Incredible Edger sharpening machine

[Kaitsu]

New thread opened for discussions related to Incredible Edger. You can drop your questions and experiences to here. I will add also my own experiences related to this machine. For those whom does not know which machine we are talking about, please have a look http://www.iceskateology.com/Skateology/INCREDIBLE_EDGER_Fig..html

There are two models from this machine. Earlier design had only one guide rod and it was called ICEskate sharpener. For these machines they are selling conversion kit to upgrade it to Incredible Edger which does have dual guide rod design. Here you can see how earlier design was used: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mUFvSeA5oeM&t=7s

...and here you can see how the newer Incredible Edger with figure skate carriage looks and how it is operated: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Tt4vO2GeJg&t=27s
Channel of 3beltwesty includes lots of excellent videos related to the figure skate sharpening s. Example if you want to see how Sparx, Prosharp, SSM-2 and many other sharpening machines are used, highly recommend to follow this guys videos.

John Wilson Revolution blades requires hockey carriage or most recent special carriage. Unfortunately there is no any pictures, videos or any other information than price available from this revolutionary skate carriage. I have been using hockey carriage. In this video we can see how Bruce Hurd uses Incredible Edger and hockey carriage to sharpen JW Gold Seal Revolution blades. Bruce is also using little edger, which is optional cross grinder which can be attached to the Incredible Edger. Very handy device (Little edger), but available just with 110V version. 220V transformer available, but personally I replaced immediately the electric motor to 220V version so that I do need to use transformer. New 220V motor was pretty easy to find from the Ebay. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=69tWd_K5iBI&t=602s

With Incredible Edger and with figure skate carriage you are able to sharpen traditional blades (~3.7-4.2mm) as well as Matrix and Paramount skates (~8mm) blades. Supersharp has some experiences how well converted ICEskate sharpener manages to adjust to different blade stanchion thicknesses. In my machine 3.7-3.8mm blades requires shim plate between the blade and skate carriage. Other ways the eccentric height adjustments levers does not have enough adjustment. If you order new machine, it recommended to mention to Sid that you want to sharpen both blade types. If your machine would not have enough wide height adjustment range, I would say that it should be pretty easy to fix that issue.

All axis has ball bearings and they are less or more self cleaning. It is not exact truth that they would be completely self cleaning, but still better than table top machines where dust falls easily to table where you move the skate carriage. This bearing system is not either 100% perfect. 4-point contact would require super straight and parallel guide rods, but hardly ever they are. This can lead to situation where three bearing has contact and one does not. This then may lead to vibration issues more easily than in table top machines which are very rigid...but does have more friction. Very narrow contact to guide rods may also be a small problem, but lets discuss that perhaps later stage.

Big advantage of this machine is small grinding wheel. It helps a lot and I would say the same as Sid, that small wheel slowdowns the erosion of frontal area, which is most import area on the blade. I know there are lots of different opinions, if the big wheel machines are worst than small wheel machines. You will notice the difference more clearly if you have sharpened enough many skates with large and small wheel machines. This can be also matter of my personal opinion, but keep it anyhow in the mind when you count the pros and cons between the machines. No matter if you decide to buy small or large wheel machine, keep in mind that possibility to adjust blade parallelism is must feature. Example SSM-2 cannot provide you such an adjustment and also height adjustment cannot be called height adjustment. Their height adjustment is more tilting the blade than adjusting the height.

If you want to see which kind of surface finish you can gain with IE, check these videos: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pd0uqrFR_T8 & https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=x52rFQP-jiU&t=5s

Example how to check edges evenness when Matrix blade is in figure skate carriage can be found from here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DbrR3hBtm70

[Kaitsu]

I do have 50Hz version of IE. Motor nameplate states 1400rpm and spec. is 34-5315W863. I have measured the rpm´s with the tachometer and got following results without load.
Motor ~1480rpm and grinding wheel ~4986rpm, which gives pulley ration of 3,37. Outer diameter of belt drive at the motor end is 71mm and in the spindle ~21mm.

If your electrical network is 60Hz, your motor is spinning ~1780rpm and wheel ~6100rpm. (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4bj60sMkLL8) So those whom does have 60Hz electrical network, does have also 20% higher cutting speed.

Is this the reason why example Supersharp mentions that she would like use different grinding wheel for stainless blades?
I have been always using IE fine wheels and lately Blademaster Ruby (120 grit) wheel for stainless and carbon blades. With both wheels and steel qualities I can get pretty nice surface finish. I haven't notice any issues that wheel would get clogged from the "melting" stainless steel.

It would be interesting to hear which wheels Supersharp is using to carbon steel and stainless steel blades.

[tstop4me]

With respect to the Incredible Edger, are you concerned with continuity of service and availability of parts?  As far as I can tell from a Google search, Sid Broadbent is still alive, but an article posted in 2014 listed his age then as 92.  Do you have any insights concerning the future of the company?

[Kaitsu]

For sure....availability of spares has been concern already from the beginning, but I would say that there is no any spare parts availability guarantees even I would purchase Wissota, Blademaster, Blackstone or any existing machines. Todays trend seems to be that equipments are not intended to be repaired or at least they want to sell modules instead of individual parts. Example for the IE you cannot buy transversal guide rods, you need to buy the whole carriage.

I am quite confident that Sid has already arranged things so that business continues after he is not able to serve customers anymore. Bruce Hurd has been already helping years Sid in the business related things. Or at least that is what can be read from the web. https://www.denverpost.com/2014/02/16/jeffco-resident-supports-olympic-figure-skating-through-invention/
Another article from Bruce https://2020dfscbanquet.com/awards-recognition-week

If the IE disappears from the markets, I have prepared my selves with following plan:

I have collected my own spares stock with those consumables which are available and which I believe to be wearing parts in the future. Earlier mentioned transversal rods I swapped from left to right and right to left so that solved my wear issue for at least 5 years. If some spare parts are not sold or they are not even available at all, I need to try find used or make spare by my selves. With today's technology duplicating is not any issue. Is it reasonable in cost wise, that can be another story. Most probably it's more feasible to find used unit. Diamonds, wheels and bearings, those are easily available also elsewhere if I cannot buy them anymore from Sid. Genuine spares are anyhow my #1 choice.

