marka

Howdy, That sucks. Does your homeowners policy cover it? Mark

Howdy, That seems like a lot of passes. When I've made hollow changes (not more than 1/8" either way), I've run 5 cycles and had all the marker I put on the edge taken away. Have you had bad experiences running less cycles? Perhaps the marker test I'm doing doesn't tell the whole story. Mark

Howdy, It's possible / likely that a work out program like that would benefit him greatly. But: * he needs a place to do it (we're in Ohio, there's still snow on the ground). * there are a lot of soccer specific skills / fundamentals that he needs work on. * he's 11 and still needs to have fun playing soccer. A work out program alone isn't going to be "fun". Mark

Howdy, I honestly have no idea. I certainly emailed him that we were coming, but I didn't include a photo or anything. :-) Even if he didn't know who we are though... It was just bizarre. The guy is a 30 to 70 feet away from me for 20 minutes with me standing up, son next to me, looking at him. And half way through that time, I walked out toward him and he motioned "hold on" or whatever. Then proceeded to remain 30 to 70 feet away, walking around, maybe talking to a kid every couple minutes. It would have taken him a max of 15 seconds to walk over and say "Hey, what's up?" At this point, we just taking a pass. There are other folks and programs around and we're just chalking this one up to "better to find out now". There's no point in me emailing him when there's no scenario I can construct that justifies that behavior. Mark

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, Reading up on speed plates because my wife is thinking she wants something a little more supportive than the stock insoles in her new X600's. Any updates to address durability for these, or are people still regularly having them crack? Mark

Howdy, Yeah. I REALLY like the Covert QRL's and have a new pair waiting for me to decide I want to start using them over my current pair, but I'm still interested to see what direction they went with the new version. Hope they kept the snug fit / cuff! That palm from the Alpha felt pretty darn good... :-) 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, Yep, still here. Playing or practicing four or five times a week. My wife has started too. :-) 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, If you think its affecting you, I agree with skating with your normal hockey gear. If the worst thing that happens to you is that you "look weird", you're still going to have a good day. :-) I find that when I'm practicing skating, I'm thinking more about the skating itself and because of that concentration, I can do new things. However, when playing a game, I tend to not concentrate on skating mechanics as much, and therefore stay more "within my abilities" sorta by default. That said, with enough time practicing and some of that stuff starts to become 2nd nature and I'll eventually notice that I'm doing it in a game. The biggest thing I notice related to all this is "stick vs. no stick" btw. Skating with a stick gives me a different balance / leverage / whatever as compared to skating with no stick. YMMV. 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