My son got home from the end of his Jr. A season tonight. Unpacked all the gear and had a look at the skates. For some more context, he played 24 games during Jan/Feb/Mar, plus practicing nearly every day. So spitballing, I'd estimate 80+ hours of use in the 3 months since my last update.
The eyelets are holding up great - here's the pics:
Overall, I'm extremely pleased with how this has worked out. While there's a bit of structural damage from pucks and bangs, none of the eyelets have moved or appear to be at any risk of pulling out. And now that I've replaced them once, I can easily drill a damaged one out to replace it with a new one.
It seems the material in the Blademaster eyelets are much more immune to his sweat, but there is still an element of corrosion at play as you can see in this closeup:
But... it's more just on the surface and not affecting the strength of the material yet. I was able to scrape the salty like corrosion/tarnish off with a screwdriver.
I bought him a new pair of FT385's as backup - they haven't been used yet, but before they are, I'm going to drill out all the stamped CCM black eyelets and put in the brass Blademaster ones.
I've seen pictures of custom FT1's with all brass eyelets (same as they use on the retail skates in the top 2 eyelets and the bottom most eyelet). If we ever spring for a full custom pair, I'd definitely go with that option from the factory.
Overall these skates (Jetspeed Control - a SMU based on the FT380 with FT390 and FT1 upgrades) are still in excellent shape. Boot, tendon guards and holders are holding up very well. The rivets are starting to rust a bit , but that's expected with near daily use.
colins