marka

Howdy, Thanks to JR and ProSharp for the opportunity to try out various skate blade profiles! About me: I'm a relatively new hockey player, but a relatively old person. 🙂 I started skating and playing hockey in 2015/2016 at age 46. Prior to that, I'd played a tiny bit of hockey with neighborhood kids a couple winters on a pond in Maine, where I grew up. When I started a couple years ago, I could sorta hockey stop on one side and kinda do forward crossovers. Today my skating has greatly improved and I can perform any normal "hockey skating maneuver", but nobody will mistake me for Connor McDavid or even just anyone that played hockey seriously as a kid. I currently play in "D" leagues in the Pittsburgh, PA area, which are one step up from full beginner leagues. I use size 7.5D Easton Mako M8 skates, with regular 263mm Step Steel. I use a 5/8" Fire 'radius' and sharpen my own skates with my Sparx. Zuperior S, with some additional forward pitch ("25% more forward pitch") This is my 'baseline' profile. I switched to this profile a couple months ago, done for me by @Nicholas G on this forum prior to JR receiving his ProSharp setup. Prior to this I was using stock steel which had been repeatedly sharpened manually, grinding down both the toe and heel. That steel was then profiled by JR to a 10' radius where steel still existed, but the toe and heel were still considerably ground away. I also used unprofiled stock 10' radius Step Steel. Given that I've run the Zuperior profile for months, I'm used to it and find it normal in every sense. This is my baseline and I'll be comparing other profiles to it. As such, I've rated the steel as in the middle in all categories: Acceleration: 3 Mobility: 3 Stability: 3 Speed: 3 Comparing this profile to what I had tried before, it provided a LOT more stability as compared to the OE steel with the heel & toe ground down and felt like it had way more 'blade on the ice'. At first, with a 1/2" Fire sharpening like I'd previously been using, I had trouble with initiating turns. However, when I moved to 5/8" Fire and spent a little more time on the profile, I was back to having the same agility I'd always had while keeping that same feeling of stability. Comparing this profile to the unprofiled stock 10' radius Step Steel, I really noticed the additional pitch forward putting my balance where I expected it to be and no longer had any issues with "toe picking" like I'd had with the unprofiled stock 10' radius steel. Frankly, I was completely happy with this profile and didn't feel there was anything I was lacking. However, I wanted to try other options and see what I might not know, so here we are... Up next are a Dual Radius 9'/10' review and a Quad 0. See those in their respective sections. Mark

Howdy, Depending on how the cost worked... Yes. Having to host photos somewhere else is a PITA. Mark

Howdy, If that were my blade, I'm pretty sure that little nick would stay right there and I'd never notice it wasn't completely gone after a normal sharpening. Mark

Howdy, I use it. I've also used 9/16 ROH, 1/2" Fire, and 5/8" ROH. I've mostly been working up that list, towards shallower hollows. I would say that in general the idea that the 5/8" Fire has a bit more glide as compared to the regular 5/8" is probably true, but its not a crazy big difference. I've done some profile changes over the same time period and its not like I was doing them back to back so I wouldn't feel right making definitive statements. When I went from 5/8 ROH to 5/8" fire it was on the same profile. My overall impression is that its a relatively minor change as compared to a 5/8" ROH, but did indeed free up the skate a bit more. YMMV. This stuff seems so 'personal preference' to me. Mark

Howdy, I think the "material removed" is a pretty important thing here. Presumably there will also be a tradeoff between the speed of material removal vs. finish. I was just poking around the prosharp site and they offer fine vs. coarse grinding rings as well. That may be relatively new? This video actually taught me a few things about the ProSharp Home, though he glosses over the "life of sharpening rings" thing pretty well. I will say one thing... I'm a pretty basic "home sharpener guy". I do my family's skates and the occasional pair for teammates (where we live, the nearest pro skate sharpener is 40 miles away*). Even just doing those minimal skates, I've ended up with a bunch of different grinding rings... I have 7/16" to 5/8" ROH plus 1/2" and 5/8" Fire. While its certainly true that for higher volume sharpening the "cost per sharpen" / "cost per pass" is what matters, I've had my machine for just about a year now and have yet to wear out a grinding ring. The "cheaper ring that doesn't last as long" has allowed me to support different sharpening radii that I likely wouldn't have done if the rings cost 2x what the Sparx rings do. I'm still pretty happy with my Sparx. I for sure worry that the complexity of the machine / machine specific consumables will bite me in the ass if Sparx as a company goes away. It also isn't going to let you do "weird stuff" like a full manual machine (even a portable manual machine) would. The "cost per sharpen" in terms of consumables is also significantly higher than any other option out there, but as I'm not doing this as a business, that doesn't matter to me. YMMV. Mark * our local rink also has a Sparx (commercial). For whatever reason, guys have bitched about getting their skates done with this and haven't had issues with the sharpen I've done on mine. I have no idea what the local rink is doing differently than me.

