Pro-Filer Redirects to Wissota

[tstop4me]

No, not the chrome plated area, unless you wear down your blades a lot more than most people do before replacing them. Only the part of the blade that touches the ice matters.

But the concern about scratches that other skaters have addressed have been specifically on the chrome-plated surfaces.  Scratches on the chrome-plated surfaces are readily visible; whereas, those on the chrome relief are not (here we're talking about typical scratches picked up from a sharpening operation, not aberrant deep gouges).

[Query]

The problem was that my eyes are now full of steel dust and I can't see if the blades were scratched and if the scratches were on the mounting screws or which skates I even sharpened.

I hope you use protective goggles when sharpening with the powered sharpening machine, or working in a machine shop. Many people do. I admit I don't when using Pro-Filer but I've never had that produce dust that got in the air. I have used goggles while using a drill or saw.

tstop4me - but my concern is only on scratches that might conceivably add extra drag while skating.

[Query]

Perhaps the woodworking tools I was talking about using, which cost a fewl thousand dollars, are less available without high expense to the average skater than adequate quality 3D printers? Hard core woodworking hobbyists buy such tools, but perhaps few skaters.

I don't know is how accurate the types of 3D printer are that are widely available to the general public in public libraries. The 3D printer I saw used was consistent to a mm or two. But someone said that was poor.

A high end skate blade holder I've seen allowed adjustment of the blade height - which directly affects the centering of the wheel on the hollow - by 1/2000 inch. But I think that is overkill, that the tool need not be shaped that accurately. I doubt woodworking tools could do that well.

I use Pro-Filer by alternating skate or tool orientation every few strokes, to compensate for tool asymmetries and irregularities. And I use enough tape to fit the blade quite snugly, which locks down the geometry, so gravity doesn't matter, and I can hand-hold the tool at any orientation. I think it gives excellent consistent results, by feel, though I don't have the highest accuracy tools to check it.

Using those techniques, would library quality 3D printers do well enough?

Blademaster only offers 2 ROH's, 1/2" and 3/4", and their website suggests both tools are for hockey blades, which are much thinner.

If Kaitsu makes his specification files available to the public, and creates files for many different ROH's, maybe they could go to a public library and make their own tools in the desired ROH, that are good enough, for people who use those techniques. Or he could sell his tools to the general public?

[Kaitsu]

Here you can see printed tool in action. https://youtu.be/aVAc4zSBo4M?si=pU46lCWhbRH1-Ifc

[tstop4me]

Kaitsu,  your conclusion is that your polishing tool reduced friction, but rounded the edges.  There are some details of your friction tests that we could get into, but I don't think those are important.  With respect to the rounding of the edges, what happens if you then use your ultrafine-grit whetstone along the edges (on the sides outside the hollow)?  Does that restore sharp edges?

Alternatively, I had previously given details for burnishing the edges (both inside and outside the hollow).  If you have tight control of ROH, it would be interesting (after grinding and polishing) to burnish the entire hollow, as I discussed previously in

http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8855.0  Reply# 10.

You can 3D print a proper chassis (holder) for the commercial tungsten carbide rod.

[Kaitsu]

I know that my friction test is far from the perfect. Example plastic piece I used does not contact the edges which are used in the skating. However I didn't have any other ideas how to witness visually the friction reduction with the existing pieces what I had on my hands in that moment. I repeated my non polished / polished test couple times by re-grinding the blade and re-polishing it. This is not shown in the video. 

Paramount skate's runners side surfaces are presenting me the dream side surfaces. They are plain grind to be flat without any bevel edges, which exists on most of the blades where chrome is removed. I truly hate when side surfaces are beveled / rounded already at the factory. Wilson might be the worst advanced blade manufacturer in this perspective. As I hate this feature so much, I am not going to shape side surfaces with burnishing tool to look like what I criticize.

However, I have lots of experience where skater says that skates are terrible to skate, even they have been recently sharpened (somewhere else). They feel too sharp. When I look the blades, I can feel that they feel extremely sharp when I test them with finger. ROH can be same as I would do, so root cause is not too small ROH. When I have reground the blades, they are happy. In my theory, there are two possible root causes which explains this. In some reason if you use coarse grinding wheel, edges feel sharper than with fine wheel. This is opposite what I could imagine in the first hand. This can explain also why profiler sharpening might feel sharper that what I have experienced with my printed tool. I don't think the printed cylinder is the problem causer in my tests, but I might to clarify this later by machining cylinder from the metal.

