hockeydad3

Now a picture of a goalieblade without fineshine.

Hello, let us talk about the reasons for a pattern similar to fishskin with scales. It is very hard for me to reduce the pattern on the bottom of the blade after grinding the skates of my three boys. I use a X0-2 and there is no big difference between the orange and ruby grinding wheels.It is better when i use fineshine-oil but i was never able to produce a mirror-finish. In my opinion the pattern is caused by vibrations due to imbalances of the grinding wheel, the wheel-holder and/or the driving-belt. What do you think? And what can i do against this phenomenon ?

Does anyone know how to adjust the height of the grinding wheel against the center of the spinner for an X02 ? Because the wheel is to low which is ok for player-skates but to low for goalie-skates. I used to put a thin piece of plastic under the wheel but i think this causes some whobbling.

@ nunavut "... one edge is always sharper..." Hi, I think that your holder is de-calibrated. Have a look at the wissota-Homepage for a detailed calibration-instruction: "Understand skate sharpening - 3D three dial skate holder set-up and maintenance" p.s.: I can`t quote or copy-paste anymore !?

I don´t know if i have a problem with honing the blades after grinding or not. I´m using the 220grit orange blackstone honing Stone with water. If i use an older stone the burrs are completely removed but the edge doesn´t feel very sharp. If i use a fresh stone the edges feel quite sharp but i can feel a little burr left when i use my thumbnail moving against the edge. Using the stones without water produces quite the same result. How do you hone the skates ? What kind of stones do you use ? Do you use them dry or wet or with oil ? Thanks

Hello, that sounds like the holder is not level. There is a nice explanation on the wissota-homepage in the section "Understand skate sharpening", "3-D Three Dial Skate Holder Set-Up and Maintenance". I think that the rear dial is too low.

Does anyone know where to find the "FBV-ROH comparison-" and the "FBV Tech Specs-Documents" on Blackstones new Homepage ? Are there Informations about the specs of the A-Trap-Spinners and will they be available for the X-Series-Sharpener ? Martin

I think that the Batgage ,if used in the correct way, is as good or bad as the Butterflygage. For the use of the Batgage it is important that you press the left side of the aluminium corpus completely flat against the blade. The blade should not touch the bottom of the slot and you should move the black pointer to be shure that it has a good contact with both edges. Last week one of my boys got new skates. They had been sharpened by one of the best sharpeners around here with a "player ROH". At home i made a measurement with the Batgage and on both Skates there was a difference of two notches. When i sharpen the skates of my sons i reach a difference smaller than one notch.

Today, after some practice with 1/2"ROH for my boys skates (the player and the older goalie are happy with their skates and the younger goalie finds them too sharp), I did the change to 95/75FBV. It was quite a lot of passes and redressings for the goalie skates to lose the ROH and get even edges. I could produce even and sharp edges to all their skates. Unfortunately the ice-condition during the public-skate on our outside-rink has been terrible today (soft ice with snow). All of my boys have been able to skate fast with stops, quick turns and shuffles. After half an our on the ice the skates are still in a good and sharp condition without losing an edge. Due to the bad ice my kids have not been able to tell me whether they like the new sharpening on their skates or not. I think i have to wait until they had some training-sessions on our inside-rink during the next week. Today i tried a tip from another hockey-dad who plays amateur-hockey himself to use a water/alcohol solution based spray as a lubricant and coolant for the sharpening. Its working ok and could be a solution to my calibration problem on the goalie-skates, which probably is caused by a heat-dependant expansion of the steel. Now, one week, three training sessions and one tournament later i can tell you about my boys experience. All of them adjusted to the FBV within one our. The six year old player had an amazing improvement on his skating technique. The speed on skating forward was not the issue but he had a big improvement on the speed skating backwards, making transitions, turns and agility, just like he was dancing nimbly on the ice. The six year old goalie had a noticable improvement on his skating-technique and was satisfied with his skates beeing just right and not too sharp anymore. The eight year old goalie had an amazing improvement on his agility and skating speed. During a training session with player gear and goalie-skates, my wife heard one trainer saying to another that he has never seen a kid with goalie-skates skating better than him. He could tell me very differentiated about his experience. He says that the biggest inprovement was to have more agility, maneuverability and speed. The edges are just right for him and he told me that he had an improvement on pushing for butterfly-slides. I told him about the option to test a 90/75 or a 100/75 FBV but he wants to stay with the 95/75. At the moment there is no reason to go back to ROH. Lets wait for the long-time-experience. It seems to me that kids get a bigger benefit from FBV than adults. What are your experiences with kids and FBV ?

