Gold Seal vs. Pattern 99 blade comparison

[Bill_S]

This will be a thread about the comparison between two John Wilson blades, the Pattern 99 and the Gold Seal. The purpose is to highlight differences between these two blades, and is not a contest to find the best one. I will skate on both of them in the coming weeks and report on my own impressions. Keep in mind that my skating skills and style may be different from yours, so I'm finding what works best for me. What works best for you may be different.

I purchased the Pattern 99 blades from the Ohio State University ice rink in Columbus, Ohio. They are new, fresh from the box.

I purchased the Gold Seal blades from an individual on eBay for a very reasonable $200. The ad stated that they were worn three times and sharpened once. While that may be mis-remembered a bit, they are in exceptional condition without even cosmetic skate guard chaffing along the sides. They look new, with the exception of some screw marks when they were mounted and an engraving (pro-shop?) on the right sole plate. I believe I got a great deal on this expensive blade.

Pattern 99:

I'll start with the Pattern 99, and describe its features, with pictures.



These blades, like all MK and Wilson blades I've purchased over the years, have a rubbery substance protecting their factory edges. The material is saturated with oil to prevent corrosion, so it can get a little messy on the fingers.



Unpacked and cleaned up, here is what a Pattern 99 blade looks like...



It's a flat-sided blade unlike the Gold Seal shown later in this comparison. Hand-sharpening tools, like the Pro-Filer, that ride on the sides of the blade will work well.

The markings that identify the blade are in a subdued tan color. I much prefer this to the distracting jet-black used for some blade logos and markings.



The straight-cut Pattern 99 toe picks are very distinctive. The top pick is large and has chiseled sides. This is substantially different from the Gold Seal picks.



Out of the box, the blade edges were quite sharp and could be skated upon without further work. While the front of the blades had level edges, I did find that the sharpening at the rear had slightly uneven edges on both blades.

Front:



Rear:



This is not major, but is a bit unexpected. When they need sharpening, I'll take care of that. In the meantime, I'll skate on them because it's not that severe.

The radius of hollow (ROH) from the factory was 7/16"...



[continued next post]

[Bill_S]

Wilson Gold Seal:

The Wilson Gold Seal blade have a substantially higher list price. The reason is obviously because of the extra machining required for a side-honed runner plus a tapered blade. The front of the blade at the edge is slightly wider than the rear - 0.149 front, 0.135 back.



While it's a bit difficult to show side honing in a photo, this is my best attempt at how it looks on the side of the blade...



The "scooped out" area on the side represents an extra machining operation compared to the flat-sided Pattern 99. That would increase manufacturing cost. Its purpose is to provide a more aggressive edge for a deeper bite in the ice.



Keep in mind that more bite might also produce higher friction, slowing the skater. But if you need grip on wonky landings, etc., it might be a worthwhile trade-off.

The toe picks are very similar to the Wilson Coronation Ace, with a prominent drag pick and top pick, but smaller middle picks. It has smaller but more numerous middle picks compared to the Ace. The middle picks are cross-cut, unlike the straight-cut picks on the Pattern 99.



Like the Pattern 99, the lettering on the side is a subtle tan color. Understated.



All Wilson blades I have seen these past couple of months have drop-dead gorgeous fit and finish. The brazing has very generous, perfectly formed fillets for strength, as you can see in the photos above and below.



These blades had been sharpened by someone after they left the factory. I checked for level edges, and that aspect was good. I couldn't use the reference piece of my blade level checker (see previous post) because the curved blade sides provided no flat reference surface for it to stick to. I used a very small square to press against the stanchions and sight along its top edge to the other half of the Wissota edge level checking kit. I saw an even slit of daylight on both the front and the back of the blades, so the sharpening was done evenly.

However, the blades had a very dull edge, of a different hue, as if the sharpener didn't grind deep enough to produce a sharp edge. I fixed that, and I now have sharp, level edges.

[Bill_S]

Digging into the comparison

Blade weight
Gold Seal     Pattern 99
370 grams    360 grams

The small difference surprised me a bit. The mounting plates on the Gold Seal have no central opening, plus the blade is slightly longer. Both are heavier blades compared to my current Eclipse Dance blades which are only 330 grams. Their extra heft in-hand is noticeable.

Stanchion Height
In the list below, I'll include other blades that I have experimented with lately.

