marka

Howdy, Well, just had one of the more bizarre experiences I've ever had. We've been looking for a soccer skills program for my 11 year old. He's been playing rec league in the summers at various teams and wants to try playing a little more competitively. I found a local-ish guy. Another friend had heard of him, the local place he does practices out of recommended him, etc. Exchanged emails with him, he recommended my son coming to the 11 year old group on Mondays and Wednesdays at 6pm. A few emails back and forth, guy was pretty "emailing from a phone" brief, but whatever. Seemed to be setup for us to come up and try out a session. So we do that tonight. My son is nervous, it's a half hour away, etc. etc. We get there ten minutes early. Get him pointed out, he's out on the field with groups of kids. Hang out and wait, standing up, looking at him the whole time, etc. 6pm comes and goes, he never comes off the field. He's not 'actively coaching' during this... He's mostly walking around, occasionally making a comment to kids, etc. A group of kids my son's age come up, take outer clothes off, and go out on the field. He goes over and gets them started. Eventually I start walking around the back of the field. He's maybe 40' away the entire time, I'm the only adult doing that, he never reacts at all. He starts heading back toward the sidelines where the parents are, so I walk back over there and then start walking out onto the field, between two areas of kids, looking at him. He holds his hands up as if to say "hold on a minute". So cool, pretty weird, since its been like 10 minutes of me clearly trying to find out what the fuck we're supposed to be doing, but whatever. So, knowing the guy knows I want to talk to him I wait. I wait for for another ten minutes. He never walks over (like 30' away, he's still not 'actively coaching' or whatever). My son, of course, knows the session started at 6pm, knows its after 6pm, and is increasingly feeling bad / negative about the whole thing during all of this. He was already pretty nervous. After that ten minutes, I ask my son if he wants to leave and he does, so we go. No interaction with the guy at all. Surreal. I've literally never had another experience like it. If it wasn't related to my son / his excitement / nervousness to start / whatever it would just be funny in that "you won't believe!" kinda way. Instead I'm in some weird state of bafflement and wanting to punch the fucker in the throat. But I guess I'm an adult, so I'll just look for a different program. :-) Mark

Howdy, With the guys I play with, mostly the folks that have newer / better equipment don't play as well as the guys sporting the 20 year old stuff. :-) Mark

Howdy, I bet used rings with life left would have a good market. I've been surprised not to see some of those for sale from folks that tried them and realized they didn't like that grind. Mark

Howdy, Yeah. I haven't seen a pair of Mako's in a 7.5 in any model at any price in the last six months. $150 CAD w/new step steel seems pretty damned awesome to me. Mark

Howdy, Since the machine aligns the center of the clamp (and thus the center of the blade) to the center of the grinding ring, there's no need to align it for every pair of skates. Different blade thicknesses still end up with the center of the blade in the same plane, since the clamping center point doesn't move w/reference to the grinding ring. Mark

Howdy, That sucks a lot. :-( Call True directly? I would expect a fuck up like this to result in you going immediately to the front of the line. There's no way it actually takes them 3 weeks to make a pair of skates. Mark

Howdy, What's carbulou? Mark

Howdy, Do you use the travel piece for the clamp and the locking screw for those trips? Mark

Howdy, Keeping in mind that I've only used my machine now five times on 3 different pairs of skates... Using my crap ebay edge checker, I've seen some variance on edge heights. A couple clicks one way or the other on the ring alignment seems to change it a little. Using the alignment tool, its hard to see a difference with just one or two clicks, so I'm thinking that dialing it in is going to be more about the edge checker than the alignment tool. But in that process, I don't know if I need to run just a single cycle, 4 cycles, or whatever else to get the full radius reground & "moved" across the blade. I'd rather not waste ring or steel life I don't need to waste, of course. I also assume that something could change in the future and I'd need to re-dial it in. Presumably the clamp is good about centering the blade on the wheel, but I could also see that not being 100% so even if the clamp is repeatable, it might have a different setting for a different thickness blade. Mark

Howdy, Similar question... When I use an edge checker to fine tune my edge height, how many passes should I make after I adjust the wheel position? I.e. if I cut the skate normally (like, 4 passes or whatever), check edges, and decide to move the grinding ring a couple clicks on the adjuster, how many additional cycles should I run to ensure that the full width is cut so that I can get a true reading on the new edge heights? Mark

Howdy, So, browsing around the Sparx site, because I realized I want a dust cover for the sharpener and I noticed they have other honing stones. Needed? The Sparx came with a 240 grit stone. I'm only sharpening regular steel. Mark

Howdy, Merry xmas to me.... :-) Opened up my new Sparx and gave it a whirl today. Everything went as the manual suggested, though I did get a weird error when I was cutting my first skate again to get the edge checker happy... Got a 3-6-10 "Translation Error - Limit undetected" and the wheel didn't return to the home position after making a "back" pass. Turned it off and turned it back on and it cut the other skate fine. Hoping it was just a weird one time thing. Otherwise it was smooth sailing. The blades on my skates are pretty cut down, so I've got the height the highest it goes, but it seems to cut fine. I should have a chance to get on the ice in a couple days, but visually and edge-checker-wise (just a cheapo ebay one), they look the same as the sharpening JR did for me last weekend. I did have to give the adjuster a couple clicks after initial alignment with the tool to get the edges coming out even. Probably more down to my crap vision than anything else. I'm going to have to write down which way the grinding wheel moves when you turn the adjuster. Forgot to the do that the first time around. :-) It's just sitting here in our dining room for now, but it'll get a permanent home out in the (heated) garage with the other hockey gear soon. Crazy that something that throws as much dust as a skate sharpener can run in our dining room without my wife yelling at me! :-) Mark