If I would example drop carriage, which I scare quite a lot (due shoe laces), it would break and I could not find new or used spare unit, I would not most likely make exact copy from the original. There are several things what I would like to change in the existing design. So I would probably make my own design when I need to anyhow make something new. Inaccuracy / missing scale at height adjustment is one of the features in current design which disturbing me quite a lot.

Second option would be buy totally new machine, but there aren't so many options on the market if you want to have portable machine with 3" wheel. What I have found, there is just two options. Sid´s machine and Blademaster BRPD1. If you know some other brand, I am very keen to hear more about them. Double of triple head stand alone machines are out of question in my case. I have also considered to make machine which would be totally my own design. There could be markets for such a machine, as there aren't so many competitors.

Third option is just to quit sharpenings and let someone else to make that investment, spent sleepless nights by thinking problems on figure skate blades and in their sharpenings. For me this is just a hobby so it's not any issue to quit sharpenings if someone else is willing to spent nearly 10 000$ of his own money for the equipments, development trials and errors and top of that spent as a average one hour per one pair to someone else skates. When I have mentioned these things for the people, so far everyone has stopped dreaming to have their own machine. I am not trying to scare them away, I am just telling them how I have done the things so far. It would be absolutely benefit to skaters, if they would have more options to choose where they sharpen their skates. I believe small competition between the skate techs would also increase the quality in general level.

[tstop4me]

Thanks for your detailed, thoughtful, insightful response.

[supersharp]

I also worry about the supply chain for Incredible Edger parts.  I keep a couple of diamonds and belts on hand, and a good supply of wheels.  I upgraded my machine last year, so it is almost new.  The motor is from my older machine, but I had replaced it in 2014 when a huge voltage surge destroyed my previous motor.  My machine operates at 60Hz.  I am out of town right now, so I can't look up any details, but I'm on standard utility power for North America.

I am currently using the white fine wheels supplied by Sid Broadbent.  They do seem to create an edge that stays sharp a bit longer, but they also load up with material from stainless blades more than the gray type did.  I have been using the white wheels for about 2 years now, and I think I will try a gray one just for comparison next time I change wheels.

I agree with Kaitsu, if you are interested in sharpening, it is a huge time and mind commitment.  Like any good equipment operator (heavy or fine equipment), you need to get to the point where you and the machine meld into a single system that is doing the task.  It was interesting to me to see how long it took to adjust to my upgraded machine last year--the adjustment wheels on the old carriage both rotated the same way to move the blade up or down, but the new carriage has adjustment wheels that move in mirror image to go up or down.  I had to really pay attention or I would adjust the left wheel the wrong way (the left turns the opposite way compared to the old carriage).  I had always thought that mirror image would be more intuitive, and I think that is true, but after 15 years on the old carriage...it was hard to get myself to understand I have to stop and think about which way to move the wheel.  It's sort of a John Deere vs. Cat controls problem.  Anyway, I'm now adjusted to the new system and it works fine, but I do wish there was a finer control on the adjustment wheels.  I've learned to make very subtle rotations, but it seems like it shouldn't have to require such fine tuning for the operator to be competent.  And I have not sharpened enough skates yet (since August 2020) to recover the money spent on the carriage upgrade, not to mention the tools I procured from Precision Blade.  But there is way more to it than the money, it's a hobby I suppose, and it's very satisfying to be able to solve equipment problems for skaters. 

Kaitsu--I would love to hear what you would re-design on the Incredible Edger. 

[Query]

Was it cheaper to replace the motor, then to use a 240VAC 50 Hz to 12VDC power supply, to power a 12VDC to 125VAC 60Hz (sine wave) inverter?

Could you briefly recap why you decided preferred the Incredible Edger over the substantially cheaper low end machines from Blademaster and Wissota?

[Kaitsu]

Anyway, I'm now adjusted to the new system and it works fine, but I do wish there was a finer control on the adjustment wheels.  I've learned to make very subtle rotations, but it seems like it shouldn't have to require such fine tuning for the operator to be competent. 

Kaitsu--I would love to hear what you would re-design on the Incredible Edger.

This is definitely the first improvement what I would do. I have discussed this issue also with Sid. Its good to have enough height adjustment so that you can sharpen traditional chromed blades and aluminum framed blades like Matrix or Paramount skates, but I would make it possible slightly differently. Height adjustment is done with eccentric levers, which allows at least on my machine ~3.6mm height adjustment. So in practice by turning both levers 1 degree, blade height should change roughly 0.02mm (3.6mm/180degrees). By knowing that you will never need to turn lever 1 degree on very final fine adjustment, this sounds very accurate. Just like me and Supersharp has noted, current adjustment is anyhow super sensitive. Example I am knocking the lever with my finger nail as turning the lever by hand would change the height way to much.

