Gold Seal vs. Pattern 99 blade comparison

[Bill_S]

Gold Seal Skating Impressions, Day 3:

This wasn't my best skating day for some reason. I felt rough and "thrashy" on the ice today. I pushed myself rather hard yesterday, so I suspect it was a case of stiff legs that caused me to skate less well. I did take an aspirin before I skated just to keep the aches away.

The blades performed well, and spins revolved. There were a couple spins that had improved centering. That made me happy. Only one fall on an attempted jump. My timing was very poor for that attempt.

I'm going to keep these blades on for another day or two before I switch off to the Pattern 99 blades. I couldn't fairly test them today.

[Bill_S]

Gold Seal Skating Impressions, Day 4:

I believe that I need to slightly reposition the left blade. It's mounted too far to the outside, and if I skid, it's generally on a left outside edge. LBO threes are a bit more difficult too - at least I don't think that it's just me. That's my worst three-turn.

Even though the mounting position is not optimum, I have no way to do a minor adjustment easily. I'm using my old boots for mounting and testing all these blades, and the bottom is absolutely riddled with screw holes now. When I get my new boots going, I can fiddle with things like position much more easily, then place the permanent screws.

For now, it's a slight problem that I'll just deal with. It's all part of testing. 

I had OK scratch spins today, fast stroking, good threes in all directions with the exception of an occasional scratchy LBO three. No unwanted surprises at all.

[Query]

I believe that I need to slightly reposition the left blade. It's mounted too far to the outside, and if I skid, it's generally on a left outside edge. LBO threes are a bit more difficult too - at least I don't think that it's just me. That's my worst three-turn.

Even though the mounting position is not optimum, I have no way to do a minor adjustment easily.

A small lateral shift produces essentially the same effect as putting a line of tape under the insole.

(A big lateral shift is somewhat different, because it affects your spin axis.)

But maybe you don't want to tape the insole, because you may want to remove it for the next blades. I've been known to put a strip of newspaper, or other material, under one side.

[Query]

I'm deeply puzzled by your measurements that say side-honing has no effect whatsoever on the edges.

However, it is somewhat consistent with the fact that either MK or Wilson at least once claimed that some of their blades were both parabolic and tapered, which didn't sound physically possible to me. If they don't require the modifications to have a significant effect on skating, it's easy - just apply it to different parts of the blade.

How certain are you of your measurements? I'm going to email Mike C to see if he ever took a similar measurement.

If anyone else feels comfortable asking a top notch skate tech about this issue, that would be great.

[Bill_S]

I measured both left and right Pattern 99 blades, brand-new with the factory sharpening.

There was enough difference showing between the left and right blades that I set up the measuring fixture again and ran a second of numbers. It confirmed the previous measurements that left and right blades are slightly different by about 1/32" across most of the rocker. The plot below shows all four sets of data. I was pleased with the repeatability of the humbly constructed measuring rig.

[click to enlarge]



In this graph, the rocker's vertical scale is expanded. The left side represents the toe pick root. Different stanchion heights rotate the rocker in the graph, just as they do mounted to the boot.

The right blade shows a little glitch at the 9.5" mark back from the root of the drag pick in both measurements. I'll have to check into that, but it should be mostly removed by the first sharpening that I give it.

In metalworking, 1/32" deviation is considered a lot. However, it remains to be seen if it makes a persistent difference in skating feel.

I didn't get a chance to mount these today because of life's obligations, but I will soon.

[MCsAngel2]

Wow, how many regular sharpenings would it take on the one to make them even? That would annoy me, even if I couldn't feel it.

[Bill_S]

It would take about 10 sharpenings, but you would be about 1/4 of the way through the chrome relief depth by then.

I'm beginning to believe that each pair of blades had its own personality, and you just have to get used to them. In many ways, it's like learning to live with a spouse.

[icedancer]

I'm wondering, Bill, how it feels to go from the Pattern 99s and Gold Seal to the Eclipse Dance blades?  I know that sometimes when people have been skating in dance blades for a long time going back to a freestyle blade feels like skis.

Is that your experience?

[Bill_S]

I'd say that the "going to skis" is exaggerated, but remember I was on dance blades for only a couple weeks. You can feel the difference though.