Another very plausible root cause for too sharp edges is that skate tech tilts honing stone too much in the deburring phase and/or uses too much force, causing burnishing (deforming) affect. Personally I have always been against the edges deforming. This is just my personal opinion, but I encourage everyone to sketch it to paper what does it mean when side surface is beveled / rounded. Note in your sketch that you are not skating in the way that blade would be in 90 degrees angle to the ice. Edge beveling / rounding issues materializes when you tilt the blade. I might be also wrong in this matter. Maybe this beveled / rounded edge is the "secret" why people like so much from the Wilson blades.

[Kaitsu]

And one more note... Edges rounding does not happen evenly. Some areas on the blade does have less rounding than the other. This makes "repairing" with burnishing even more difficult. 

[Query]

The Pro-Filer figure skating kits had two tools - one with a diamond dust coarse grit, one with an (aluminum oxide??) fine grit, which can be used instead of polishing. The hockey kits only had a coarse tool.

At a guess, your sandpaper is quite coarse - maybe as much or more so than the coarse stone in the Pro-Filer kits.

What grit sandpaper did you use? Did you consider switching to a fine grain after the initial sharpening?

It looked like your tool worked pretty well.

Were the edges fairly even?

How does the total sharpening and polishing time compare with the time you would have spent with your powered sharpening machine?

I love the simplicity of your friction measurement device! But I wonder if relative friction of rough and smooth surfaces is comparable with that tool and rink-temperature ice - partly because ice would deform more. I guess you could try to balance an ice cube of the right temperature on top, and slide it, but that would be very hard to balance. But the vertical force would be much less than the weight of a skater. Doing a really good friction test on an edge would be hard. E.g., you could mount a properly weighted blade on a pivoting device at an angle over the ice. Somewhat like Sydney Broadbent of iceskateology.com did. Probably very expensive to build. I'm sure some people would still find something to complain about the test.

If you talk to many skaters, some, like me, like their blades very sharp, and some don't. But the majority of skate techs do slightly dull the edges after sharpening, like you did, though I've usually seen it done with a flat stone.

[Kaitsu]

Grit size in sand paper was 800. I am not sure if your 800 grit is same as ours. Nevertheless, its already very fine grit.

As the material removal in the polishing is so less, I didn't monitor how much polishing affected to the edges evenness. As long as I round the edges, it does not matter how well I can keep edges even.

Polishing will take less time than what I use for power grinding. In the polishing I do not need to make measurements and height adjustments after every few passes like I do in the power grinding. Its more straight forward proses. If I could get mirror finish without rounding the edges, I could use that extra time on special cases. I believe the difference in the gliding properties is so small that it does not make sense to make it for the skaters which maintain their skates in 6-12 month's cycles and walk in the concrete floors without covers.

[Kaitsu]

Thanks to Marc sharing some improvement ideas, I was able to tune my 3D-print so that edge rounding is not happening so easily. Support surfaces are now 5mm taller (more in chromed area) than in Profiler and I added bigger chamfer to the intersection of the cylinder and guiding groove. With this tool I was able to polish blade hollow first time without rounding the edge. One problem in taller support surfaces is that they scratch chromed side surfaces. Protection taping is still needed. I printer three tools to get 400 800 and 1200 grit tools. I need to collect more experiences if one print works better than the other, even they should be identical. I should also find some volunteer whom allows me to test these tools to his/her blade. One important thing would be that skater would be skilled enough to give reliable feedback.

[tstop4me]

I should also find some volunteer whom allows me to test these tools to his/her blade. One important thing would be that skater would be skilled enough to give reliable feedback.

Given the variable ice conditions from session to session, it will be difficult to do A-B (polished-unpolished) comparison tests.  I think you'll need an advanced skater, equally adept on both feet, to skate with an unpolished blade on one foot and a polished blade on the other foot (and repeat tests interchanging the foot with the polished blade and the foot with the unpolished blade to check for bias). 

[Query]

I did notice your video showed a fair amount of what I think is sandpaper abrasive grain removed from the sandpaper. Much more than I've noticed with the Pro-Filer.

I wonder if sandpaper holds the grain less well than the abrasive grains embedded in the resin cylinders. Of course, there might also be different quality sandpapers, and different quality abrasive cylinders.

I don't know if the removed grain matters much.

I'm really impressed by the elegant simplicity of your method of making a substitute for Pro-Filer. How good a job do you feel it does? Is it much slower than the professional grade powered sharpening tools you've got? Do you plan to offer your 3D printed tools for sale?

Have your eyes healed? How did the steel dust get into them? Did you wear eye protection? (I admit I usually don't with Pro-Filer either, though I used to.) Or did it get on your hands, and you rubbed your eyes?