Thickness of Eclipse Dance blades?

[Bill_S]

Does anyone have a pair of the Eclipse Dance blades and a micrometer? I'd love to know the thickness of the blade with some precision.

One thing that has put me off trying thinner dance blades is that my Pro-Filer sharpener won't work with them. I might be able to make new holders for Pro-Filer stones that would allow usage on thin blades, but I'd like to know the blade thickness in advance to estimate how much shop time I'd be in for.

This is at the daydreaming stage for me, so don't hold me to it.

[tstop4me]

(1) Bill, in case you don't get a definite response from anyone here, I suggest you email Riedell/Eclipse at

customerservice@riedellskates.com

In the past, I've gotten responses from Dan Riegelman, one of the VP's there.  He's fairly decent about sharing technical details. 

(2) About two years ago, I modified the blade mounting for a girl at my rink.  She had Eclipse dance blades.  If I remember correctly (which is a big if these days  ), I think the blade has a step in thickness; i.e., the blade body near the edge is thinner than the blade body near the stanchion.  So you'll need to get more info on the blade geometry than just a single blade thickness if you plan to run a Pro-Filer on it.  Unfortunately, she changed her schedule, so I don't run into her very often anymore; otherwise, I'd get you some detailed measurements.

[Bill_S]

Thanks for the reply. Truthfully, I didn't expect any replies given the specificity of the request.

I didn't know about the stepped blade geometry. Thanks for bringing that to my attention. It would certainly complicate things.

Edit: I looked at the photo on Riedell's site more closely, and the step is clearly depicted. Drat!

[Query]

(I could be out of date on this or wrong - I've never owned Eclipse blades.)

AFAIK, "thinline dance blades" are only thin at the bottom, not on the places that your sharpening tool gap would touch, or that a professional machine tool would use to hold the blade. At least that is true for both of the Dance models I have used (MK Dance and Ultima Matrix I Dance). Instead, a thin strip near the bottom (the "chome relief region") is ground extra deep, more than is needed to remove the Chrome plate layer, to make that part thin.

When I spoke with the main sharpener at Riedell some years past, just before the Eclipse line came out, I got the impression Riedell was trying to imitate the MK line of blades in many respects. Though I was later told they took over the production line that had been used for GAM blades. But I can't confirm this pattern for Riedell Dance.

Do you know anyone with Eclipse Dance blades? Take your micrometer or calipers to the rink - or maybe just your Pro-Filer.

In any event, you could line the gap with tape to make it thinner. A bit hard to do, but possible. Or put thin lines of thin tape on both sides of the blades themselves.

Last I heard, Eclipse blades are not pre-sharpened at the factory. I.E., they have an infinite ROH. So, unless you want to wear out the coarse (diamond dust) cylinder on your Pro-Filer, or use another tool, you may want to get a (good!) skate tech to give you an initial sharpening. Just be sure you record the profile first, so you can restore it, if you want. You may want to tip the skate tech - it will take him a lot of time to create that initial ROH, from nothing.

It is common to have a slightly smaller ROH on dance blades than freestyle blades, because they are thin, which means you need a smaller ROH to create the same edge angle. That meant I had to go to 3/8" ROH instead of the nominal 7/16", because Pro-Filer doesn't offer 7/16". (Or rather, they do, but the nominal 7/16" ROH tools are actually 3/8" tools! The Pro-Filer creator claims it is a very small difference in shape, measured in terms of depth of the depression. He is right, but I believe it does significantly affect the edge angle, and the sharpness I feel.

BTW 3/8" ROH blades should have a slower and shorter glide than 7/16" or 1/2" ROH blades, and they should require more frequent sharpening. So if you can get away with 1/2" ROH (depending on your tools, and your skating skills, of course), you might try that. OTOH, I believe Dance places more emphasis on rapid, complex and clean turns than freestyle, so you might not get away with 1/2".

If you can get away with 1/2" ROH, as I mentioned before, you could switch to the old Berghman sharpening tools (see eBay). They are in virtually every respect better designed: you can adjust the gap width; you can get close to the toe pick with better control; you can see what you are doing), and are much cheaper. The only problem with them was that the old sharpening cylinders were a bit coarse and crumbly. (Maybe coarse enough to do the initial sharpening yourself??) You could replace them with Pro-Filer's stones, or with other brand abrasive cylinders of the right radius. Also, they aren't nearly as pretty as Pro-Filer tools. But I do wish someone would make tools like that again, in a variety of ROH.

Hope that helps.

P.S. To some extent, it may be possible to adjust the gap width on your Pro-Filer by changing the tightness of the pin that keeps the cylinder in place - but I'm not sure if that was only true on the older Pro-Filers. Also, I don't think you can adjust it much.