On the first or second day of going back to freestyle blades I clicked the blade tails together. I think that happened just doing a Mohawk. Additionally, I'm now very cautious when doing backward cross strokes. The fear of "tangling tails" has always been there performing cross stokes. Perhaps it's something subconsciously remembered from a past incident? When using the extra-long Gold Seal blades, I did them carefully and mentally rehearsed reactions to any backward fall. By comparison, I could do them with abandon on the dance blades.

Sometimes doing "quick-n-sloppy" threes when my weight wasn't over the correct spot, I felt the tail scrape snow as I turn from backward to forward. So far, I haven't snagged the tail hard enough to cause a fall, but it's a matter of time.

I didn't use the dance blades skating with a partner. That's another place where short blades are worth their weight in gold.

[lutefisk]

It would be interesting to hear your comments on going back and forth between any brand of free style or dance blades and hockey blades.  There are kids (and at least one coach) at my rink that can go seamlessly back and forth between free style blades and/or synchro blades, used for practice sessions for up coming competitions and then go play hockey with their high school team.  I, on the other hand, was a nervous Nelly just attempting to go back to my previous Jacksons with similar blades (Aspires) which I kept for pond skating and my new Jacksons (same boot) which initially had whatever the Aspire blade evolved to, both of those blades have 8' radii; (I now skate on Ultima Eclipse, 7 foot radius blades).  Anyway, back when I was swapping between new and old equipment it would take me at least 20 minutes of skating before I felt comfortably trying anything beyond forward stroking.  Kids! Bah!  They make me green with envy.

[Bill_S]

Frankly, I haven't had much trouble switching. There are differences, but it affects more advanced skills like three-turns - particularly switching between 7 and 8 foot rockers. Forward and backward stroking, doing Mohawks and simpler moves aren't causing any problem at all. In a couple of laps, I could skate at full speed regardless of blade. For me, spins are the biggest difference between blades. I just didn't adapt to some spin rockers in the week or two of testing of these blades.

Getting the blade in the same position, as much as possible, is important. That's why I marked lines on my soles and heels to guide blade placement when switching. The Gold Seal's solid plate didn't allow following the line. It got covered up by the plate. In addition, existing mounting holes made it difficult to position exactly where I want to the blade to be. That's why I'm doing some slight skidding on the LO edge with these blades. For a week, I'll put up with the slightly off mounting.

Here's a photo showing the marking of the blade position on the sole before I removed the old Coronation Ace blade. The heel got the same treatment. (The marking hand is temporarily holding the camera here!  )

[Bill_S]

One more thing - I was talking with one of the coaches here who has two pairs of boots. She recalls that when the blades got switched on one pair, she could barely tell the difference.

If you are feeling a big difference, I'd check blade mounting position.

[Bill_S]

The measured mismatch between the left and right Pattern 99 blades troubled me. This is especially true since the stanchion height between the two blades matched. I couldn't imagine how stanchions could be the same, but the rocker placement on the graph was so different.

I also looked at the Gold Seal plots, then the Eclipse. In each case where I measured both blades, the left blade was positioned higher in the graph than the right. That seemed to be more than coincidence.

[click to enlarge any picture]



The big AHA!

Then I had an AHA! moment last night in bed. It occurred to me that the Pattern 99, Gold Seal, and Eclipse blades have left and right sole plates. They are not symmetrical plates like the Jackson Ultima blades that I had previously reviewed.

Asymmetrical Pattern 99 sole plate (left side)...




The difference in the left and right plates made a difference how the blades registered against the measurement jig. Here's a shot showing a right sole plate registered against the back of the jig, and where it touches the upright. A left plate would have the large lobe down, touching at the blue line.



I sketched in some lines showing where the sole plate would touch, and where the other half would touch. Because skate blades are not co-planar (grumble), the plates are mounted at angles. That means that the touch point will change depending on whether the left or right plate is mounted.



I think that's the problem. I'll have to think about another registration scheme that removes this left vs. right variation.

The upshot is that the curves still represent rockers accurately, but where they are placed on the graph varies.