Yesterday evening my eight year old goalie was moaning about his dull edges and there was no chance to get them sharpened until todays training. So i decided yesterday to do my first sharpening for an official training before i had the chance for a test on the ice during a public skating. Wow i`m a lucky guy. He wants them sharpened again the same way for the next time. He said that his skates are very sharp but he likes them that way. I sharpened them 1/2" ROH with my new X-02. He usually gets them sharpened 1/2" or what is named a players-cut. The result was different depending from shop to shop or from sharpening-guy to sharpening-guy and uneven edges have been usual. I´m looking forward to get more experiance and to test FBV.

I think it would be quite useful for you to read some articles in the web about skate sharpening. A good tip is the wissota skate sharpener homepage. The black marker test and the whittness marking test are only working when the edges are even before you beginn to sharpen. Otherwhise you should check for even edges with a measuring tool or a credit card after some passes. If the higher edge is on the top you should go down (the black line is left on the top and the whittness-mark is on the bottom) and vice versa.

Well it seems that it`s just a question of the definition of "ROH for skate-sharpeníng". The Skatemate-hand-sharpener uses a cylinder with a diameter of 1/2" and blackstone a grindingwheel dressed with the diameter of 1". Both postulate that they produce a 1/2" hollow-grind on the skate. Some posts ago someone compared a blackstone-spinner-1/2"ROH with a wissota-diamond-dresser-1/2"ROH by messuring the produced hollow with a high-tech-tool. Both ROH semed to be quite the same. If we want to end the discussion about ROH, we should ask the big skate-sharpening-machine-producing-companys for the official definition of ROH ;).

They did. I own a similar product and the honing cylinder is quite similar to an AA-battery. I never got the sharpener working properly. I used a C-battery (26 mm diameter ~ 1" diameter) to compare with the 1/2"ROH-spinner and it had a quite perfect fit. So my conlusion is that i sometimes got a more hollow sharpening for my kids skates than i ordered. And the "shallow" sharpenings i got had the hollow i ordered. It`s good to have my own machine.

Hi, the diameter of an AA battery is 11mm, which compares to 6.9/16". But there is some confusion about the definition of ROH. I found this Information: Q. How can I tell whether I have a 1/2 inch or 3/8 inch ROH? A. There is a simple test to find out which ROH your shop is using to grind your blades. Simple that is, if you have an AA-sized battery and/or an AAA-sized battery lying around somewhere.[TEST: If an AA-sized battery fits almost perfectly into the hollow of your blade, with little or no light coming through underneath, then you have a 1/2-inch ROH. If, on the other hand, the hollow is so small that only an AAA-sized battery will rest perfectly in it, then you most likely have a 3/8-inch ROH.][NOTE: there is a universal misunderstanding [actually total confusion] as to what the word radius in ROH really means. The word radius here actually refers to the segment of a circle formed by a diameter corresponding to the fraction stated. In other words, an ROH of 1/2 inch means that the blade is ground with a radius that corresponds to a segment of a circle having a diameter of 1/2 inch, the radius, as such, is MATHEMATICALLY NOT 1/2 inch.]on http://www.skatemate.com/questions.html

Hello, finally my X-02 arrived. It is working without any problems out of the box. I did my first experiments with two pairs of skates which are not in use. An old youth 12 size Bauer with carbon steel runner and one quite new junior CCM 03 with stainless runner. I noticed quite a huge difference between the two steels. Stainless feels more forgiving in case of pressure and speed during grinding. It was a litlle tricky to get the feeling for the calibration of the holder. But i managed to get pretty even edges. I was using an orange wheel and a 1/2" ROH spinner. I noticed two problems: 1. The hollow seems quite shallow compared to the 1/2" i used to get around here. I used an AA battery to compare with the hollow of the spinner and the spinner was shallower than the battery. Does anyone know exactly about the diameter of an 1/2 ROH circle ? is it 1/2" or 1" (13 or 26 mm) ? I found some information that the diameter should be 1/2" like an AA battery. 2. I can feel some nicks in the edges after grinding and deburring. Where can they come from ? Are there still some burrs left ? 3. The the black line one the grinding wheel after using the fineshine is not in the middle of the wheel. Is this ok ? Martin

Thank you for the informations. I´ll buy a X-02. My boys (six and eight years old, two goalies and one player) are all on 1/2ROH. After reading this thread I think that 95/75 compares to 1/2ROH which I will complete with 90/75 and 100/75. I hope the choice is ok for them. Will tell you in some weeks about my experience. Martin

Hi, i´m living in germany and i want to buy a X-01 for my three boys because the next good sharpening service is 40km away. But the german company which has the rights for the import of Blackstone-Sharpening-Machines is not really willing to sell me one. Since weeks they tell me on the phone they would be able for the order the next week. Blackstone does not answer to my questions left on their homepage. Has anyone of you importet a X-01/02 to europe in a 220V version or does anyone of you use a voltage-converter with those machines ? Thanks for your answers, Martin.