NuggyBuggy

I bought my X-01 about a little more than a year ago. I had never sharpened skates before. My biggest problem was figuring out why my edges were not coming out level. I just couldn't figure out how to adjust the holder - sometimes one edge would be high, then I'd adjust it, then the next pass would bring the other edge high. I spent months (maybe an hour at most a week) trying to figure it out, and I'd almost given up. I made a few posts here, and several users were very nice trying to help me, but I just couldn't get it. Finally figured out by myself that I was holding the skates while making my passes, since my holder does not have the knobs that are depicted on the Blackstone website. Once I figured this out, and started holding the base, everything was easy. From the outset my sharpenings felt just like the ones I got from my LHS, and I am usually pretty fussy. I've been skating on my own sharpenings for a while now. Never had so much as a burn. I just took my skates in for a profiling at my LHS, figuring that any poor technique might have messed up my profile. When they saw my edges and I told them I was doing them myself, they told me I was doing a good job. Actually, they did a double-take when I told them and even re-checked my edges, and seemed really, really surprised that I could get such a nice finish. I was surprised that after many sharpenings I didn't even need a re-profiling. The biggest problem I face now is remembering how to adjust the holder when one edge comes up a little high. The way my skates sit in the holder, I have to rotate the skate to put my Blademaster edge checker on the blade. Remembering whether I need to raise or lower the holder if the bottom or top edge is high or low gives me fits, and double that when I have to rotate the skate around some of the time. I'd say getting a good sharpening is easily within the grasp of just about anyone willing to spend some time to learn how to do a good job.

That's the one I was referring to in my post; mine (also a Youth Tri-lie, but older) looks the same save for the knobs. I was just wondering if anything important has changed that might let me mount smaller skates on it. In fact, it comes within a few millimeters of not being able to mount my adult Grafs.

Is there a new Youth Tri-Lie holder ? I bought mine about a little more than a year ago, and cannot mount the smaller, adjustable skates that my kids are using right now. Looking at the Blackstone website, mine doesn't have the big knobs on the base - wish it did though. As an aside, I took my skates to get them profiled at my LHS. The guys were both surprised and impressed when they found out I was doing my own skates - said they looked good.

How many sharpenings are you guys getting out of each grinding wheel ? My first wheel (X-01) is getting to the point where I'm going to have to toss it, since soon it will no longer protrude through the covering slot. But it there's a lot more wheel left there. Is there a good reason for Blackstone to design the wheel this way ? I'm wondering whether the wheel could get too hot if worked down too much, but the cynic in me is also wondering whether maybe they will just sell more wheels this way. .

Nice ! I was just going to work up the angles myself. So - to selfishly get back to my question - if I was at 90/75, liked it but wanted a bit more glide, tried 95/50 and wasn't get enough push but was fine in turns - then I'd want to retain my edge depth at 75 but could try a larger numbered edge angle - maybe 85/75 or 80/75 ? Crap ! Just checked, it seems like they don't have either FBV in a mini-spinner, but I'm sure they had other spinners on their website a few days ago - I KNOW they had the 95/50, because I ordered one. That's weird.

AfftonDad - I was trying to gain a little more glide. I was more than happy with the bite I was getting. Right now I am satisfied with the performance in turns, stopping, etc, but not happy with the push I am getting. Your analysis suggests that what I want to do is increase my edge depth from 95/50 but keep the edge angle the same. Now I guess I just need to work up the edge angles for the full set of FBVs and figure out where to go next.

JR, I think that is a great way for people to think about this. It has already helped me. Thanks. At the risk of being dense, can you define "bite" ? I'm asking because I had been skating on 90/75, and liked it. I decided I wanted to try the 95/50, and finally did, with the help of Steve's table. What I seemed to notice was that my skates felt great in turns and stops, but sprinting in a straight line, I felt slow, like I couldn't dig in. It wasn't that my edges weren't slipping, I just felt like I wasn't going anywhere. When I wasn't pushing, the glide felt fine. I would have thought that the ability to hold an edge in a turn and the ability to grab the ice in a straight line would have been correlated and that this was what someone would typically refer to as "bite". Does what I experienced make any sense ?

