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the most hilarious part about this is people trying to lighten their skates by this little tiny bit like it makes any difference whatsoever. spend 2 extra minutes a week exercising and youll get more improvement in your legs than carrying around a couple less grams of steel. get freaking real. seriously i would like to know how much lighter on your legs it is if you are sloppy with your water bottle or clean. obviously our gear and jerseys can hold alot of water. if you overshoot your mouth all the time and get your jersey soaked, whats the weight on that? these runners are a gimmick with no performance benefit whatsoever because equipment whores just look at the grams of something and will buy it. theres a market for it. take two hockey players, and if one is better than the other you can change steels between them and the one will still be better. this is ludicrous. not to mention, if you believe that the steel actually weighs you down (eyes rolling out my head as i type that) then you are getting a better workout and more fit by using that steel. you will be factually be a stronger person from it than someone who uses the carbon steel. if it made a difference, which it doesnt. youre legs are handling such HUGE amount of forces i wish there were a physics math guy who could tell you just how many pounds of force your legs are handling and how absolutely irrelevant your steel is compared to that. During a hockey game you are careening towards the boards and the only thing stopping you is your foot turned sideways applying ENORMOUS SHEER FORCES longitudinally to that little piece of steel connecting you to the ground. and youre going to cut it in half and instead of a solid piece of steel youre counting on a mm wide strip of adhesive. its ludicrous. Not to be critical.

FWIW, I’ve tried Blackstons FBV from two different places and the results were much different, same exact cut. As with any manual sharpening, it’s only as good as the guy/gal behind the wheel. Ive also tried a Blademaster flat bottom, which was nothing like Blackstones. Not all flat bottoms are created equal.

I gave FBV a serious shot for months. Sent in runners numerous times to NoIcing so I know I was getting a quality cut. I went back to roh and was a stronger skater although I could feel the slight loss of glide. Then I got a sparx sharpener and have been pleased the FIRE cut. For me, The feeling FIRE gave me on my skates was in-between FBV and roh. I switch back and forth sometime between 5/6 fire and 11/16" ROH. From my understanding, the tolerances are higher for FIRE whereas the tolerances for fbv are super low. If you're not getting your runners cut by extremely experienced and meticulous sharpener like NoIcing, I suggest sticking with FIRE. Your edges have to be close to dead even for a proper FBV cut. Moreover, sparx did a study testing numerous runners and holders. Almost all had some bend to them either due to the runner having a bend, the holder bending the runner, or both. The higher end runners like step having minimal. Even with the slightest bend fbv will lack an edge somewhere down the runner due to the low tolerance. This is why I take my runners out of the holder when sharpening for any grind just cause its very easy with the tuuk edge holders and it eliminates that variable. This is my opinion through my own research. Take it for what its worth, but I suggest you do your own research on fbv, tolerances, bends in runners/holders, ect. If you are going to stick with FBV, I would have no one else but NoIcing sharpen your runners. I tried a couple LHS that I let FBV cut my spare runners when my main set was out at NoIcing. When trying them I would randomly hit the deck cause of no edge. For what its worth, I can get my runner's edges after a Sparx fire cut down to what I believe is two ten-thousandths off when checking them with my HDI.

@jimmy Darn it- can’t edit the last post. The Sparx are taking over due to inexperienced sharpeners and places not wanting to hire good ones (i.e. pay the $$$). The pro Sparx units do allow for a cross-grind capability, which does help with the number of passes. Not everybody wants to mail in blades. I am not picking on your business (or any other mail in sharpeners) by saying that, BTW. My Sparx does fantastic for me, and I can touch up my edges after every skate. Is it a good hand-sharpening? No. But the ability to get a consistent edge and not worry about the pot luck sharpenings is priceless. And I’d rather get a Sparx sharpening out some place than worry about whether or not my edges were going to be right. I have had more than one game ruined due to a wheel that was not dressed properly.

I've skated on FBV exclusively for the last few years now since trying them at WF. This last summer, I tried the Sparx Fire cut equivalent, and personally did not like it as much. Used the cut for about 5 skates, then got cut back to FBV. Personally, lack of FBV and large initial investment would keep me from buying a Sparx, even with the convenience factor.