As there is no any scale, sometimes you need make adjustment back and fort to get edges even. Between the adjustment you need to remove some material from the blade to see how much you adjusted the height. It does not make things any easier that behind the height adjustment levers there is rubber pad, which purpose is cause friction and therefore keep the lever in adjusted position. As you can perhaps guess, also height adjustment lever acts sometimes like a rubber. Without any scale is very difficult to know it the height was changing or not. As Supersharp mentioned, learning the fine adjustment requires some practicing. Sometimes I also feel that height adjustment levers are drifting while I sharpen. There can be to different reasons for levers drifting:
1. There is some remaining tension in the rubber pad due your previous adjustment
2. Rubber pad was worn out or loosed their elasticity

In my machine I believe reason to be #1. I know one figure skate retailer whom also uses Incredible Edger. Usually their sharpening is quite easy to recognize. One foot blade has typically quite even edges, but another foot blade has hardly ever even edges. I have strong feeling that they might suffer from reason #2. Most likely they also adjust the machine for the first blade and then trusts that second blade is identical with first one. Blades are not identical and I am quite sure that they have never re-adjusted their IE bearings and transversal movement in not parallel or in "square" to longitudinal axis. In practice this means that blade height changes even you would remove just sharpened blade and put it back to skate carriage. It will never position similarly as in previous time. In the older version of IE where you had only one guide rod, transversal movement was never parallel because you tilted the skate carriage even in different areas of blade. Its highly recommended to check parallelism like I do on the beginning of my video. My machine had about 0.15mm parallelism deviation before re-adjustment. Pay attention to how height adjustment behaviors when blade is going "outside" of height adjustment levers. https://youtu.be/xC0Ewb-QsXc

Back to drifting issue. No matter if the drifting is caused by levers, blade movement on skate holder, blade geometrical deviations, or something else I will never trust that ones adjusted blade would remain in same position while I grind it. I will monitor edges evenness roughly every 5 pass-trough. If I need to make adjustments, then more frequent.

So how I would improve this all...
First at all, height adjustment should have dial gauges so that you can see what is happening when you adjust the height. They would indicate also possible drifting issue. This alone would sort out 80% of issue on the skate carriage. Alternatively I would build height adjustment with micrometer screws. This would be much more complex design, but still doable.

If I would continue with eccentric bearings / bushes, I would make them to have less eccentric. I would say that 1 or 1.5mm lift could be enough. "Fixed height" of skate carriage would be so that I have +/- 0.5mm adjustment for Matrix blades and rest of the blades I would manage with shim plates which would put between blade and skate carriage. Alternatively I could have own carriage for both blade types. This modification I might to do / test anyhow. I can always come back to original design if it would not give any improvement. Perhaps I could start to even sell conversion kits to IE users 

Frequency converter is still waiting the installation. With that I could adjust the spinning speed so that I can keep cutting speed same even wheel is getting smaller. Of course I could also try affect of different speeds. Why I haven't I applied frequency convert if I already have it? Because I hate all additional boxes and cables. Every time when I quit sharpening, I need to pack my all equipment so for this explains also why I need to have portable machine.

[Kaitsu]

Was it cheaper to replace the motor, then to use a 240VAC 50 Hz to 12VDC power supply, to power a 12VDC to 125VAC 60Hz (sine wave) inverter?

Could you briefly recap why you decided preferred the Incredible Edger over the substantially cheaper low end machines from Blademaster and Wissota?

I believe the question was for me. I purchased Little Edger + 220V transformer from Sid. Little Edger is available only with 110V/60Hz electric motor. After testing few times the original Little Edger, I realized that didn't like using transformer. Plugging cables here and there was not what I wanted, so I replaced the motor by my selves to 220V/50Hz version. Both motors does have speed adjustment knob. Basically Little edger is using motor which can be found from the Ebay with search word 3" 120w mini bench grinder

Electric motor to Incredible Edger you cannot replace so easily with some other brand. There you need to use original motor, if you break your motor. 

I have to apologies about long reply for next question.

I started sharpening's with Ice Step 500 machine. http://www.novaicerink.com/index/skates_sharpening/0-22
It's basically cheap copy from the SSM-2. Why I did buy that machine and why I  even started to sharpen figure skates, that I can explain more detail in another thread what I thought to open in some stage.

Even though using of Ice Step 500 for figure skates was not optimal, I learned quite a lot from that machine. In moneywise it was not so smart investment, as I did spend even too much money to improve it. SSM-2 type of swivel arms machines does have anyhow one excellent feature. Bearing system in the arms is such that it does not care about the dust and movements of the axis are nearly friction-less. For this friction-less I loved as you can feel in your hands what you are doing....Except you are using that "height fine adjustment roll" on front of the wheel.

Biggest problems of these swivel arm machines is that they do not have proper height adjustment and there is no any adjustment to get blades to level (parallel to grinding wheel). This adjustment is mandatory on figure skate blades. Arms are not either so rigid, which can be issue if you are using machine without guiding roll on front of the wheel. If the arms would be super rigid, this "height fine adjustment roll" on front of the wheel could not be used. In SSM-2 you are basically tilting the blade with this guiding roll and not lifting the skate holder it selves. If you are using guiding roll, it is recommended to use skate holder which has a kind of guiding rail integrated...example this https://ssmprodukt.com/produkt/h-10g-figure/ Why I recommend this kind of skate holder? Because roll cannot be set so that it would take contact from the area where chrome has removed and chromed are has other smaller geometrical deviations.

If you are using swivel arm type of machines without guiding roll, you may find out possible parallelism deviations between the swivel bearings. You have so many possible deviation sources which directions are changing when arms are different angles to each other's. On top of them arms bends slightly from the weight of skate or pressure what you cause by your selves by hands. In this means machines where skate holder is laying against the table are "bullet proof machines". We can pretty sure that table is flat and rigid. This feature made me interested about Wissota machines.

When I started to consider new machine, I had already experiences from Ice Step 500. I had also Sid Broadbent Skateology manual. In this publication Sid is talking about the benefits of small wheel machines. When I looked the blades what I had sharpened with my swivel arm machine and compared to them to blades which were sharpened by someone else (so called professionals), most of the cases I didn't notice any significant different in frontal area erosion. What I could see was that often curvature of frontal area of the blade were flatter than in new blades. Typically the area between the toe picks and where the hollow grinding ends didn't have smooth transient joint to other curvature. Is this the hump what Sid is talking wasn't clear to me.

