marka

Howdy, Oh and yes, super car or not doesn't really matter a lot here. Any 'super car' made for normal road use in the USA will run just fine on 93 octane fuel / is designed & engineered to use that fuel. Racing fuel is (99%) for _actual_ racing. Mark

Howdy, Generally speaking, additional octane for an engine that doesn't need it actually hurts performance, vs. helping it. Short version, its extremely unlikely to help your car's performance and might have negative effects. Octane is a measurement of the resistance to detonation, which is another way of saying that its slower/requires more energy to ignite as octane goes up. The reason some racing engines require higher octane fuel is that they have a significantly higher compression ratio than 'normal' engine. That higher amount of compression can inadvertenly ignite the fuel mixture of a lower octane fuel, so racing fuel is used that resists that early ignition / detonation better. If your engine isn't a very high compression racing engine, there's no need for the higher octane fuel and if there is any effect, its that it will slightly hurt performance. Having said that... The amount of timing advance can also play into performance. More advance == more performance, at least up to a point. The issue with more advance is that again, it can cause detonation and higher octane can help limit that. So _if_ your engine has enough compression _and_ it has tuning/sensors that can take advantage of higher than normal octane fuel, you _might_ see a performance benefit from increasing octane over the normal 93 'super' level. But its more likely that none of that will apply and you'll just be burning up $10/gallon fuel that will have a negative effect if it has any effect at all. YMMV. Literally. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Grrr. Nothing like driving to the rink to find out that pickup has been cancelled. Small blessings. It was only 15 minutes away, I guess. Mark

Howdy, I can't see how it would matter, in terms of # of passes, unless you have an actual cross grinding ring that has more aggressive material removal. The same amount of steel ends up being gone. Which is a long way to say that I agree with your take on using a ring (that you already have) that otherwise gets little use as your 'cross grind' ring. 🙂 I actually did a pair a couple days ago where a cross grind ring would have been helpful. 1st pair so far. About an inch of inside edge damage under the ball of the foot. Ended up doing something like 15 passes with a regular ring to get it (mostly) taken care of. Mark

Howdy, A couple things: 1st, generally speaking when I do other folk's skates I do 4 passes unless there are problems. Usually those 4 passes are enough. You cannot make a categorical statement like you are above. When I'm doing my own, I usually do 2 or 3 passes. 2nd, if you're doing other folks skates, presumably you're not doing them for free. Charge enough to cover your consumable cost or don't sharpen them. Mark

Howdy, What technology does Sparx use to code the rings? Looks like NFC read/write is built into phones these days, right? Mark

Howdy, I'm not entirely convinced that this is a great method to determine if you've cut the whole edge. I wonder if the material coming off steel "scrubs" the marker away. But I've never tried to make a large radius change with only a single pass or something to test it. Mark

Howdy, I never know where to post these "Thanks for Winterfest!" posts... Move this as necessary. 🙂 Just wanted to post and say thanks for another great Winterfest! Really nice to see folks again, particularly after being hurt this summer and missing SummerJam. I particularly appreciate everyone being nice/welcoming to Laura. She had a good time, even though she thinks we're all weird. 🙂 My first time going up to Guernsey's as well, which was probably the part of the thing I enjoyed the most outside of chirping Dave. Already looking forward to the next one. JR and everyone else... Thanks! Mark

Howdy, 1ms at 80mph is ~1.5". I think I'll worry about other things first. 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Hard to see how that would pitch the blade back 2/32 or whatever it was. Mark

Howdy, Any chance there will be True reps at Winterfest and they'll have some of these with them? I want to check out out in person. Like the idea of the MIPS system. Mark

Howdy, How'd they do that? Mark

Howdy, That's great! Good luck! Mark

Howdy, Are softball teams really that hard to come by out there? Because if not... Other teams beckon. Mark (had something sorta like that happen twice on a hockey team I was playing on. The 2nd time was my last game with them. Good guys on the team in general and I liked playing with them, but life is too short for me to be pissed off when I'm playing hockey for fun).