Blade         Front           Rear
Gold Seal   1.832"           1.93"

Pattern 99  1.71"             1.84"

Eclipse
Dance        1.813"          1.953"

Ultima
Dance        1.93"           2.030"

Ace            1.876"         1.881"

MK Pro       1.856"        1.894"

The Pattern 99 has the lowest front stanchion of all the blades in the list. I'm hoping that it doesn't reduce boot clearance excessively when leaning in turns. The Gold Seal is higher in back than the Coronation Ace, another Wilson blade, but slightly lower in front.

Blade Length
These are both 10-1/4" (mounting) length blades, but the length of the blade itself is different. I measured from the root of the drag pick to the tail.

Gold Seal - 11.68"
Pattern 99 - 11.4"

The Pattern 99 is slightly over 1/4" shorter. Some skaters have felt that shorter blades contribute to backward falls, but I actually prefer shorter blades. Different strokes!

The stanchion thickness of the Pattern 99 blades measure around 0.165", and the Gold Seals measure 0.161"

These British blades are almost always around 0.160 or slightly more. Canadian-made Jackson and Eclipse blades are around 0.150" or slightly more. Curious.

The edge thickness of the Pattern 99 blades is around 0.162". The Gold Seals, being tapered blades, are 0.149" at the front, 0.141" in the middle, and 0.135" at the tail. The side honing and tapering reduce blade thickness, but not to the extent of a dance blade (typ. 0.125"). I'm curious to see how tapering and side-honing affect the on-ice feel.

The traced rocker profiles of both blades are extremely similar. Even though the Gold Seals have been sharpened at least twice (possibly 4 times), they practically match the Pattern 99 blades along the entire shared length. You can see how the Pattern 99 blades are shorter in the tracing.
[click to make bigger]

[Loops]

Awesome Bill!!!!

Excited to see the graphs.  Surprising that the profiles are so very consistent.  I wasn't expecting that. Except they're both Wilson, so maybe it's not that surprising.

Also, how to those rocker tracings line up against the CorAce and Prof?  Those are both 8ft rockers, as I recall, so I'd be mostly curious to see 1) how that actually looks along the length of the blade, and 2) the spin rockers.  I am VERY curious to see how the spin rockers differ (especially with the Wilson CorAce). 

Again, thanks for all the work you're putting into this! 

[Bill_S]

I have those comparisons to show, but the advertised rockers for MK Professional and Coronation Ace blades are 7", not 8'. That will be apparent in the illustrations below.

I also included a comparison with my old 10-1/2" worn down Aces from 2007. I perform well and spin best on them, probably from long-term familiarity. Their rocker has been flattened from 12 years of usage, plus they started out a different shape than the new Ace that I purchased recently.

Here goes, with the first comparison between new Coronation Aces and the Gold Seal blade. The difference between the 8' rocker of the Gold Seal vs. the 7' rocker of the Ace is apparent. I also see the pronounced forward "hump" at the spin rocker that I didn't adapt to. The "hump" is a design or manufacturing change from when I purchased Aces back in 2007. I still had tracings for it from when it was new that showed a different shape in the spin rocker. I detailed that difference in the Comparison between MK Pro vs. Ace thread http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8417.0

[click any picture to make it bigger]

Comparing the Gold Seal to a new Coronation Ace...



Comparing the Gold Seal to the MK Professional, on which I was able to spin OK...



And the Gold Seal compared to my old, beloved Aces, on which I can spin well...



Please note that the size of blades between individual illustrations in not fixed to a particular scale.

Given the similarity between the Gold Seal vs my well-worn Ace rockers, I should feel at home on them. Because the Pattern 99 is so close to the Gold Seal rocker, I predict that I'll like it too.

The illustrations don't show all the detail in the full 400-dpi scan that I have here (too big for internet web graphics), so I do see a half pencil-line difference in a couple of places between the old Ace curve and the Gold Seal curve. I hope that isn't significant.

Oh, the Gold Seals are LONG blades as seen in the comparisons above, even longer than my old 10-1/2" Aces. With the exception of my old Aces, the other blades are all 10-1/4" mounting length.

[Bill_S]

BTW, the tracings above are simply made by cutting a sheet of paper diagonally, and holding the blade down against the paper for tracing.



I scan them on a flat bed scanner at 400 pixels/inch, and then take them into Photoshop where I rotate the scan and combine it with others to compare.

I've been tracing my own blades since 2007, and have kept the original tracings in a cabinet. They have come in handy for comparing a worn blade to its former self, as well as other purposes.