This might be just my personal opinion, but the picture and description in Sid manual didn't give me clear understanding why large wheel machine causes faster erosion to frontal area of blades or when they have been ruined with large wheel machine. It won't either give good examples how blades are looking if they have been sharpened with small or large wheel machines or how the real blade looks when there is that so called hump behind the toe picks. My understanding from Sid sketch is that sweet spot in the blade gets concave. It was clear to me what it means, but in my opinion such a phenomena is more user fault than machine fault. This most critical spot of blade is anyhow pretty far from the toe picks. The area between the toe picks and hollow grinding remained at that stage mystery to me.

When I was looking in to my bank account and premises where I do the sharpening's, it was clear that double or triple head machines with integrated vacuum cleaner were out of question. It seems that Blademaster is using partly same units in portable and non-portable machines. Table is just bigger to get needed space for several units.

Even though the smaller wheel was all the time in my dreams, Wissota was still one of my options. Reason was that it has robust design in good way. Not too many moving parts, price was reasonable, there was own skate holder for figure skates, those machines were used on few other figure skating club and even by the sharpeners whom were classified as a professional figure skate techs. Machine was also stock item on sales agent on my country, means I do not need to take care any customs duties etc.

It is heavy machine and made from cast iron, which is good from the vibration point of view. There two features are absorbing vibrations which are coming mostly from the wheel unbalance. Personally I would appreciate these two features more than the light weight. For this reason I would not put the machine on "pipe stand" like Bill made. At least I would fill the pipe with sand to get more weight and absorb vibrations. => if you fill the church bell with sand, it stops ringing.

Negative things on Wissota are large wheel and fact that skate holder is laying and moved on table where grinding dust will fall even you use vacuum cleaner. You can reduce the friction by polishing and waxing the table, but it wont clear out this issue.

Two other options what I had where Incredible Edger and Blademaster BRPD1. Both with 3" wheel. When I compared the prices with these two machines, I realized that there is not so much price difference that it would help me to choose between these to machines. So what people do when they have two good option and they have difficulties to choose between them? They use Google and Youtube to find other people experiences. In that time there was totally zero videos how Incredible Edger is used and just a very few articles what to read. From the Blademaster I could find just their brochure which includes one picture and few lines description.

Even though Wissota is excellent machine, in my opinion it is more for hockey skates. Large wheel is good for hockey, but not when you should get close to toe picks. This is the main reason why I didn't choose Wissota. Just a foot note...one guy who is using Wissota was "arguing" with me if wheel size matters or not matter. He told me that he has used new and used wheels and there is no any difference. I can agree this, but he missed the point that he has never tried real small wheel machines. So when Wissota was out, I had to choose between Blademaster Incredible Edger. Main reason why I did choose IE was the nearly friction-less axis movements which lowed on swivel arm machine. Another not so crucial reasons was that IE supposed to be on stock and Blademaster had few months delivery time for 50Hz machines. 

[supersharp]

Back to drifting issue. No matter if the drifting is caused by levers, blade movement on skate holder, blade geometrical deviations, or something else I will never trust that ones adjusted blade would remain in same position while I grind it. I will monitor edges evenness roughly every 5 pass-trough. If I need to make adjustments, then more frequent.

I wholeheartedly agree, anything more than 5 passes and you don't know if you are still moving toward perfectly level or going too far.  Depending on the situation, I re-check the edges at a similar frequency.  If I know one edge is far off-level, I might go longer while I keep an eye on the witness marks to see how close I am to the low edge.

I have also seen some drifting with the rubber, usually happens when I have a heavy skate in the holder.  I suspect the extra weight shifts the carriage just enough to release the stuck rubber.  My carriage is only 1 year old, so I'm sure it's tension in the rubber rather than wear.  When I put heavy skates on the carriage, I roll the carriage back and forth a few times before I do anything else, just to release any hidden tension. 

I don't understand why anyone would think that setting up the machine for one blade would also set it up for the second blade.  It might work if both blades were level to begin with and the manufacturing was consistent enough.  Not something that I would ever bank on.  When I skate, I use both my blades, but there are many things that I do differently with each blade.  My favorite forward stop is a tango stop onto the RO edge.  I probably use that stop 90% of the time that I stop when moving forward.  My favorite backward stop is on the LI, and I'm not very good  at getting a nice slide on the RI.  So just stopping (which actually happens quite often) wears the blades differently.  I don't do much jumping, but the kids I sharpen for get really chopped up edges when they are learning new jumps, particularly when their free foot lands on top of the toe pick of the other skate.  I had one skater who did a program where she jumped up and tapped her ankles together, which inevitably hacked up the inside edges of both blades.  I was really glad when she was done with that one.  I told her I didn't see the sense in sharpening out the nicks until she was done replacing them, and she agreed.  We would have ground through those blades in 8 months otherwise.

Once I set up and sharpen the first blade, though, the height adjustment on the wheel is usually close as a starting point for the second blade.  I measure the distance from the holder to the edge of the blade in two places (near the stanchions) when I clamp the blade in the holder, and use that same distance measurement every time (except on some tiny blades that had shorter stanchions, which doesn't come up much).  Having that same distance every time makes it feel more consistent for me.  Of course, if the blade has a 7' vs 8' vs something-in-between rocker radius, it's going to feel different, but I still feel like there is an advantage in being consistent. 

This might be just my personal opinion, but the picture and description in Sid manual didn't give me clear understanding why large wheel machine causes faster erosion to frontal area of blades or when they have been ruined with large wheel machine. It won't either give good examples how blades are looking if they have been sharpened with small or large wheel machines or how the real blade looks when there is that so called hump behind the toe picks. My understanding from Sid sketch is that sweet spot in the blade gets concave. It was clear to me what it means, but in my opinion such a phenomena is more user fault than machine fault. This most critical spot of blade is anyhow pretty far from the toe picks. The area between the toe picks and hollow grinding remained at that stage mystery to me.

