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Healthyscratch

Profile maintenance with automated sharpeners

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Looking into getting this done on blacksteel. 

I’ve never had my blades profiled so I’m in the dark about how to maintain the profile with regular sharpenings. 

Is there anything I should be telling my local sharpener in regards to maintaining the profile(s)? In other words, am I going to spend money getting this profile only to have it gone within a few sharpens? 

Im going to have to ship the runners out to get profiled, as no one in my area can do this type of profile. 

 

Any input would be much appreciated. 

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I ship mine out to a shop who does it on a pro sharp machine every time i need a sharpening....if you have it manually done, the profile is not gonna stay consistent 

Edited by Doughnuts08

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1 hour ago, Doughnuts08 said:

I ship mine out to a shop who does it on a pro sharp machine every time i need a sharpening....if you have it manually done, the profile is not gonna stay consistent 

Bingo! 

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4 hours ago, Doughnuts08 said:

I ship mine out to a shop who does it on a pro sharp machine every time i need a sharpening....if you have it manually done, the profile is not gonna stay consistent 

That doesn't answer Healthyscratch's question.

 

If you're skating six or seven days a week and/or you're on a treadmill shipping out just isn't feasible.

Edited by 218hockey

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1 hour ago, 218hockey said:

That doesn't answer Healthyscratch's question.

 

If you're skating six or seven days a week and/or you're on a treadmill shipping out just isn't feasible.

It actually does.....he can't keep a consistent quad profile by hand sharpening. If he is skating that much he can get 2 sets of steel to swap out whil the other is shipped out for sharpening.

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5 hours ago, Doughnuts08 said:

I ship mine out to a shop who does it on a pro sharp machine every time i need a sharpening....if you have it manually done, the profile is not gonna stay consistent 

A pro who knows what they're doing can maintain the profile better than most.  The issue is that most people don't realize that they have to get their profile refreshed during the life cycle of the steel.  Too many people believe it's set forever.

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34 minutes ago, Doughnuts08 said:

It actually does.....he can't keep a consistent quad profile by hand sharpening. If he is skating that much he can get 2 sets of steel to swap out whil the other is shipped out for sharpening.

We're using three sets of LS4. We have a good, if somewhat inexperienced local sharpener and that convenience cannot be replaced by sending them out.

I don't have a fancy Quad profile. Had them done at Own the Moment and honestly I can't even remember what they are. 9/10 10/11? Idk. But they have been through two pairs of my sons skates. So lots of use, many many sharpenings. And I guess i'm one of the dad's JR is referring to, I got the blades profiled and never looked back. And I guess I'm in this thread because we're at the end of these skates and I'm trying to decide how to set up the new pair. What steel to buy, profiling, etc.

Here's a pic of what they look like now.

 

Okay, how do you add an image directly from your computer?

Edited by 218hockey

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15 hours ago, Doughnuts08 said:

 

Yes, the ProSharp home works fine to keep a profile. A Sparx will maintain it too. It's the manual process of sharpening that usually ruins the profile over time.

Edited by Nicholas G
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23 hours ago, Nicholas G said:

Yes, the ProSharp home works fine to keep a profile. A Sparx will maintain it too. It's the manual process of sharpening that usually ruins the profile over time.

 

Had no clue a Sparx could do the job as well. Was going to go with the pro sharp solely based on the ability to maintain the pro sharp profile. 

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1 hour ago, Healthyscratch said:

 

Had no clue a Sparx could do the job as well. Was going to go with the pro sharp solely based on the ability to maintain the pro sharp profile. 

The Sparx will maintain any profile you have on there.

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On 6/8/2018 at 10:08 AM, Nicholas G said:

Yes, the ProSharp home works fine to keep a profile. A Sparx will maintain it too. It's the manual process of sharpening that usually ruins the profile over time.

JR. Not sure to laugh or cry about this thread. 

 

While well maintained electronically controlled machine if set properly can maintain a profile. If its put in wrong, clamped wrong the adjustments are changed a Pro Sharp or Sparx can ruin a profile just as fast as a improperly trained sharpener on a regular machine. 

One thing neither machine can do is maintain the toe and heel as well as a person doing by hand that is proaperly trained.  

As for the comment about trainers not doing there own profiles I know plenty that do. And seriously the age thing? Personally I always look at new and up coming ideas. Pretty wide and blanket statement.  

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Howdy,

8 hours ago, oldtrainerguy28 said:

JR. Not sure to laugh or cry about this thread. 

 

While well maintained electronically controlled machine if set properly can maintain a profile. If its put in wrong, clamped wrong the adjustments are changed a Pro Sharp or Sparx can ruin a profile just as fast as a improperly trained sharpener on a regular machine. 