[Bill_S]

The day is getting late and I still want to mount one of these blades for skating tomorrow morning. I intend to compare the left and right Gold Seal blades to see if sharpenings have them asymmetrical, but that will have to wait.

For now, here are Gold Seal and Pattern 99 measurements using this sliding fixture. I have included details about it in other threads here.



The underside of the blade plates are pressed against the mounting block, so any differences between front and rear stanchion heights will rotate the curves in the graph. The rocker shape between two blades could be identical, but with different stanchions, the graph will be different.

[click graph to make bigger to read the legend]



I'm please that the new spin rockers are a smoother transition than the new Coronation Ace blade, but now I'm wondering how I'll adapt to the differences in stanchion height. Skating will tell.

[Bill_S]

I mounted the Gold Seals for skating tomorrow morning. With that done, I plotted the both left and right Gold Seal blades to compare them.



Hmm. The difference looks like a rotated graph caused by different stanchion heights. Measuring both of them, the front stanchions are the same, but the rear stanchions differ by 0.017". That would account for most of the mismatch. I doubt that this was caused by a sharpening because it's a fairly big change. It would have taken a LOT of passes on the sharpener to make that much difference. (Generally a sharpening session, done with a number of light passes, removes 0.003" to 0.004" of metal).

It's possible that I'm looking at a variation in manufacturing.

I'm not too worried about it. The thickness of a sock at the heel is roughly the difference, so it shouldn't matter much. I'll just pick a sock with a hole in the heel for the right blade with the taller stanchion. 

I should get back into the shop and measure the other Pattern 99 blade too, but not tonight. I'm bushed.

[MCsAngel2]

I'm sure you know better than I do, but my first thought is definitely that the difference is due to sharpening, because it's the left blade that's shorter (most people are right handed and spinning on their left foot). But, you get what you get when you get a deal on used blades.

[Bill_S]

I would have thought so too, except that the front stanchion height is the same on both blades. Most sharpenings take the approximately the same amount from the front and the back of the blade. Besides, if someone is spinning, it's going to be under the front stanchion where the most wear would accumulate.

But we'll never know for certain.

[Loops]

Thanks for posting the profile comparisons!  I was curious to see what 8' looked like compared to 7', but also how the spin rockers compared.  The beginner blades are so much curvier at the sweetspot.  Very interesting.  I was predicting that the CorAce would have the same spin rocker, just get curvier along the length of the blade.

You gonna do the MK line next?  Right after the money tree starts blooming in your yard, eh?

[Bill_S]

Don't forget that one of the differences between the Ace shown in the top tracing and the other two Aces that I've owned is a pronounced curve at the spin rocker. That wasn't there in the two earlier samples I had between 2000 and 2007. Those old Aces were more like the MK Pro.

[Bill_S]

Gold Seal Skating Impressions, Day 1:

I spent 1-1/2 hours on the blades this morning. I was curious to see if the side-honed and tapered blade would feel different. It did. I felt it mostly in edge changes. Changing from a flat to an edge, or from one edge to the other felt "boosted" or assisted somehow. Perhaps it's a change of drag manifesting itself. Edges felt like they had less drag than on a flat - I think. Anyway, it was different from all the straight sided, constant thickness blades that I've been on until now. It wasn't a gigantic difference, but I felt it. It took a little while to get used to it.

The taller heel stanchion was apparent today. I felt it, but it didn't cause much difficulty.

I can spin on these blades. I had trouble with traveling, but I can hook the LFO edge into a spin nicely, just like my old Aces (not the new ones) and the new MK Pros that I have used lately. It wasn't hard to get up to 8-10 revs before I felt the spin deteriorating. Some were fast. The photo below shows a typical spin from this morning, traveling and all...



I still have work to do to reduce traveling, but at least I'm getting revolutions.

One thing that was immediately apparent was the NOISE that these blades made. In just about any move where you put a little power or lean into them, they crunch, rip, and growl unlike any blade that I've been on. If judges need to hear a rip in, say, power-pulls, these will make you job easier. Just doing some fast alternating forward inside edges, doing about 8' radius lobes down the ice, I recorded the racket in a short sound clip.

[sound clip link] --> http://www.afterness.com/skating/audio/edges_rip_gold_seals.mp3

(Note that the wind noise is not me breathing into the phone, but is from the breeze as I traveled down the rink with the phone in my extended arm. )

If you want growling edges, this blade makes them without trying hard.

By the end of the session, I was comfortable doing all threes, some brackets, and counters. I can still do twizzles better using my old Aces than these, but I'm sure that will get better with familiarity.

