I sharpen a lot peoples skates on my Sparx, from 12U kids down to 6U and a bunch of guys that play in my beer league. I think my first ring, I got about 30 pairs of skates sharpened and that was with 2 pairs that I had to do 10 cycles on and 8 cycles, respectively. If someone is bringing me a brand new pair of skates, I politely ask them to have the first sharpening done at the LHS or at a minimum have them cross grind them and then I'll sharpen them after that. Mos of the people who I tell this to are ok with that response because they understand that I can't get a cross grind ring, but they know from others that I'm putting out a good product for them. I constantly get great feedback on the edges they have after I sharpen them. I agree with most here that you know how many passes you're going to get out of the ring and it's your job as the sharpener to figure out how many passes you need to do. Also, if someone brings me steel that has a ton of larger nicks/gouges, I charge them extra as I have to do extra passes on them to get them back to normal. Even with my extra charge, it's still about the same as going to the LHS but they're getting a more consistent cut every time.