One thing neither machine can do is maintain the toe and heel as well as a person doing by hand that is proaperly trained.  

As for the comment about trainers not doing there own profiles I know plenty that do. And seriously the age thing? Personally I always look at new and up coming ideas. Pretty wide and blanket statement.  

When you sharpen by hand, are you purposely altering the pressure / direction of pressure on the heel / toe?

I use a Sparx.  While obviously anything is possible, I would say you'd have to try pretty hard / be pretty oblivious to clamp a skate in it "wrong".  It seems like the pressure is maintained with a simple spring, so I would expect there to be (presumably slightly) less pressure on the ring the higher the ring is relative to the machine.  I'd be pretty surprised if it was significant, but maybe someone has tested it?

Mark

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14 minutes ago, marka said:

Howdy,

When you sharpen by hand, are you purposely altering the pressure / direction of pressure on the heel / toe?

I use a Sparx.  While obviously anything is possible, I would say you'd have to try pretty hard / be pretty oblivious to clamp a skate in it "wrong".  It seems like the pressure is maintained with a simple spring, so I would expect there to be (presumably slightly) less pressure on the ring the higher the ring is relative to the machine.  I'd be pretty surprised if it was significant, but maybe someone has tested it?

Mark

So, imo one of Sparx down falls is that when clamped properly it has a hard time handling Quad profiles.

For example, my Quad 1 with a 6 foot toe and 15 foot heel. If you clamp it normally and adjust to the heel, it will completely miss the toe. If you adjust it to the toe it will shave off the heel. The solution is to clamp it at an angle, at my local shop on 2 guys actually know how to do that properly on the Sparx (they have a few machines). Now said store also has about 4 people I actually trust sharpening my steel manually anyways, 2 of those are the same that know about the Sparx and the profile,

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Howdy,

7 minutes ago, Hills said:

So, imo one of Sparx down falls is that when clamped properly it has a hard time handling Quad profiles.

For example, my Quad 1 with a 6 foot toe and 15 foot heel. If you clamp it normally and adjust to the heel, it will completely miss the toe. If you adjust it to the toe it will shave off the heel. The solution is to clamp it at an angle, at my local shop on 2 guys actually know how to do that properly on the Sparx (they have a few machines). Now said store also has about 4 people I actually trust sharpening my steel manually anyways, 2 of those are the same that know about the Sparx and the profile,

Interesting.  I'd like to see it in person.

When its adjusted to the toe, are you assuming its shaving off the heel because the ring is forced down lower than you think is correct, during a sharpening pass?

I frankly don't know how much the upward pressure on the ring varies as a function of how high the ring is relative to the machine.  I'd have guessed "not much", but I've never actually experimented with it.

Mark

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1 minute ago, marka said:

Howdy,

Interesting.  I'd like to see it in person.

When its adjusted to the toe, are you assuming its shaving off the heel because the ring is forced down lower than you think is correct, during a sharpening pass?

I frankly don't know how much the upward pressure on the ring varies as a function of how high the ring is relative to the machine.  I'd have guessed "not much", but I've never actually experimented with it.

Mark

I have two sets of identical Tydan steel, profiled on the same ProSharp machine, received on the same day.  I have only been using one of them, sharpening on, and only on, my Sparx.  I haven't touched the adjustment wheel or moved the machine, and I have a line on it for exactly where to put the skate in so it's consistent.  There's been a total of maybe 12-15 passes on them, so I don't know that it will have made much change yet.  but I'll compare them to the new set after some more time, and we can get a true answer to this.

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8 hours ago, oldtrainerguy28 said:

JR. Not sure to laugh or cry about this thread. 

 

While well maintained electronically controlled machine if set properly can maintain a profile. If its put in wrong, clamped wrong the adjustments are changed a Pro Sharp or Sparx can ruin a profile just as fast as a improperly trained sharpener on a regular machine. 

One thing neither machine can do is maintain the toe and heel as well as a person doing by hand that is proaperly trained.  

As for the comment about trainers not doing there own profiles I know plenty that do. And seriously the age thing? Personally I always look at new and up coming ideas. Pretty wide and blanket statement.  

Trust me, I hear you.  But at the end of the day, nobody's really wrong here (there's a difference between not being wrong and being right.)  You and I and other people state that we can maintain profiles manually.  But the people who can vs the rest of the sharpening world are few and far between, so unless they're seeing someone in that upper realm of sharpeners, their statement does hold merit.