[Bill_S]

I find it curious that the suggested ROH for Eclipse Dance blades is 1". That's patch blade territory. I bet they are fast and glide well at that ROH.

I don't know if I'll go with dance blades or not, but as new boot time rolls around, it's something to consider. After an initial sharpening, I need the ability to sharpen them myself. That will impact the decision.

[lutefisk]

Whatever happened to the synchro blades you bought a while back?

[Bill_S]

Good memory. They are still sitting in a box. The blade thickness is just a little narrower than a standard freestyle blade. I can't sharpen them with a standard Pro Filer, but they are not as thin as I suspect dance blades are. It's a compromise that still requires extra work to get sharpened.

However, I still think about them for the next boots. I'm just really curious about honest-to-goodness dance blades.

[Loops]

Good memory. They are still sitting in a box. The blade thickness is just a little narrower than a standard freestyle blade. I can't sharpen them with a standard Pro Filer, but they are not as thin as I suspect dance blades are. It's a compromise that still requires extra work to get sharpened.

However, I still think about them for the next boots. I'm just really curious about honest-to-goodness dance blades.

Really?  What kind of Synchro blades are they?  They ultimately might fit your bill.  I overall liked my Vision synchros, but got into too much trouble with the toepick- the topology is similar to that of a Pattern 99, and even a small tap left big divots (think 3T!) in our very brittle hockey ice.   My other complaint about them was the small drag pick.  At that point I was jumping from time to time, and I wanted a "normal" size.

Most of the other synchro blades are now discontinued, but they seemed to be more of a dance blade, with a dance toepick.  So maybe they are  a smidge narrower, but that seems like a lot of engineering for the Wilson/MK to have done for a not-top end price tagged blade.  BUT MK/Wilson are not known for their product consistency either......Are they so narrow you can't build them up with tape?

[Bill_S]

They are the old-style Jackson Ultima Synchro blades. They are a bit shorter and thinner (barely) than freestyle blades, so I consider them a halfway-point between freestyle and dance.



These do have parallel sides, so it would be easier to fabricate some sort of sharpener for them. Hmmm.

[tstop4me]

They are the old-style Jackson Ultima Synchro blades. They are a bit shorter and thinner (barely) than freestyle blades, so I consider them a halfway-point between freestyle and dance.


These do have parallel sides, so it would be easier to fabricate some sort of sharpener for them. Hmmm.

Bill, I'd like to compare  numbers with you.  Freestyle blades I've measured range in thickness (away from the chrome relief) from  0.15 to 0.16 inch.  The slot width of my Pro-Filer blocks is 0.170 inch.  The biggest problem I've had are with blades that are on the thick side:  assuming I don't wish to machine the slots wider, I need to use very thin tape, which is not robust.  Thinner blades allow the use of thicker, more robust tape ... and there is a greater variety of choice for thicker tapes (thicker than the Magic Tape you're using).

What is the thickness of your freestyle and synchro blades, and what is the slot width of your Pro-Filer blocks?  If your issue is too many layers of Magic Tape needed, you may be able to simply switch to a different tape, rather than making a different Pro-Filer block.

Note that there is a hockey version of the Pro-Filer that is suited for thinner blades, though the design does not allow you to come as close to the drag pick as the figure skate version (it can be modified to allow you to come closer).

[Bill_S]

Here are the numbers:

Coronation Ace thickness: 0.162 inch average, within +/- half-thousandth variation tip to toe. No chrome area measured, just the hardened edge.

Jackson Ultima Synchro (old style, made in Taiwan): 0.154 inch average, about the same variation along the length.

3/8" ROH Pro Filer blade gaps:
coarse stone  - 0.174 inch
fine stone - 0.171 inch

1/2" ROH Pro Filer from early 2000s:
coarse stone - 0.173 inch
fine stone - 0.173 inch

Roughly speaking, I'd need about twice the tape thickness, or two layers of my go-to tape.

[tstop4me]

Here are the numbers:

Coronation Ace thickness: 0.162 inch average, within +/- half-thousandth variation tip to toe. No chrome area measured, just the hardened edge.

Jackson Ultima Synchro (old style, made in Taiwan): 0.154 inch average, about the same variation along the length.

3/8" ROH Pro Filer blade gaps:
coarse stone  - 0.174 inch
fine stone - 0.171 inch

1/2" ROH Pro Filer from early 2000s:
coarse stone - 0.173 inch
fine stone - 0.173 inch

Roughly speaking, I'd need about twice the tape thickness, or two layers of my go-to tape.