Howdy, I think for every throwback jersey, they should be required to have a throw ahead one. Like Buck Rogers styling cues or whatever. Mark

Howdy, When I was in the same situation, I was leaning towards the Wissota but ended up going with the Sparx. The primary driver for this was comparing profiles on new blades vs. ones that had been sharpened for a while. There were drastic differences, and they'd been sharpened by folks that did them every day of the week (local Pure, known for decent sharpening). I figured if decent pros couldn't keep the profile within reason, then there was no way someone like me who would sharpen once or twice a week ever would. Other than that, the lack of dust everywhere and the "press go and do something else" are also big wins, but they weren't my decision point. The only real downside is that the Sparx is a significantly more complicated machine than a basic manual sharpener, so there's more opportunites to fail and its less likely that you can fix it yourself if the company goes away. Mark

Howdy, Its been quite a long time since I moved from 5/8 to 5/8 Fire... My recollection is that I felt more "stuck to the ice" in a straight linewith the 5/8 ROH cut, but its been so long I wouldn't put much weight into that impression. Mark

Howdy, So, got a 3/4 Fire and tried it out last night. My impressions are coming from long-ish time use of 5/8 Fire... I didn't find it a big change at all. In fact, it was close enough to the 5/8" Fire that I'm not sure I'd be able to tell them apart in a blind test. Other factors like ice hardness, how recently they were sharpened, etc. etc. I think would have a bigger impact on the feel. Strangely enough, if anything I thought I could feel my edges more with the 3/4 Fire than with the 5/8 Fire. I'm assuming that this is just because I was paying more attention to that, since I'd made a radius change and I use the CXN holder so back to back tests are a bit harder to do than with the quick change holders. We'll see how it goes over the next few hours of ice time, but at least so far I'm liking the 3/4 Fire fine. I should note that I'm an old-ish guy that just started playing 4 years ago. So maybe my skating just isn't good enough to pickup the differences and someone else would find them more significant! Mark

Howdy, All things are not equal. The grinding rings change and I've proven to myself that the center of my current 5/8" ROH ring is about four clicks off the center of my current 5/8" Fire ring. I also think that if you want actual even edges you need an edge checker. The difference you see between a few clicks on the adjuster is extremely minor in the optical tool... Enough so that you could easily be off. The edge checker makes it clear. You can make the argument that the edges may not be off enough to be noticeable and I won't disagree, but in my experience if you want even edges on an edge checker, you will need to make adjustments you can't see via the optical tool. YMMV. Mark

Howdy, So the machine references the existing bottom of the runner (where it contacts the ice) when clamping the running into position? That seems like an odd way to do it. Mark

Howdy, Ah... I'd seen 612, which wasn't all that helpful, but appendix II looks to be better. I'll need to check that out more. 🙂 Thanks! Mark

Howdy, So, for faceoff locations... I'm trying to put together a list of exceptions to the "nearest dot to where puck was last played, without advancing the puck for the offending team" face off location... What I have so far: Intentional offsides -- faceoff in their defending zone. playing the puck with a highstick -- faceoff in the defending zone. Offensive team shoots the puck out of play in the offensive zone -- Face off in neutral zone (this may just be "closest without advancing" in reality... Just that it almost never happens below the dots?) After the whistle, if any offensive player comes from above the circles into a scrum at the net, faceoff in the neutral zone Any others? Mark

Howdy, Are you willing to share more details on this? Particularly with exact products and procedures you're using? I think I've mentioned in this thread before that I use a Wissota Speed Skate after a Sparx sharpening, but I wouldn't describe the resulting finish as a true "mirror", as there are still subtle longitudinal lines. Mark

Howdy, Skates are expensive enough and enough of a PITA to fit / make work that I'm pretty much only going to have one pair. And given that, black is going to be the best bet for me even if I cared a ton about looks. And to be fair, I have a pair of white gloves (along with others), so I must care some... 🙂 Mark

Howdy, Thanks. I use a 5/8 Fire now and have no issues with grip / finding my edges or anything like that. So I was thinking of trying out the 3/4 Fire. I realize this is all mostly personal preference, just wanting to see if folks thought there were a large change between the two. I haven't ever skated on either 3/4 or 1" ROH. Mark