says the blades ceased to be made in '83?
Company & historical background
Strauss Skates & Bicycles in Minnesota (USA) is a long-running family business that dates back to the 19th century.
The original founder, John Strauss Sr., is credited with innovations in skate blade making. Among those:
He reportedly developed a secret steel hardening process to make blades sharper, durable but not too brittle.
He introduced designs such as a "closed-toe blade" (where the blade is attached under the toe of the boot, not just at the heel) to improve strength and control.
He also is said to have experimented with customizing blade rocker (curvature) for speed versus agility.
Over time, Strauss moved more into retail, repair, sharpening, and equipment sales. At some point they scaled back (or eventually ceased) in-house manufacture of blade sets.
Their skate shop remains known for service (e.g. sharpening) and for being a local skating institution.
So in sum: Strauss had a history of making blades (including "figure skate" style blades) and was once considered among prominent blade makers in the U.S.
Who/what "Strauss" is: John E. Strauss (St. Paul, Minnesota) was a pioneering U.S. skate-blade maker active from the late 1800s into the mid-1900s. His shop later became Strauss Skates & Bicycles, a long-running family business.
Key innovation: In 1914 Strauss introduced the first widely cited closed-toe, one-piece steel blade (the blade and toe wrapped under the foot and fastened to the plate), which made skates lighter, stronger, and more controllable compared with earlier open-toe/strap designs. This is referenced across multiple histories of skating equipment.
Focus on figure skates: Company records indicate they stopped making speed/hockey skates around 1948 and then concentrated on figure skates. A Minnesota Historical Society finding aid also shows the firm was still manufacturing blades in the late 1970s.
Kindly add lenght from drack pick to the tail so that pencil tracing can be scaled corretly. I can try to make measurements based on pencil tracing. Pencil tracing should be scanned, because camera pictures always create parallax errors etc.
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 29, 2025, 02:15:47 PMKindly add lenght from drack pick to the tail so that pencil tracing can be scaled corretly. I can try to make measurements based on pencil tracing. Pencil tracing should be scanned, because camera pictures always create parallax errors etc.
To scan may be a few days or next week depending on if I can figure out connecting the scanner to any of my devices or must wait for Husband to do it. Actually, I'm not sure if our current printer has a scanner although I hope it does.
:)
https://imgur.com/a/Jlbnhge (https://imgur.com/a/Jlbnhge)
For now(https://imgur.com/a/Jlbnhge)
Do you think the boots are still stiff enough? To me ankle areas looked pretty bad.
Quote from: Kaitsu on September 30, 2025, 01:21:31 PMDo you think the boots are still stiff enough? To me ankle areas looked pretty bad.
For ice no, but I think for quads they are okay. They have more support than my mother's quads I've tried from the '60s.
I was thinking about asking to send them off to you to geek out on the blades with better precision than I can and maybe sharpen? I'm a bit ahead of myself considering I haven't skated in most of 2025, but I want to give them a try though.
I can sharpen them to you, if shipping cost are not too high for you. Sharpening it selves is free.
Interesting thread. I've never heard of Strauss before. But I just checked eBay. There are 4 listings, including one for new old stock with the original box (I was going to post the link, but it's very long and I don't want to set off any spam alarms). The photos indeed show no chrome relief. I've often wondered whether chrome relief is at all needed.
Blades polishing is one reason why the they do "chrome removal" grinding, even to the stainless steel blades. I heard that Björn blades will be in future without chrome removal grinding (because grinding was really coarse) but I assume we are going to see similar rolled edges what is now a days standard feature in JW blades. They are terrible. Defect is many times very visible by simple visual check. Just got inpected blades from JW as a warranty when previous pair had huge difference in the profiles. Profiles in the factory special inspected blades were acceptable, but edges are heavily rounded like in most of them blades.
Sorry that this went out of the original topic.
Quote from: Kaitsu on October 04, 2025, 12:49:50 PMBlades polishing is one reason why the they do "chrome removal" grinding, even to the stainless steel blades. I heard that Björn blades will be in future without chrome removal grinding (because grinding was really coarse) but I assume we are going to see similar rolled edges what is now a days standard feature in JW blades. They are terrible. Defect is many times very visible by simple visual check. Just got inpected blades from JW as a warranty when previous pair had huge difference in the profiles. Profiles in the factory special inspected blades were acceptable, but edges are heavily rounded like in most of them blades.
Sorry that this went out of the original topic.
There are two reasons I've read for chrome relief: (1) the chrome plating, and typically an intermediate nickel plating, are softer than the hardened and tempered steel; therefore, the softer plating is removed to produce the hardest edge; and (2) the chrome relief nominally marks the zone that is properly hardened and tempered.
I've never been sure about reason (1) since the plating is so thin. If you leave the plating in place, I'm not sure it has an effect on the edge geometry. Besides, if you use a honing stone (or burnishing rod) for deburring, that will probably remove the thin plating along the edge anyway.
I'm not sure what you mean by blade polishing in this context since the chrome relief is rougher than the chrome plate. The Eclipse Aurora is fabricated from 440C stainless steel. The sides are mirror polished all the way to the very edge. To mark the zone that is properly hardened and tempered, there is a laser-scribed line running along the length of the blade.
I assume that the blades are polished with the buffing wheel/paste before chroming. If so, it will round the edges. You will see this phenomena example on stanchions and other edges where chrome still exists. In stainless steel blades you should first polish blade to mirror finish and then make final profiling to remove edge rounding. Or you need to have some other brilliant way to polish blade so that this critical edge wont get round like the other edges. Very often in the polished stainless steel blades, the whole side surface has convex shape. This cause troubles when you use side surface as a datum when you evaluate the edges evenness.