Beside the constant growling, there were no bad habits exhibited by these blades. I'll blame the traveling spins on myself.  I could see myself adapting to them for long term usage. Skating on them resembled meeting an old friend that I haven't seen in a while. Familiar, but with a little catching-up to do.

[Bill_S]

I almost forgot - the long tails were noticeable. I managed a couple metal-on-metal "clicks" because the tails stick out so far.

I also felt them drag/snag on the ice as I did some sloppy three-turns from back to front while performing some unremembered moves today. I prefer somewhat shorter tails.

Personal preference, of course. YMMV

[Query]

I couldn't use the reference piece of my blade level checker (see previous post) because the curved blade sides provided no flat reference surface for it to stick to. I used a very small square to press against the stanchions and sight along its top edge to the other half of the Wissota edge level checking kit.

I don't know your tool, but maybe you can check that by measuring both sides, and seeing whether the deviation is the same. Likewise you should see the same amount and shape of daylight on both sides using the square.

Could you use a micrometer to determine how much side honing actually occurs? And whether it is symmetrical on both sides of the blade?

I'm not smart enough to know what tool is needed to see if the plating thickness, and the thickness of the chrome relief removal, are symmetric - which Mike C said sometimes isn't true. What tool would you use if you wanted to do that?

Does the side honing appear to be cylindrically shaped, like the hollow on the bottom of blades? That would make them "hollow ground" in knife lingo.

In theory, that type of side honing slightly increases the effective sharpness for a given ROH, by reducing the edge angle. If the thickness removal is as small as I've been told for some blades - on the order of .001 or .002" (though Mike C said that one model had about .007" if I remember right) - I don't understand how it has made such a difference as you have seen.

A potential problem is that if you don't remove the same amount of metal along the whole length when you sharpen, you could modulate the blade thickness and edge angle in a complex difficult-too-compensate-for fashion.

In any event your pictures answer a question I've had - the side honing affects the entire side of the runner, not just what Sid Broadbent calls the "chrome relief facet",  so I think you would need to pad a Pro-Filer sharpener (e.g., with foam tape) to make it work - if there is room in the gap for such tape.

A tapered shape seems a lot like the streamlining of a raindrop. It should make the blade marginally faster, though I'm not sure if it is enough of a difference to notice. Unless it is too much of a difference, creating MORE drag.

The problem is that these are uncontrolled experiments, with many variables altered at once, and that there is no objective way to measure the change on how you skate, even if you could control it. You can't really tell how much the variation of each shape parameters affects your skating. In a USFSA sponsored study, Broadbent did once try to measure characteristics over the ice by fixing the blades or skates on a rotating machine, with some sort of sensors attached, but figure skating is obviously more complicated than that.

BTW, Mike C once told me that all the high end MK blades had the same profile shape at the factory, to the extent that they were consistent, but other people have said differently. Also, that was some time ago, and might be out of date.

I'm always amazed by just how similar the models of figure skate blade are. Even though the tricks figure skaters have used have evolved a lot over time, as have the boots, it seems like blade makers got it "right" pretty early on. Also that, somehow, incredibly small changes substantially affect how a blade feels. Which just makes it obvious how much harm a poorly trained skate tech, or one in a hurry, can do. (I'm not including you in that category.)

Why would they make more noise? Do you think it is the tapering? And why would it do that? I don't get the physics.

[Bill_S]

In theory, that type of side honing slightly increases the effective sharpness for a given ROH, by reducing the edge angle. If the thickness removal is as small as I've been told for some blades - on the order of .001 or .002" (though Mike C said that one model had about .007" if I remember right) - I don't understand how it has made such a difference as you have seen.

I made some photos and a measurement to characterize the hollow. It's much more than 0.007" deep. To give you an idea, I held a straight edge against the side honing to get a visual feel for it...

[click pictures to enlarge]



Then I rummaged around looking for something with which to measure it. The closest that I have is a depth micrometer, but it has a 1/8" diameter probe that is flat on the bottom, so the actual depth is more than indicated in the photo below. The probe's end would span part of the recess, and not reach completely to the low point.



I'd need a point or a round-end probe for a more accurate measurement, but since it shows 0.011" deep, you can safely assume that it's a bit deeper than that.

[Bill_S]

In my last post, there was a photo that raised some questions. Here's a crop from that photo above...

[click photo to make bigger]



It looks something like this, with the common chrome relief producing standard straight edges to the ice.