You should be OK with your existing Pro-Filer.  I did skate for a while on Eclipse Aurora blades.  It's polished stainless steel (no chrome), with a blade thickness of 0.150 inch.  I sharpened it with a Pro-Filer, using several layers of Magic Tape at the time.  As I posted previously (http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=6837.0    see Reply #18), I've now switched to an industrial polyimide tape, which is thicker, stronger, and more uniform than Magic Tape.  I now have Paramount stainless-steel blades, which are 0.160 inch thick, and can get by with one layer.  You can get even thicker polyimide tape than the one I referenced.

<<You've been curious about the thickness of the Eclipse dance blades.  I was waiting for someone to provide a current measurement.  But since no one has, I'll give you what I recall from two years ago when I was working on the girl's skates (see my Reply #1 in this thread).  My recollection is that across the thin zone, the thickness was 0.125 inch.  I had read that some dance blades are as thin as 0.10 inch, and I was curious to see what hers were.>>

[Query]

Huh - Riedell recommends 1" ROH?

Sorry, I should have checked!

I wonder why. If you look at http://www.faqs.org/faqs/sports/skating/ice/rec-skate/appendix1, all the dance blades they list (which do not include Eclipse Dance) have 7/16" or 5/16" ROH (wow!). If you have a skate tech you trust, you could ask what ROH they use on those blades. Does anyone here know why Riedell Recommends 1" - is there something different about the shape of their blades that causes that to make sense? It would be worth calling Riedell just to find out why they say that.

As far as not being able to sharpen your Synchro blades with your Pro-Filer, you can file your Pro-Filer to create a slightly larger gap. I did that once. But then you would might need to tape them, or your blades, to use with thinner blades again. Also, last I knew, Edge Specialties was willing to create tools with custom gaps - though that was years ago. Using Synchro blades might be an easier transition from freestyle blades. For that matter, a lot of ice dancers use freestyle blades, perhaps so they don't have to learn another skating style??

If Riedell won't give you the info on Eclipse Dance, which I assume they will, perhaps one of the mail order skate places would take a measurement, in hopes that you will buy from them. In addition, you could ask them if they sharpen them (many mail order companies do, unless you ask otherwise), and what ROH they use - though I wouldn't be surprised if a big mail order place would simply offer to give you the ROH you want.

I wonder how consistent Riedell is on blade thicknesses within a given model...

[Bill_S]

Yeah, that 1" recommendation caught me by surprise too. That would make for some fast skating?

I could use my existing Pro Filer sharpener with the synchro blades easily enough, so that's not a big issue with them. I've been curious about dance blades and how different the feel would be on ice. If it's too much work, I'll just stick with Aces or the Eclipse equivalent. After all, I have many years of practice using them.

[Query]

A speed skater once told me that on their infinite-ROH (flat) blades, they can slide sideways almost as fast as longitudinally.

Maybe that wouldn't be good ice dance technique.

Of course 1" isn't infinity.

I guess you need very good technique to make clean edges with 1". Alas Edge Specialities doesn't sell 1" Pro-Filers.

If you (Bill_S) call Riedell, I'd be curious what they say. If you call Edge Specialties, I'd be curious if they still do custom gaps.

[icedancer]

What size are those Synchro Blades?

[Bill_S]

10-1/2 inch, according to the engraving on the blade.

[icedancer]

Thanks - I think I have asked you about these before as I would consider buying them off of you BUT I use a 10.25 blade.

I do keep thinking about the Synchro blade because they are just a fraction longer than my dance blades.

Oh and re: slimline - I never noticed the difference in how they feel compared to the regular width blades but I also don't use a Profiler so I guess that is the issue here.

[Bill_S]

Oh and re: slimline - I never noticed the difference in how they feel compared to the regular width blades ...

Thanks for passing that info along. That's what I've been mostly curious about.

[Query]

Oh and re: slimline - I never noticed the difference in how they feel compared to the regular width blades but I also don't use a Profiler so I guess that is the issue here.

I have only two data points, which may not help much:

1. My MK Dance blades were much faster, and had much longer glide, than my Coronation Ace blades. I was told by the skate tech that they would be faster because they were slimline. However, the blade shapes are different in other respects - and I think my Coronation Ace blades were warped, to the extent that they actually became hot while skating, something I haven't noticed on other blades.

2. Speed skates are very thin, and have been getting thinner. But I don't know if that is to make them faster, or to make them lighter.

The problem is that we can't buy blades with just one thing changed at a time, making it difficult to run controlled experiments regarding blade shape and its effects.

If blades could be reshaped to any desired shapes, like the T-1000 in Terminator 2, we could run such experiments. We also wouldn't need external sharpening devices. But such blades (sigh) are not available at this time.

However, the o.p. is, if I recall correctly, an engineer, which is modern speak for a master practitioner of the arcane arts. Perhaps he can design "T-1000 blades"?