It's time for more head scratching and more shop work to modify the jig. I'll try to re-measure the Eclipse Dance, Gold Seal, and Pattern 99 blades afterward. I doubt that I'll go back to do all blades because that would be a solid week's worth of labor. It takes several hours to measure, input numbers, and plot the results for each pair of blades, and frankly, I want to settle on a pair or two and just skate.

[Query]

Is it possible (I'm not sure) that the centers of the stanchions are supposed to bear the most weight, structurally, and should therefore lie more or less under the ball and heel of the foot, so those are the logical control points to match?

One could use the drag pick as a control point, but toe picks vary a lot by model in size and placement, so I don't think that is a great idea. Likewise, mounting hole positions, and end of the tail, also vary a lot.

(I thought about writing an automated program to take an optical scan of a blade and derive a list of rocker and toe pick characteristics for comparison, but I couldn't figure out a good way to derive such control points. Also, scanners don't always have accurate or consistent positioning, and they mess things up by using a colored mask combined with complex proprietary processing to derive the final image, and I'm not sure they have high enough resolution to get good rocker radii and sweet spot over short distances. With a little work I could do some noise reduction, Fourier domain interpolation, then edge enhancement & detection, with sub-pixel position estimation [ignore those words if they don't make any sense to you], but that too might would need to vary a bit by scanner characteristics. Also, an optical scan makes a mess of cross-picks, which are quite common. BTW, side honing, etc. would be essentially impossible to pick up, especially if I didn't want to scratch the scanner glass. Still, it would be cool if we could all scan our blades and enter them into a database.)

[Bill_S]

Is it possible (I'm not sure) that the centers of the stanchions are supposed to bear the most weight, structurally, and should therefore lie more or less under the ball and heel of the foot, so those are the logical control points to match?

Agreed, but even then blade variability will come into play. The most obvious would be measuring blades of different sizes, although I've mostly settled on 10-1/4" to match my new boots. Also, the stanchion placement varies among manufacturers and blade type, so that's another issue. Finally, some stanchions are angled, so determining the center of it would be messy.

But thanks for the ideas.

If blades were co-planar, a LOT of difficulties like this would vanish, and blades could be made cheaper, with more precision. We're stuck with an ancient model of how blades should attach to walking boots.

Keep the ideas coming.

[Bill_S]

I believe that I have a plan to make the jig accommodate asymmetrical left vs. right blade mounting plates. It's going to take a bit of work, so I'll put it on the list as a future project. I had to think about how to do it evenly, plus not make it difficult to mount a blade on the jig.

I mounted the Pattern 99 blades today.  Here's what the boot bottom looked like before I mounted the Pattern 99 blades. Lots of holes!

 

Thankfully, I could re-use some mounting holes from another blade - perhaps the Ace tested a couple months ago. That spared my poor test boots being drilled once again. The blade alignment was right on the money using the inked blade location marks from my old Coronation Ace blades...



I plan for a trial tomorrow morning. I'm on the factory sharpening to give it a whirl first. The edges are a smidge uneven, but I want to see if I can tell a difference after I sharpen them later.

[Bill_S]

Pattern 99 Skating Impressions, Day 1:

Hmm. I don't know what to think. These blades have "personality". They do feel substantially different from the Gold Seals that I've been on for the past week.

Quietness: There's a BIG difference in ice rip between the Gold Seals and these blades. I enjoyed the stealthy quietness of these blades. The Gold Seals were growling with even minor applications of power or a modest edge. It took more oomph to get these (and frankly, any other flat-side blade) to make the ripping sound. I can still do it, but it takes a stronger effort. Personally, I like the quietness of the Pattern 99.

Forward stroking and crossovers: Mild stroking produced no major difference in feel. However when I put more power into an extended push-under on crossovers, the push-under skate tended to steer itself away on the push. Because it was gliding away quicker, I couldn't push as hard as I could with the Gold Seals until I adjusted the push. If I angled my skate to make it feel like I was pushing with my heel on the cross-under, I could steer it inward to have something to push against. I found this a bit off-putting, and I don't know if it was because of the stanchion height difference (medium rear + low front stanchion) or because of the contrast between these and the tapered blade of the Gold Seal. I can see how the GS taper could influence skate direction when on one edge, and I had been adapting to them for a week. The net result is that I didn't feel that power stroking was as natural as on the GS blades.