I think what Sid is trying to show is that because the larger wheel makes contact farther behind the toe pick, if there is a slight user error, it is more likely to damage an area that is important.  I find that the angle of the lowest tooth (drag pick) makes a big difference here.  Ultima blades have a drag pick that leaves a large open angle between its underside and the NSZ on the blade.  Wilson and MK tend to have picks that have amore acute angle in that location.  The larger the angle, the easier it is to get close to the toe pick without grinding the pick itself.  On a small-wheel machine, it doesn't make a lot of difference, but on a big wheel machine, the larger angle is more protective of the spin rocker.  Sid stresses that at the moment the wheel touches the blade, the blade needs to be moving or you tend to grind more material at the contact point than elsewhere along the blade.  If you sharpen blades that are unmounted, the vacuum can suck the blade right onto the wheel and catch you by surprise.  It's easy to avoid this if you expect it and have enough tension in your hands to overcome the vacuum, but it's a bad surprise the first time you experience it.  Overall, I completely agree that user error accounts for most of the really bad sharpenings at the front of a figure skate.  Actually, I'll go further and say that user error accounts for most of the bad sharpenings of all blades. 

If I would continue with eccentric bearings / bushes, I would make them to have less eccentric. I would say that 1 or 1.5mm lift could be enough. "Fixed height" of skate carriage would be so that I have +/- 0.5mm adjustment for Matrix blades and rest of the blades I would manage with shim plates which would put between blade and skate carriage. Alternatively I could have own carriage for both blade types. This modification I might to do / test anyhow. I can always come back to original design if it would not give any improvement. Perhaps I could start to even sell conversion kits to IE users 

Let me know when you decide to make a conversion kit! 

Rich Griffin (a former dance competitor and coach in Colorado Springs) mentioned at one point that he was working on a laser attachment for the IE so he could line up the blade without having to use witness marks and run the wheel against the blade.  I don't know if he ever did it, but clearly if he did, he didn't market it. 

[tstop4me]

Kaitsu:  What is the diameter of the mounting hole of the 3" diam wheels supplied by Sid for the Incredible Edger?  I believe you've also used wheels supplied by Blademaster.  Do those have the same diameter mounting hole, or do you need to modify or adapt them?  Thanks.

[Kaitsu]

Yes I have been using original Ice Fine (white) wheels as well as Blademaster Ruby wheels. Mounting holes in both wheels is 3/8". Blademaster (at least Ruby) wheels are slightly slimmer than Sid´s wheel and they do not have any paper labels which makes them position even lower. If you want that dressing in you wheel looks symmetrical, you need to either adjust spindle cartridge height or put some shim under the wheel. I have adjusted the spindle height.

Event though Blademaster wheels are sold as a weight balanced, don´t let them mislead you. They are not weight balanced with better accuracy than any other brand. Actually their weight balance has been worst than in any original IE wheels what I have balanced so far. This is the reason why my Blademaster wheels were just laying boxed couple years before figured out how to weight balance wheels. Balancing the wheel before putting it into machine and forgetting all balancing washers is one of my "secrets" why I get so good surface finish. This same trick works in every grinding machine. Highly recommended to everyone whom sharpens skates. If you have not seen my videos, check these...

Ice Fine          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IDBOZ_SYOjc
Blademaster   https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zqh8rVBGG8A&t=34s

Every wheel can be sold as a weight balanced if you don´t just tell in which accuracy. New Ruby wheel weight is 65.5 grams and unbalance can be 3 grams. Ruby wheel is super hard compared to Ice Fine (white) wheels which are aluminium-oxide wheels. In ruby wheels you can see sparks while you dress them. As it is so hard, it keeps its shape better than Ice Fine which is pretty soft wheel. For this reason I use Ruby wheels also on Little Edger cross grinder which can attached to the Incredible Edger. I haven't notice any significant difference on surface finish between these two wheels. Both provides excellent surface finish when they are balanced and when you have learned how they behave.

If you are interested to see how different wheel sizes looks on 10 1/4" Coronation Ace , check this...https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhyz75w7kpuh7bj/Wheel%20sizes.pdf?dl=0

Rich Griffin (a former dance competitor and coach in Colorado Springs) mentioned at one point that he was working on a laser attachment for the IE so he could line up the blade without having to use witness marks and run the wheel against the blade.

I never run machine against the blade just to get witness marks. In such a way you are creating small humps here and there. What I do is that I "paint" the blade with red or blue marker pen and then I turn the wheel with my finger to get witness marks. Sometimes I make one or two thin transversal line also while sharpening to see that that I am removing material all over after my height adjustment. I have seen blades where edges were even, but there was like two ROH side by side. It can happen that you only focus to ensure the edges are even, but you are not noting that wheel is still removing material just from one edge.

If the edges are un-even when I start sharpening, I will adjust the witness marks so that I am removing material just from higher edge. I need to control the progress every few passes. Remaining marker pen traces helps to estimate if I am overcompensating the edges unevenness. Marker pen warns also if I have adjusted mistakenly my diamond quill wrongly. I am confident that this marker pen trick has at least same accuracy than laser pointer or line laser. Its doable at any machine with few dollars.

[tstop4me]

Thanks again for an informative, detailed response.

[supersharp]

If you are interested to see how different wheel sizes looks on 10 1/4" Coronation Ace , check this...https://www.dropbox.com/s/dhyz75w7kpuh7bj/Wheel%20sizes.pdf?dl=0

I never run machine against the blade just to get witness marks. In such a way you are creating small humps here and there. What I do is that I "paint" the blade with red or blue marker pen and then I turn the wheel with my finger to get witness marks. Sometimes I make one or two thin transversal line also while sharpening to see that that I am removing material all over after my height adjustment. I have seen blades where edges were even, but there was like two ROH side by side. It can happen that you only focus to ensure the edges are even, but you are not noting that wheel is still removing material just from one edge.

If the edges are un-even when I start sharpening, I will adjust the witness marks so that I am removing material just from higher edge. I need to control the progress every few passes. Remaining marker pen traces helps to estimate if I am overcompensating the edges unevenness. Marker pen warns also if I have adjusted mistakenly my diamond quill wrongly. I am confident that this marker pen trick has at least same accuracy than laser pointer or line laser. Its doable at any machine with few dollars.