Howdy, Yeah, people said that about my Makos too. And yet I still like having them on there. Mark

Howdy, The Ribcor thread reminded me about something I was curious about with True skates... Anyone know if they can incorporate lace locks? Yes, you can add them to a regular eyelet, but the lace lock is "further up" from the eyelet, so its nicer if the mounting point / eyelet for the lace locks isn't in line with the other eyelets. Mostly idle question until my Mako M8's fall apart, but I was still curious. Mark

Howdy, Older guys that get in fights in lower level beer league hockey. For fuck's sake, you're >40. Outside of another guy taking a two handed swing to your melon, nobody cares what he did and you're just being an ass. Mark

Howdy, Crazy. And thanks for the real info, I was hoping you'd jump in. :-) My guess had been that labor cost alone on a sharpening would make it break even at best, but my "time to sharpen" guess must be too high. Mark

Howdy, I would be really interested in knowing if skate services like sharpening or repair is a profit center for a LHS. Given the costs, I have a hard time thinking it is, but ?? Mark

Howdy, I think pros and cons are fine. I started where you are in terms of skepticism. But after getting a chance to see one, talk with a rep for a long time, and have my skates done by it, I was more convinced. Then after seeing what average good sharpening had done to one of my steel set's profile, plus factoring in "sharpen whenever I want", I bought one. In terms of volume of sharpening, Sparx seems to think 1600 sharpenings per year is fine for their home unit, so I think your assumptions on durability might be a little pessimistic. They've also been out since what, 2015 I think? So there are units out there with a lot of use on them and at least so far I havne't heard of wear / durability issues. Again, I think you might be a bit pessimistic. Maybe find someone that has one and check it out, since you're in the business? Mark

Howdy, https://vtnews.vt.edu/articles/2017/12/ictas-fivestarhockey.html Mark

Howdy, It doesn't make it ok in a pickup (because WTF dude?) but I will say as a novice guy that in a normal game I was surprised to learn that digging away for the puck under the goalie and all, before the whistle, was still illegal per the rules and that while its perhaps expected in various situations, its also expected that you'll get an earful / a shot for it. I mention it just because I truly didn't know that and maybe if the guy is new he doesn't know either? Mark

Howdy, Anyone whacking away at a covered puck at a pickup with no refs is a douche. Hell, I expect to take a push / shove or two or whatever when I try stuff like that (before the whistle) in a regular adult league game with refs. And when that happens, I'll just say "good save" or whatever and skate away. And if someone cross checked my goalie in the head on purpose the absolute best he could expect from me would be for me to knock him on his ass. Mark

Howdy, Acceleration by definition is a change in velocity over time. So while it it completely true that any helmet (or no helmet) won't have an effect on the starting velocity or the ending velocity of a head for a particular impact, it very well could have an effect on the time it takes for the head to change velocity. A longer time means less acceleration, which is better for your noggin. For example... If your head goes from 5 meters/second to 0 over .01 seconds, you experience ~50g. If you increase that time to .015 seconds, you experience ~33g. That's just 5 milliseconds different and my butt says that's within the realm of what different padding can do. Mark

Howdy, I had a hard time deciding to order the Sparx vs. a traditional sharpener. What ended up convincing me was that when I compared one set of steel on my skates to another set, the profile was fairly different. And that correlated to a difference I felt on the ice. They both started the same. The only real difference is one had been sharpened a little more. A machine that provides a consistent pressure and speed, optimized for good results, seems better to me than a system that relies on human technique. The guys sharpening my skates all have WAY more experience than I will ever get sharpening my own stuff. They act in conscientious manners. I had serious doubts that my results would be equal, let alone better. The Sparx is going to be awful if you need it to do something it hasn't been programmed or designed to do. Its going to suck if a proprietary part breaks and Sparx is out of business or just has bad support. Its going to be awful if they go under and you can no longer get their proprietary grinding rings. But if you stay within the Sparx "window", my take on it is that you will get at a minimum an equal sharpening to what a human can do and in many cases, better. YMMV. Mark

Howdy, If I'm ever forced to go on a cruise again, I'll keep that in mind. :-) Mark

Howdy, Yeah, that makes sense. This was on the Norwegian Breakaway. 7 day Bahamas cruise out of NYC. Not a base cruise, no real spring break feel. I will admit to the possibility that another cruise might be better, but the primary ways I can see improving on this one would be cut the # of people and the general volume level of everything to 1/4 of what it was. And after that, I'd still have the "not enough time in the port", "can never see any of the actual ship stuff", "motion sickness", "dry land sickness", etc. etc. etc. We went on a cruise not knowing if they'd be for us. Per your experience and others, some folks love them. Turns out I don't. I didn't put enough weight on the whole "casino/show/eat all the time/drink/nightclub" stuff vs. the "on a ship in the middle of the ocean" part. I was interested in the latter. Mark