Judging from this close-up photo, the side-honing is contributing nothing at all to the edge. The chrome relief was ground after side honing, and it appears that its side is perfectly parallel like any other blade. However, the tapered blade thickness along the blade length remains real.

Could it be that side-honing, if it doesn't reach the skating edge, is mostly a marketing ploy?

I wish that I could ask a Wilson engineer about this.

[tstop4me]

Judging from this close-up, the side-honing is contributing nothing at all to the edge. The chrome relief was ground after side honing, and it appears that its side is perfectly parallel like any other blade. The taper along the blade length remains.

Could it be that side-honing, if it doesn't reach the skating edge, is mostly a marketing ploy?

I wish that I could ask a Wilson engineer about this.

As Wolfgang would say, "V-e-r-y interesting."  Yet, you felt and heard a difference.  Placebo effect?

[Bill_S]

Perhaps it can all be attributed to the tapered blade, which is a real, measurable difference compared to my past blades.

[FigureSpins]

IIRC, side honing was intended to lighten the blade more than anything else.  I might be thinking of "parabolic" blades, though.  At the time, my snarky self felt it was a way to save on raw materials and charge more for a "feature."

[tstop4me]

IIRC, side honing was intended to lighten the blade more than anything else.  I might be thinking of "parabolic" blades, though.  At the time, my snarky self felt it was a way to save on raw materials and charge more for a "feature."

No, light weight is not a feature of the Gold Seal; on the contrary, it has solid sole plates, adding to weight.  The side honing ostensibly is to alter the edge angles, giving more bite.  Parabolic profile provides more bite near the toe and near the tail, and more glide near the center.  There's no savings in raw material because they start with a uniformly thick sheet, and then grind away material to form the contours.  Bill's results are indeed bizarre:  all that sophisticated side honing, just to screw it up with the chrome relief.  Next time I'm at a pro shop, I'll need to take a closer look.  The Eclipse Pinnacle (comparable to Gold Seal) also has concave side honing.  It'll be interesting to see whether they also negate the benefits by screwing up the chrome relief. 

[Bill_S]

The Eclipse Pinnacle, made from carbon steel, does have a relief. From their literature copy online " A side-honed runner and chrome free rakes bite into the ice..." 

A side-honed stainless steel blade would not require a chrome relief.  The more expensive Titanium Pinnacle with stainless runner is NOT side honed. That's the one that could have a side hone that actually provided more bite.

But I'm thinking just a smaller ROH would do the same.

I did do a quick and dirty approximation about how much weight would be saved per blade due to having both sides honed. I roughly calculated 0.06 lb, or 27 grams. That's a bit more than I expected. They could have saved even more if they have opened the sole plate in the center like almost every other blade on earth.

[Bill_S]

Gold Seal Skating Impressions, Day 2:

I'm feeling completely at home on these blades now. I suspect that it's because of the similarity to the rocker of my old Ace blades. I still travel in spins though, so I'll have to keep working on that.

However, there were a couple of times when I entered a spin with a wonky attitude or with a blade skid, and was sure that I'd step out. But I didn't. I find spin entry very forgiving.

I am skidding a bit on spin entries, so I'm going down to a 3/8" ROH for a little more bite. It makes sense because these blades are thinner than my old Aces.

I might shorten Gold Seal testing a bit, and perhaps try the Pattern 99 blades early next week. There are few surprises or differences left to overcome, so it's time to move to the (hopefully) last blade in my testing before decision time.

Since September, I've skated on:
Old 2007 Coronation Aces
New Coronation Aces with a different spin rocker shape [http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8417.0]
MK Professionals [http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8417.0]
Ultima Protege [http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8431.0]
Eclipse Dance [http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8454.0]
Gold Seals
...and soon the Pattern 99s.

And I have measured Ultima Dance http://skatingforums.com/index.php?topic=8447.0 and Ultima Synchro blades, but not skated in them.

The journey's been enlightening.

[MCsAngel2]

At this point, I wonder how you will ever be able to narrow your choices to two?

[Bill_S]

Maybe dice. 

So far, in order of preference, I like the Gold Seal, the MK Professional, and the Eclipse Dance (if I don't have to spin in them).

If I do get into proper dance lessons, the order will certainly change. Having that short blade will be worth its weight in gold when skating with a partner.

Of course I still have the Pattern 99 to try. It has a somewhat shorter tail than the Gold Seal, and nearly the same rocker.