I don't paint the whole blade, but put 3 marks at the front, mid, and center, and hand-turn to find the alignment like you do, and it sounds like we do the same thing in terms of leveling out the edges.  If one edge is low, I remove from the higher edge, check after a few passes, and when the edges are level, then I sharpen down the center. In my experience, it takes at least two slow passes, generally three, to get a perfect radius down the center after shifting the wheel position.  I check the blade for level, consistent sharpness on both sides, and use a radius gauge to make sure the radius is identical at four points along the blade. Otherwise, as you say, you end up with a strange parallel double radius in the groove. 

The person that trained me would create the little scallop you mention, which he felt was "erased" by the following sharpening.  I didn't like that idea very much.

You have me curious about the Blademaster Ruby wheels.  I would need to shim or adjust the spindle height, which seems pretty straightforward.

[Kaitsu]

The person that trained me would create the little scallop you mention, which he felt was "erased" by the following sharpening.  I didn't like that idea very much.

Fully agree. I really appreciate your way of working. "Like I would look in to the mirror"

You have me curious about the Blademaster Ruby wheels.  I would need to shim or adjust the spindle height, which seems pretty straightforward.

Please note that they may sell them only in 6pc sets. At least I was forced to buy 6 wheels. In the beginning I was very disappointed when I had 6 wheels what I didn't like. With my experience I would say that you need to balance them before you can be happy for them. Means that you should also buy some tool to balance the wheels you have. If I would be you and I would have nice stock of wheels, I would use my moneys to cross grinder. I am confident that cross grinder brings you more benefits than these wheels. Perhaps its different story if you can buy just one wheel to test them, but still you might suffer from unbalance. These wheels does not have same marking as Sid´s wheels, so without weight balance marking it is pure lottery where you put your weight balance washer. In my blade master wheels Sid´s balance washers didn't have enough unbalance to get Blademaster wheels in to the balance.

See page 5/24
http://www.newenglandhockeybags.com/blademaster_pricelist.pdf

[supersharp]

It looks like Blademaster USA will sell single wheels. I'm going to order two to try.

A couple of questions: 

Has anyone tried the Blademaster Gusto Glide product? 
Any ideas on where to find a simple small grinding wheel balancing stand?  I don't think I need anything as complex or expensive as I'm finding in my search attempts.

I ordered the Little Edger.  Just like with the IE upgrade, it's an expense that will be worth it for me in terms of satisfaction in my work. By the end of the season, I may be at the point where I've done enough sharpening that these upgrades will be paid back.  The more I learn, the more I want access to improved capabilities. 

Kaitlyn--is that clear epoxy plus a small washer) that you used to balance the wheel on the photo? 

[Kaitsu]

Has anyone tried the Blademaster Gusto Glide product?

I haven´t tried Gusto Glide but if you try it, please let me know your experiences. I have tried several different similar products and noted that something what works on example Blackstone has not worked in my machine. This is I guess wheel and different cutting speed dependent. As your wheel is spinning faster than in my machine (50Hz vs 60Hz), there is risk that you will get different end results than what I can get.

Any ideas on where to find a simple small grinding wheel balancing stand?  I don't think I need anything as complex or expensive as I'm finding in my search attempts.

I am using modified version RC cars tyre balancer. Similar balancing stands are available also for RC propellers. These magnetic "levitation" balancers are super sensitive, but they have few problems. Specifications does not often tell how heavy part they can carry and for which hole diameter conical mounting pieces are made. In the cheapest models the shaft it selves can have also some runout. Still I have been able to balance the wheels to acceptable level. I will hardly ever try to even get 100% balance as it will change anyhow slightly when you have dressed wheel few times. This means that you to repeat the balancing from time to time. Its good to have already balanced spare wheel always available.

Kaitlyn--is that clear epoxy plus a small washer) that you used to balance the wheel on the photo?

I hope Kaitlyn does not mind if I reply behave of her 

You need to keep in mind that added weights needs to be easily removable. Its very difficult to know / estimate how much you need to add weight. It requires several trials before acceptable balance is found. You can to use imagination to add weight. I have been using hot glue and often cut pieces from the steel washers. Anything which increases the weight and stays on wheel can be used. Be aware risk of flying object when starting the machine first time. Area where you can put your weights if quite narrow, so keep that also on your mind when adding weights. Even you could think that you need to add weight just to the lightest position, it happens often that weight needs to be added in to several location or wider area than just small spot.

[supersharp]

Kaitsu - Thanks for replying for Kaitlyn, she is probably too busy sharpening skates to be reading an online forum.

Autocorrect is sure that "Kaitlyn" is the real expert, haha. So sure that even when I un-correct the change, it will change it again later when I'm not looking.

It seems to vary by which device I log in on. I just took a screenshot of this message and I'm going to post and see if Kaitlyn got in there and redirected the message to herself. She kind of likes to be the center of attention.

I'll order the Gust Glide to try, if they will ship it here. We are functionally on an island since there is saltwater in front of us and ice behind us, so most things come in by air.

[Kaitsu]

I'll order the Gust Glide to try, if they will ship it here.

Can you share your experiences related to Blademaster Gusto Glide?

I hate to tear into a working tool for experiments like this, so the experiments will come slowly over time.
http://skatingforums.com/index.php?action=post;quote=104236;topic=8710.0

Unlike Bill, I love different experiments when I try to find even the smallest improvements in my own sharpening. Of course, I also don't want to modify my machine without the possibility to restore it to original condition if the end result is not pleasant. Quite rarely have I achieved any significant improvement even though I have tried really many different things during the years. Things has often gone even worse, but you can't learn anything new if you don't even dare to try. It often requires a little encouragement to challenge yourself to start something new.