Jeff is right regarding the semi-automated sharpeners though.  What he is trying to say is that an experienced sharpener can alter the pressure/change the first contact point of the wheel hitting the steel.  Not all of our passes are going to start in the same spot, relieving pressure from the heel and toe radius.  With Prosharp, you can alter the wheel pressure to slow that process down.  With Sparx, you can't.  So, it's not really maintenance of the existing profile with Sparx; it is setting a point of where you want your toe/heel to be and it not straying from that.  But over time, it will alter it.

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20 minutes ago, marka said:

Howdy,

Interesting.  I'd like to see it in person.

When its adjusted to the toe, are you assuming its shaving off the heel because the ring is forced down lower than you think is correct, during a sharpening pass?

I frankly don't know how much the upward pressure on the ring varies as a function of how high the ring is relative to the machine.  I'd have guessed "not much", but I've never actually experimented with it.

Mark

If you adjust for the toe, the ring comes in contact with the heel at the back of the steel and not the bottom of the steel itself. So if you sharpen like that it will end up grinding away at the heel and rounding it off. So the contact point is far behind where it should be if adjusting to the toe.

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Hills - 

Very interesting; can you take a picture of your steel so that we can see it?   In my mind I'm imagining something that can be completely different that what your steel looks like.

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25 minutes ago, JR Boucicaut said:

Hills - 

Very interesting; can you take a picture of your steel so that we can see it?   In my mind I'm imagining something that can be completely different that what your steel looks like.

I am probably just misspeaking, but I'll try and show what I mean when I can.

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49 minutes ago, JR Boucicaut said:

Trust me, I hear you.  But at the end of the day, nobody's really wrong here (there's a difference between not being wrong and being right.)  You and I and other people state that we can maintain profiles manually.  But the people who can vs the rest of the sharpening world are few and far between, so unless they're seeing someone in that upper realm of sharpeners, their statement does hold merit.

Jeff is right regarding the semi-automated sharpeners though.  What he is trying to say is that an experienced sharpener can alter the pressure/change the first contact point of the wheel hitting the steel.  Not all of our passes are going to start in the same spot, relieving pressure from the heel and toe radius.  With Prosharp, you can alter the wheel pressure to slow that process down.  With Sparx, you can't.  So, it's not really maintenance of the existing profile with Sparx; it is setting a point of where you want your toe/heel to be and it not straying from that.  But over time, it will alter it.

This goes back to what you have said earlier- a profile needs to be adjusted and reset during the life of the blade.

I am a proud Sparx user, but I realise that if I had some crazy profile done that whilst it would not alter the profile like hand sharpening, I still need to get my profile tweaked on occasion. The Sparx is a great machine, but it is no Prosharp. 

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14 hours ago, bunnyman666 said:

I realise that if I had some crazy profile done that whilst it would not alter the profile like hand sharpening, I still need to get my profile tweaked on occasion.

This thread is looking more and more like pea soup.

Not alter the profile like hand sharpening? A highly trained manual operator will maintain the profile.

 

And now we have numerous claims that the SPARX will not maintain a Quad (or any?) profile no matter what.

 

 

 

Here is an LS4 that has been used/sharpened for a little over a year, maybe 15-20 sharpenings, and many of those at the local hardware store. They were profiled but I can't even remember what it was, maybe 10/11. I have no idea what the profile would be now, does it look that bad?

IMG_0319.jpg~original

Edited by 218hockey

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4 hours ago, 218hockey said:

This thread is looking more and more like pea soup.

Not alter the profile like hand sharpening? A highly trained manual operator will maintain the profile.

 

And now we have numerous claims that the SPARX will not maintain a Quad (or any?) profile no matter what.

 

 

 

Here is an LS4 that has been used/sharpened for a little over a year, maybe 15-20 sharpenings, and many of those at the local hardware store. They were profiled but I can't even remember what it was, maybe 10/11. I have no idea what the profile would be now, does it look that bad?

IMG_0319.jpg~original

I will reiterate my point: profiles need to be maintained. The Sparx claims to maintain a profile, but I think that a profile should be tweaked during its lifetime. Eventually, it will not be the same as it was when it was first done, no matter what method you use to sharpen. The blade height will change, the toe and heel will change. Metal gets removed, so it will eventually change, even if a small amount. 

The only way to know whether or not the profile has changed is to have a trained technician to check. 

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So, this is the best I can do to show what I'm trying to say right now.

1st image is where the sharpening should start (or close to it?). But doing so completely misses a lot of the toe because of the vastly different radius. 

YxypKxL.jpg

Second image is where the sharpening wheel makes contact with the heel if you adjust the machine to actually sharpen the toe.

wNesUO6.jpg

Now I am going off of a very quick conversation one skate shop guy told me, so if I'm wrong please say so. Everything he said and showed me made sense to me and after tilting the skate in the clamp it worked great.

Edited by Hills

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