The reason I wanted a chart is because, frankly, I wanted to get a little more glide than I'm getting out of my 90/75, but it wasn't clear to me where to go next. With ROH, it's clear where to go from, e.g. 5/8, but I just can't wrap my head around how the 2 parameters in an FBV specification combine. Now, maybe it is impossible to relate ROH directly to FBV, but what I needed was a heuristic to help me understand the relationship(s) between various FBVs. I think it is next to impossible for guys skating once or twice a week to do meaningful comparisons between different FBVs. I even doubt that most pros - with a sharpener, all the ice time in the world available, and huge incentives - would have the energy to do the full set of comparisons : what would most say to an equipment manager who said "try all these FBVs out and get back to me " ? This chart helps me understand how the different FBVs relate, and that's all I needed. AfftonDad - even if you are correct in identifying a 5-dimensional space, at least 2 of those dimensions (as pertains to edge strength and wearability) are now largely irrelevant to those of us who are doing our own skates. Aside: My 95/50 spinner came in and I am hoping to put that on my skates before I play tonight ;)

I like it ! If I read this correctly, * in general * one would find that e.g. the 95/50 is faster but provides more grip relative to the 90/75 (as an example). If that's a more-or-less correct interpretation - I'm going to order a 95/50 spinner ASAP ! I also saved the page for perpetuity ;) Thanks Steve.

When I used to skate 10-h a week, I could see that comparing different hollows could work. Now I get a single skate a week, making comparisons almost impossible to do. I'm never going to remember how my skates felt a week ago, so figuring out how to best combine the two FBV parameters to get the best results for me is something I'm never going to have time to do for myself from scratch. I appreciate the honesty, but Bob, even your website has a guide ! (And yes, I do see the disclaimer at the end). I understand that are no absolutes here, but guys like me need guidance, especially for the FBVs we might be interested in (in my case, thinking about 95/50, coming from 90/75), but which are not documented in existing charts (like Bob's). If equipment managers really can't figure out how to read the chart or deduce from the FBV nomenclature, it sounds to me like something needs to be done to make the system more understandable, for the regular guys for whom auditioning hollows/FBV is not going to work.

Steve - when I ordered my X01 Gerrard was quoting off a sheet/table he said you guys use to help customers relate ROH to FBV. Couldn't you just post the contents of that sheet until you can work something up more elaborate ? I'm sure that table would be all many of us would need to see.

I thought I had a page bookmarked that related FBV to regular hollows, but couldn't find it. Anybody know where I could find such a page, or know what a 95/50 might skate like ? Edit: I see that jimmy's page has a table of sorts, but there's no 95/50 on it.

Great setup ! What's the white pad to the left of the grinding wheel do ?

There's a small (2-1/2" I think ) dust port on the back of the machine, but this will only capture dust from dressing the wheel. Debris from the actual sharpenening will not be caught. I don't think the manual says much else about this. I did what someone else here suggested and bought a hood which I just lay to the right of the X-01 (http://store.workshopsupply.com/catalogue/product_info.php?products_id=2011). It catches some dust from sharpening, but not all of it. When I was hooking up the X-01 to dust collection I would connect the back port when I was dressing the wheel, then disconnected that and connected the "Big gulp" when I was actually sharpening. I planned to install a dust collection network with blast gates but never got around to it. If I get around to building and using a better dust collection setup I would probably split my dust collector line into two, put blast gates on each line, and run one line to the back dust port. Then I'd split the other line into two again and run one line to the Big Gulp and the other line would go to some articulating hose like this which I would position closer to the grinding wheel.

Hey True North - I have the following: Festool CT-33. It's CFM is indeed low, because even though they call it a "dust extractor", it's really a very high end Shop-vac and remember that Shop-vacs are really designed to pick up debris and not fine dust. However, it works better than most because it is designed to work with Festool tools, which are designed for very good dust extraction. Also I bet they're more conservative with their CFM ratings than others. The dust collector I have is this one: http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=CT029N. It's the biggest 110V dust collector I could find at my local woodworking supply store, rated for 825 CFM, but as I said it is idle because I my garage workshop does not have space for it. Then I have a Ridgid shop vac and a small Shop-vac. I have read that some of these Shop-vacs actually make things worse because they end up blowing a lot of air around. Bill Pentz is considered an authority on dust collection. He has an interesting story and he gives away his plans for free. IIRC, however, it's not cheap to build one of his dust collectors. As for the X-01, I'll probably continue to work on my deck and wear a respirator. When it gets cold, I'll hook it up to my little Shop-vac and still wear a respirator. I might get a white tarp to actually determine how far the dust disperses - I suspect it does not go nearly as far as wood dust. If it's a problem, maybe I'll build a little shroud for it to contain the dust.