This time, Bill got me encouraged to test vibration measurements with my cell phone. I didn't know such applications existed and even if I did, I would have easily rejected the idea by simply blaming the poor accuracy of the acceleration sensor. I am still not convinced of the accuracy of the acceleration meters of mobile phones, but the measurement may anyhow be more informative than the water glass test I mentioned earlier. Time will tell if this app is usable or not.

I have to say that measuring vibrations is pretty far from my specialty, although I work on different measurement tasks. The measuring the vibrations is much more mathematical than the measurements that are more familiar to me. Acceleration and velocity are terms used in vibration measurement. Honestly, the difference between these two terms are not so clear to me, even there are nice videos which explain these things. Example https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qcHjDLCJxfI

Because of this, I am unable to say with 100% certainty whether we have even measured the same thing with Bill´s or whether it is a matter of high measurement uncertainty of cell phones or a different applications. Bill´s results looks too good to be true. Difference between the running and non running condition is so small.

Nevertheless, at least our company vibration measurement expert got a good laugh today when I told him about my cell phone experiment.  In any case, I'm pretty sure that comparing the numbers alone between the Bill´s and my measurement will not tell the truth between the Wissota and Incredible Edger. Although Wissota is structurally much better in terms of vibrations, Wissota cant be so overwhelmingly good in means of vibrations. We have some difference in the measurements, that is for sure. Either in the application, in the cell phones sensor accuracy or we measure something completely different parameter. Its a pity that results are comparable. VIBRO Lite was not available for Android. Even we would have been using same application, I am quite confident that cells phones are not enough accurate measuring tools for this kind of purposes. I believe the app what I used might use some "digital zoom" functionality just to give nice chatter to the charts 

Application what I used is myFrequency - Pro. https://myfrequency.jimdofree.com/english/

Attached is a link to the very first measuring results. https://www.dropbox.com/s/mifngnvpwqp7fow/Vibration%20measurement%20results%20IE.jpg?dl=0

The Incredible Edger guide rod design is more sensitive to vibration and the vibration levels are not the same across the guide rods. I need to have a little more experience with whether the app is usable at all. Based on one measurement, at least the measured frequency changed at different locations of the rods. Whether it was just a coincidence, it will be cleared out later. At least something similar can be felt in the hands as well. This is one interesting experiment among many others.

[Query]

Kaitsu, do you sharpen mainly for fun, or are you trying to make a living out of being a skate tech.

Most skate techs who try as many things as you, are professional skate techs who specialize in serving people who are willing to pay extra for better service.

Do you skate much yourself?

[Kaitsu]

Kaitsu, do you sharpen mainly for fun, or are you trying to make a living out of being a skate tech.

Do you skate much yourself?

Sharpening skates is just a hobby for me. If I would make it for living, then I would have been sold my soul to the devil. What do I mean with this?

Think about how much you would be willing to pay yourself for sharpening of your skates. Then think about how much you would like to earn per hour by yourself. I would guess that to cover your payroll and other expenses, it would mean that you should sharpen minimum 3 pairs of skates per hour. If you would work 8 hours a day without breaks, you would make about 24 pairs of skates per a day and 100 pairs in 5 days. Would you even have such amounts of skates for each week and how well would you be able to focus on one pair of skates with such large amounts? On top of all this, you would use all the remaining free time and moneys to develop your methods and tools.

Here, I think, is the explanation for why the sharpening s of the skates are often so bad. Anyone whom is trying to earn a living by sharpening skates cannot spend one hour on one pair of skates like I use as a average. Sometimes one pair of skates can take several hours when I photograph them and explain to the owner of the skate what kind of problems I have found. It is interesting that when you investigate, measure and photograph blades to explain something to someone else, you will also learn new things by your selves.

Unfortunately I have never even wear figure skates. I must relay on other peoples feedback. This is really weakness of mine as I cannot test things by my selves. For this reason I will do lots of measurement for the blades so that I can convince my selves that I have made my best to ensure happy skating moments.

Most of the skaters are small kinds which are not able to give so detailed description what they would like to have or what kind of problems they are experiencing. Skates either feel good or bad. Often they do not notice even if the sharpening would be terrible. I know there are skate techs whom uses this as a opportunity, by choosing that small kids does not deserve to get best possible sharpening. What I have seen from the blades over the times, my assumption is that lots of skaters has never skated with properly sharpened blades. They cannot even know how they would feel. This is sad but true.

What is also sad, that Figure Skating Association of our country does not even try to improve the situation by increasing the skater knowledge related to sharpening s. If you are beginner in sharpening and ask help from them, they just say that they do not have competence. They advice you to call some known skate tech. They are like F1 team whom does not have any mechanics on their team. You can also perhaps guess how much you can get help from other skate techs, if they try to get their living from the skates sharpening. I have faced these all issues in the past and I can fully understand why some people keeps Marc crazy as he purchased power grinder and tries to learn figure skates sharpening. Sometimes you can feel that whole world is against you and no-one wants to help. This is the reason why I try to help others.

[Kaitsu]

It is commonly discussed topic if wheel size matters. Those whom has read my postings, knows what is my opinion. Here is one example case from the blades which has been sharpened with large wheel machine. I cannot restore the material which is already removed, but I can try to make them a bit more close to correct shape by making cross grinding behind of the toe picks and repair grinding toe pick. In these blades touch point length (or so called non-skate-able zone length) was basically same in the new blades, even-though you can clearly see the erosion behind the toe picks. Such a erosion should be tried to avoided.

https://www.dropbox.com/s/dvkxetdrfr39c63/Typical%20big%20wheel%20blade.jpg?dl=0

[supersharp]

Sharpening skates is just a hobby for me. If I would make it for living, then I would have been sold my soul to the devil. What do I mean with this?

