hockeydad3

Once a week we are the last team on ice on our outdoor rink at 9pm. We don't get fresh ice and it is quite hard. On fresh ice a 92/75 FBV is good for me. Could a xx/50 or a xx/1 FBV be better for heavily used ice?

Does anyone definitely know the structural differences of the three stick variants? I thought that a high kickpoint stick has the same stiffnes from the top to the bottom.

OK. But for me it's important to go the quick and dirty way to skating. I'm 52 and want to have some fun playing basic hockey. I will never become a decent skater as my boys are. I didn't do any sports for more than 30 years and had never been on skates. So my biomechanics are not existant.

Is it just try and error or are there predicting factors for someone to buy the right skate? A typical statement is that beginners should use a softer skate. Are there beginners who need an advanced skate?

Another thread is leading me to the question of the ideal stiffness of a hockey skate. Is the ideal stiffnes of a skate only a subjective feeling or are there objective parameters to determine the right stiffnes?

Some people have the opinion that there are differences in bearings but they would not be relevant as long as they are not defective. If a wheel spins 15-20 seconds without making a noise the bearings should be ok. The spinning time tells nothing about the behavior under load. A not serviceable bearing has grease as a lubricant needing to run in for about 50km and should be warm. A serviceable oil-lubricated bearing needs almost no running in time and spins better but has to be serviced! High quality bearings (100% european/us/japan made) should have a longer livetime and can make a difference for competitive long distance speedskating. But for inlinehockey the bearings have to stand the lateral stress caused by stopping and the sudden change of directions. So high quality low ABEC/ILQ bearings could do it better than more expensive midprice highend-bearings. I had the chance to get some greased SKF-ABEC5-skate-bearings (german manufacturer, 18 euro/16 bearings, online auction) and they are going into second season outside-hockey two to three times a week without any service. But there is a big noticeable difference if you have high quality wheels beeing optimzied for your skating-style, weight, skating-surface and even the temperature of your rink. So spend your money for wheels and not for bearings.

The other guy in the lhs suggested 90/50. I was scared that it would be too shallow, but he was right. Enough bite for me. The new profile is a big improvement in stability and glide and only a little loss in agility.

I went from a 10 feet stock profile to a neutral pitch 13 feet single profile. On the 10 feet profile a 92/75 fbv was fine for me, my lhs suggestion for the new profile was 98/50 fbv. Wtf, way too sharp on medium-hard ice. Couldn´t stop at all and was cachting edges all the time. The profile itself was feeling fine for me. Bauer nexus N2900, 6.5D, 170 cm, 95Kg beginner level. Any comparable experiences/suggestions for FBV?

It is a known issue that the centerhole in the grinding wheel is slightly larger than the arbor. But this imbalance should be gone after dressing a new wheel. The fact that a wheel which was dressed by hand at very low rpm(having a smooth contact to the spinner all around) vibrates at high rpm and has the blackline-phenomenom indicates that there is a weight-imbalance in the wheel-arbor-combination. I think the maximum of the imbalance should be in the center of the black line. More experiments after i get a workbench to bolt down my x02.

This evening i had the time to make some experiments. One theory was that there could be some problems with the dressing system. So i dressed the wheel turning it by hand without vibrations. This didn´t change the black line, nor the pattern on the blade. For the second step i used much more pressure on the skate during my passes. This was a significant improvement ont the black line and the pattern on the blade, although both symptoms remained visible. So i think that my problems are caused by the remaining vibrations. I dont´t know how much the pattern influences the performance of the skates because i can´t skate myself and don´t have an adult test pilot. Maybe i try bolting it down because the metal plate shelf my machine is located tends to vibrate. By the way my little player is a fast skater, can make very tight turns and wants his skates done by his dad.

The black line changes horizontally. One third of the circumference of the wheel has a black line fading on the beginning and the end and one third has almost no line.

It´s a picture before. The spinner is spinning and not worn. The pattern gets smaller when i reduce speed and pressure and use fineshine. I can feel the vibrations getting stronger in comparison from an empty wheelholder the wheelholder with the upper nut and a wheelholder with a grinding wheel. Burns can happen if the speed is to low. When i use fineshine the black line on the wheel is not consistent.Could this mean that the wheel is not dressed equally ?

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.