Backward stroking and crossovers: Stroking in backwards patterns felt more familiar than in forward patterns. I had no trouble here, except that I scratched the toe picks a couple of times. It seems to be easier to do with these blades. It was easy to put power down as long as you didn't scrub it off with pick scratching. I think I could adapt to the feel of these going backwards very easily once I learn its "personality".

Three turns: Very straightforward and familiar feeling. No major change in feel, and I felt at home here.

Spins: These left me confused. The very first attempt went very well, with about 6 revs but with some travel (my normal nemesis). After the easy initial spin, I thought that adapting to these blades would be a cinch like the Gold Seals on spins. However, I had very mixed results on subsequent spins. I had some decent ones like this...



However things went mostly downhill over the session. I couldn't enter the spin sometimes, I couldn't hold the spin at other times. The ice was filled with lots of loops with the exception of a handful of them. I got frustrated trying.

Other: I didn't have any trouble with the low front stanchion limiting deep-edge turns. I didn't push them to the limit though, but in normal skating it shouldn't be an issue. Here's a photo of a medium-aggressive hockey turn with the Pattern 99s. It kicked snow about 4 inches outside of the tracing. I can live with that amount of lean in everyday skating. I was pleased that I didn't boot-out at this level of turn, so it's adequate.



I did some forward inside brackets. They felt good like before. The RFI bracket, my best, could be done at speed easily without any blade issue.

I attempted a couple of miserable attempts at a toe loop, but I'm jumping very little anymore. I've become a lousy jumper. My attempts were just plain ugly, stabbing, toe-waltzes. That's completely my bad. It's too bad that I didn't get to test all these blades when I was younger and a jumper.

Wrap-up, Day 1: This morning, the push-under glide-away on stroking, and the trouble with establishing/holding spins frustrated me. I am left with the question of "Should I live with these long term?" I'm sure that I'd adapt over time, but is it worth learning this "new language"? However, as they say, YMMV,

[Bill_S]

Pattern 99 Skating Impressions, Day 2:

Well, well, well, I was able to spin on these today. Perhaps Friday was just one of those "off" days where the harder I tried, the worse I got. Spins were decent today, with some nicely centered spins in the mix. I didn't spin for more than ~8 revs max though, so that aspect still needs work. The GS blade is still easier to spin in, for me.

The skate glide-away when trying to do strong under-pushes on crossovers is still a bit unsettling. The skate just steers away leaving nothing to push against. Getting a workout with strong pushes during crossovers is something that I am good at - until now. As the session wore on, I was better able to do pushes in the CCW direction, but the CW remained a bit frustrating. I could bend my knees more to help, and I could pretend that I was pushing with my heel which helped too. But it requires conscious effort. I don't want to think about technique doing basic things.

Threes remained straightforward to do without any trouble. I noticed that my traveling threes were easier to do on these blades than on the GS blades. It required less "three-turn pumping" and the smoother turns more resembled a twizzle.

The blades feel "slippery" on the ice, and I'm trying to understand why. It could be that when I'm gliding with light stroking and crossovers, that I'm further back on the blade where the rocker is flatter. I would hope that I'm on the rear-center part of any blade, and not on the spin rocker with any of them. The rocker is close to that of the GS, but these blades feel faster. I probably should mount my old Aces, another flat-side blade worn to about the same rocker, to re-calibrate my perceptions.

So today went better, but these still have a "personality" to master. I was ready to un-mount them this morning before the session and put on something else, but I'm glad that I kept them on. What a difference a day makes.

[Bill_S]

Pattern 99 Skating Impressions, Day 3:

I have mostly adapted to the push-under glide-away issue on forward crossovers. It is GONE now on CCW crossovers, and I can get a good, strong push-under of the inside foot going that direction...

[fuzzy screen grab from a cell phone video]



The inside foot here is tracking well here and I'm pushing against it nicely as the outside foot starts to cross over. I can get it to rip on even stronger crossovers. So, no problem with CCW crossovers, but there's still a bit of an issue on my weaker direction (CW). But even that direction has improved. There's light at the end of the tunnel, and it's just a matter of adjusting to the blade.