Howdy, Has anyone run the math on the ProSharp Home w/the $300 coupon vs. the Sparx? I've been pretty happy with my Sparx, FWIW. But when I look at the rings on my bench and can count up $400 in rings alone, it makes me wonder if the longer lasting (?? I think) ProSharp grinding wheels have a break even point for the whole system. As for Pure, I thought the VIP program still had some type of deal on sharpenings, in terms of earning points way quicker and those points could be applied to sharpenings too? It certainly wasn't the free sharpenings deal, but my impression was that it wasn't really a full $10/ea either. For me, having a home setup is worth it in terms of the consistency and convenience even if you discount the potential savings. Mark

Howdy, Cranberry, PA? I've had good luck getting them to do rivets for me, but its nearly always a weekday. Last time was maybe a couple months ago? They usually don't charge me either, so I end up buying something while I'm there out of guilt. 🙂 I fairly often have a couple rivets loose on my Makos. They did them once for me on a weekend when I only had a couple loose, but the impression I got was that they really don't like doing them on weekends. Whether that's because they seem to only have one or maybe two guys that are comfortable with boot repairs vs. just basic sharpening or due to being busy... I dunno. Mark

Howdy, How much are you getting paid to be there? 🙂 If going to the rink is a chore, tell the team and have them / you find you a sub for the season. Full stop. Gutting out a game when you're sick or something is one thing, but we do this for fun. If you're consistently not having fun... Stop it. Mark

Howdy, Cool, if I see something I'll let you know. FWIW, the LT4 seems like a better way to go motor-wise. If I remember my C4 knowledge right, all the manual transmission '96's got it, not just the Grand Sport. The L98 got replaced by the LT1 in '92 apparently. My dad has an '89 with the L98 and I will confirm that its got a bunch of torque, but pretty uninspiring 'feel' since it doesn't really rev. A '96 Manual Trans car would be what I'd be after if I wanted a C4. I'm interested to know why '90? I didn't think there was much of any difference between the '89 - '91 C4's... Btw, I don't want to be 'that guy', but if you can swing just a little bit more money, the c5 is a better performing car in every measurable way. Mark

Howdy, What're you looking for, specifically? Mark

Howdy, I dunno if there's some crazy special name, but AFAIK the screw heads are just regular square stuff, so any square bit of the right size should work. You want steel for the CXN holder. Its relatively hard to find. If you can't luck out and find some on ebay or whatever, Step seems to still be making and selling it, but I have no idea if they do it in batches / whatever. Mark

Howdy, There's no words really. Sorry man. Mark

Howdy, I thought the whole point of them going to direct sales was to have way lower prices for consumers at "no cost" to themselves... Mark

Howdy, Did you wash with Zanfel or something like that yet? I found that to actually work, FWIW. May not help much if its been a while though. Mark

Howdy, I'll be interested to hear details about what you think are the differences between Makos and the Trues... I'm in Makos now which were the first skates that I felt like they "fit". I'm figuring it'll be Trues next for me as well. Mark

Howdy, This matches my experience. I was using 5/8 ROH and went to a 1/2 Fire. Felt about the same to me as the 5/8, not a huge difference either way. It's been quite a while since I used a FBV, so no useful comparisons to that. Mark

Howdy, Yeah. I'll take a True A4.5 over an ABHS or whatever any day. They may well be very similar sticks, but I trust the True brand & rep a lot more. Mark

Howdy, I had no idea that "ostomy protector rated for hockey" was a thing. That's awesome. :-) Happy to hear you'll be getting back out! None of this sounds very fun. I'm impressed with the attitude you've expressed here dealing with it all. Mark

Howdy, Three minute plus fucking shifts in beer league. When you're losing. Because you're getting out skated to pucks. I literally got ONE shift in the 3rd period. We run a 15 minute clock. First two periods are stopped clock. 3rd period is running until the last 3 minutes, then stopped if you're within three (we were). We had three lines of forwards. Unreal. Mark

Howdy, Bummer to have the Vegas dream season end that way. Happy for Ovi to finally get a cup and happy for the Caps fans, even if I'd have preferred to have all their dreams dashed by Vegas going on a 3 game run and stealing it. :-) Mark

Howdy, Yeah, I added another copper to the front of mine so that I had a pair of coppers front and back and that's meant that when the rivets get loose the holder doesn't seem to move. But its still annoying / weird. Mark

Howdy, So will the game tomorrow be the first time Vegas's back is against the wall in the playoffs? Mark

Howdy, Didn't he give an interview where he said his kid(s) liked that, so he started doing it again? I'm all about people that make themselves look like idiots to make their kids happy. :-) Mark

Howdy, Also happy for Ovi, but I'm looking forward to Fleury beating him. Again. :-) Mark

Howdy, Didn't see the game but I saw a highlight or something where they said Ovi played the last 4.5 minutes of the game or something? That's insane. I'm both surprised he was able to do that at all, as well as thinking that indicates a not so great situation for the team. Mark