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I happened upon a Pelican 1650 deal I couldn’t pass up. Here’s my Sparx in it for a test fitting. colins

Leif, Please know that ProSharp's claim is not false. They just define things differently than we do. In our case we consider a sharpening, from a labeling standpoint, to be a sharpening that has 4 cycles on each skate. They describe a sharpening (indirectly... in their labeling) as 1 cycle on each skate (about 1000 cycles on a grinding wheel and about 500 sharpenings per wheel). Neither definition is wrong - they are just different. We chose 4 cycles in our definition because that amount of material removal is similar to what one would need to remove for a skate that was being sharpened on a pretty typical 4-8 hours of skating interval. Read below to see why this might not be the best way to describe a sharpening and why we are probably doing ourselves a disservice in our marketing because we say on our packaging 40 sharpenings per grinding ring. In reality, most Sparx users will get far more than 40 sharpenings per Grinding Ring. I personally get between 60 and 80 sharpenings on a Sparx Grinding Ring. Here's why... Once you have sharpened your skates AND if you have a sharpener easily accessible AND if that sharpener is super easy to use you WILL absolutely sharpen your skates a lot more (we hear this feedback from so many customers... skate sharpening frequency goes up because why would you ever chance it if it only takes a couple minutes to put on a fresh edge). I find I sharpen my skates every time (or every other time) that I skate. Because I am sharpening more frequently - I only need to make 2 cycles at most on each skate (less damage to the blades between sharpenings means less material removal needed). This means I am getting about 2X as many sharpenings (80 pair) out of a grinding ring vs the specification on the Grinding Ring box. I hope this helps clear things up... Thanks, Russ

Depends if edges are just dull or damaged. One, two pass cycle on the diamond wheel can sharpen nicely. More might be needed if there's deep damage. This is one area over the Sparx where the SP has an advantage, with Sparx you could burn up a lot of wheel life trying to get out damage. Yes, they have a so-called crossgrind wheel to remove deep nicks, but it takes out all the edges so even when the finishing wheel is put back on, you'll have to do many passes to get the hollow back in, so either way, lot's of wheel use. The Sparkx wheels are their weak link.

They still take tracings

The Home is a Skatepal too . I think they are on sale for like $1500. May seem more than the Sparx which is $900 but Sparkx case is another $400, Skatepal comes with case and a wheel that will do 500 pairs of skates vs 40 for Sparx. To do 500 pairs on the Sparx, the wheels needed to do that would cost additional $500. So, the price difference isn't really what it seems.

Yes. The Prosharp Skatepal is an excellent machine. Not a cheap imitation like the Sparx, which basical copied proshops design. The Skatepal is a very durable machine and they've been making them for over a decade. They are the same Swedish quality as their proshop versions, just scaled down and simplified for the home user. Their diamond wheels can sharpen up to 1000 skates, as opposed to 40 for the Sparx. I would strongly recommend the Skatepal.