Spins were OK, but nothing to write home about.

I practiced lots of three turns today, especially in the weaker directions. They feel very good very little difference from the Gold Seal blades.

It was a gloomy, rainy Monday, I was tired, my left knee ached, and I was the only person there for the whole time. Even with new blades to experiment with, I was un-motivated to skate beyond 1-1/4 hours.

[Query]

The growling Gold Seals: were those with the edge that they were shipped with, or did you re-sharpen them?

The way I see it, growling is composed of short side-skids, which are greatly affected by how sharp the edge is, as well as ice conditions, and your skating technique (which in turn might be affected by the blades, among other things).

I ask about whether you resharpened them, because the precise way in which they are sharpened (how ragged/clean the edge is, how sudden the transition between hollow and side, whether there is a foil edge, it's exact direction, and how long it is...) have a potentially large effect on how sharp the edge effectively is, and whether there are opportunities to have those short skids.

[Bill_S]

I resharpened the Gold Seals - twice. The first sharpening at 7/16 ROH was too shallow for their thinner blades. I encountered skidding. I then sharpened them almost to 3/8" to eliminate it.

I think that the sound of a rip is the ice deforming under the blade, not skidding. Skidding makes a higher-pitched sound, and scrapes the ice surface. A rip leaves a jagged channel where the blade tracked through. Think of hockey skate grooves, but it doesn't have to be to that extent.

The tapered blade of the Gold Seal presents a more aggressive edge at the front of the blade where it is thickest, but becomes progressively less aggressive toward the thin rear.

I haven't heard ripping like this on any of the previous blades that I've tested lately, including those that I've power-sharpened (old Aces, Eclipse Dance).

[Bill_S]

Pattern 99 Skating Impressions, Day 4:

I'm about 90% used to these blades now. Spins are progressing very nicely. Here's a tracing from this morning...

[click to enlarge]


I can say that I have adapted completely to spinning on Pattern 99 blades. I can spin on them as well as on the Gold Seals now. That doesn't surprise me because of the similar rocker. I just had to adapt to the difference in stanchion height, and that has taken 4 days of practice with them.

Stroking and crossovers are very natural now, with the exception of a remaining slight glide-out of the left blade on crossover under-pushes. However it's MUCH better than on Day 1. I'm still 'in therapy' for that.

I continue to feel that the traveling threes down the ice or on a circle seem to be closer to real twizzles using these blades compared to the Gold Seals. There's less three-turn knee "rise and fall" action needed, and they are more continuous and smoother.

It's going to be a close comparison. I could live with either blade.

[tstop4me]

Bill, if you have some down time, I'd be interested in sliding window fits of the rocker radius for the P99 and the GS.  The P99 would at least be worthwhile since it's factory fresh.  From your descriptions so far, though, I have a suspicion that the spin rocker on the GS was flattened by previous sharpenings.  Thanks.

[Bill_S]

Given time, I'll make an effort. It's one of my least favorite things to do.

If you need answers more quickly and want to calculate your own, I can provide spreadsheets of measurements, which look like this...



Just let me know.

[Bill_S]

I had another couple of days on the Pattern 99 blades, and I am 100% used to them. Spins are going about as well as I can muster, there is no problem left with glide-out of the under-pushing foot, and I feel about like I did on my old 2007 Aces.

I think that I'm ready to choose two blades to mount onto my two new pairs of boots. I believe the Eclipse Dance are going onto the Riedell Fusions. To me, that boot will be the one that I can point my toes in best because of the low-cut back stay, and dance is where that feature will be valued the most.

I'll probably mount the Gold Seals onto the Silver Star boots mostly because of the way that deep edges are more forgiving. The GS blades are thinner, which helps, and I suspect that the taper has a lot to do with it too. With those blades are the max edge angle, the limit arrives in a more controlled manner than all the straight blades that I've used lately.  While it's a long blade, longer than the Pattern 99, the extra length of the GS can be dealt with in the shop. I'm going to have to suck it up and live with the extra noise that blade makes.

That's my current thinking right now. I have been known to change my mind though!