The only way it could possibly work would be to also sharpen hockey skates and to have a large hockey community that wanted excellent edges.  What I see the most on the hockey side here is that they want sharp skates and they spend far less time thinking about the edges aside from having bite.  The narrower hockey blade makes the edges less distinct and when your overall plan is to run like a maniac, you want grip and you want to be able to stop when you need to.  My observation here (could be different elsewhere) is that the majority of hockey skaters are wearing their skates too loose to really have much control of their edges anyway.  They talk about profiling but most don't really understand how to set up a favorable profile for themselves based on their own balance point and their playing position.

Higher-level hockey players that love the feel of good edges exist, they are just far fewer in number because a lot of hockey skaters are much more interested in puck handling and how to actually play the game than they are in the skating itself.  That is a completely legitimate way to set your priorities.  It's just different than figure skating, where the edges really are everything. 

[marc]

When query posed the question to Kaitsu, I was eagerly awaiting the answer.
The worst thing is that you, kaitsu, you don't skate, and neither do I! (just the dad of a 10-year-old skater at the national level which is the highest level in France)
Sharpening something you can't try is weird and frustrating at the same time.
Being myself a company manager, I quickly understood that it was necessary to make at least 3 pairs of skates per hour and joined kaitsu on this figure!
Just yesterday, the rental/initiation skate sharpeners and rink employee learned that I tried to sharpen and thought I was dumb, strange, weird, crazy and even wondered where I came from!
It tends to make some rink employees jealous that I try. fortunately the parents of the skaters support me.
I don't know how long this story will last, or where it will lead, but at the very beginning there was no question of traveling 120 kilometers, to sharpen, and take the risk of an accident or other.
And then last night, I took the risk of trying to sharpen a pair of a competitor who was sharpened by the employees of our ice rink.
I thought and pondered all day whether it was good or bad. And this skater hadn't skated so well in a very long time.
I had finally succeeded for her. And tonight I was really moved to the point of shedding a few tears.
I know it's not perfect, yet, but I made this skater a happy skater and that is my big reward.
I owe this thanks to you.

Kaitsu: I share and understand everything you just said in your last messages.

Supersharp: I helped myself with a cross-grinder to finish the 2 centimeters behind the pick and for the moment I'm doing a bit like that.
https://youtu.be/2MKXLYiVIvI



Quand query a  posé la question à Kaitsu, j'attendais avec impatiente la réponse.
Le pire c'est que toi, kaitsu, tu ne patine pas, et bien moi non plus!(juste le papa d'une patineuse de 10 ans au niveau national qui est le plus haut niveau en france)
Affuter quelque chose que tu ne peux pas essayer est étrange et frustant  à la fois.
Etant moi même chef d'entreprise, j'ai très vite compris qu'il fallait faire au moins 3 paires de patins par heure et rejoint kaitsu sur ce chiffre!
Pas plus tard que hier, les affuteurs de patins de location/initiation  et employé de la patinoire ont appris que j'essayé d'affuter et mon pris pour un nul, étrange, bizarre, fou et se demande même d'où je sors!
Cela a tendance à rendre certains employés de la patinoire jaloux que j'essaye. heureusement les parents des patineurs me soutiennent.
Je ne sais pas combien durera cette histoire, ni où cela amènera, mais au tout début il n'était pas question de faire 120 kilomètres, pour affuter, et prendre des risques d'accident ou autres.
Et puis hier soir, j'ai pris le risque d'essayer d'affuter une paire d'une compétitrice qui était affuté par les employés de notre patinoire.
J'ai pensé et réfléchis toute la journée, de savoir si c'était bien ou mal fait. Et cette patineuse n'avait pas aussi bien patiné depuis très longtemps.
J'avais enfin réussi pour elle. Et ce soir j'était vraiment ému au point de verser quelques larmes.
Je sais que c'est pas parfait, encore, mais j'ai fait de cette patineuse une patineuse heureuse et cela , c'est ma grosse récompense.
je dois cela grâce à vous.

Kaitsu: je partage et comprends tout ce que tu viens de dire dans tes derniers messages.

Supersharp: je me suis aidé d'une cross-grinder pour finir les 2 centimètres derrière le pick et pour le moment je m'en sors un peu comme cela.
https://youtu.be/2MKXLYiVIvI

[Query]

Marc: I don't think you don't need to skate to be a good skate tech, though most do. In a sense, it is machine shop work. Some of the best skate techs figure out what skaters need by watching them skate, and I think skating experience helps with that - but many skaters give skate techs feedback on their work.

Kaitsu: If you spend 1 hour to sharpen a pair - that is extremely unusual.

It is not hard for a skate shop located at a popular rink to find enough customers to sharpen an average of 3 pairs/hour. Many keep busy all day, taking several minutes / pair.

Rental skates are often sharpened very fast - sometimes 20-40 seconds/skate. (But are almost never sharpened well!)

I would say Mike Cunningham averaged 5 minutes - and he specialized in serving elite skaters. Though I think he actually spent more time fitting people for skates, and helping them with skate problems. He charged $20/pair, compared to he $5 the cheapest area skate shops charged. He required appointments, because while his shop was open, he worked almost continuously - and he only worked on figure skates. He did a good enough job to be well respected. He was the official USFSA sharpener at many international competitions, including some of the Olympics. People drove several hours to get to him, and a few flew in from far away places like Japan, or mailed him their skates or blades. So a lot of very experienced skaters and coaches thought he did a very good job working that fast.

Likewise, there are skate techs who work reasonably close to full time working for one professional hockey team. They sharpen almost continuously during the game.

Even using hand tools, I can generally do what I want in a few minutes at most. That is partly because I sharpen often, and mostly just do regular touch ups - if it has been a while, I might spend 5 minutes/skate.

Of course, it takes a lot more time for someone who is currently learning, to do a good job.

BTW, many less successful pro shops have trouble attracting enough customers to make a profit. Especially if they aren't in a rink facility, or get a reputation for doing a poor job.

But at an hour a pair, you couldn't make a living at it anywhere I know of.