Kgbeast

There are arguments against the single piece boot. Mostly it comes to that in a single piece, you obviously use the same material for all the areas of the skate, while, according to some, optimal skate should feature various levels of stiffness in various areas. You can do some digging on the internet for more details. Lots of apparent hot air from both sides though and no real evidence for or against. Perhaps staying with multipiece boot for Bauer also makes an economical sense.

. I think it is the same thing as sending out skates with glue marks, spliced stitching, "end of the roll" fiber look... Basically, they fill that they can peddle shit and consumers will gobble it because of the performance benefits, brand recognition, and the mere fact, that most active players would rather wear that than go back to old skates while the replacement is being made. I would have given them benefit of a doubt, but it seems like a trend - the busier they get the more selective they become in who is getting quality product and who is getting "hey.. he'll live". We all have seeing the posts with excellent quality skates, packed in fancy boxed with magnetic flop and certificate. We also have seeing posts with subpar cosmetics delivered in a brown box. They definitely need to clean this up and make it more consistent.

..especially since these are hand made, how is that the guy who hand made this was not like "hey.. this looks like shite, let me redo that". It is like a guy who makes custom hand made furniture would be like "fuck it, chair still has four legs..." kind of thing. The VH guy on he forum here made it quite clear several times that performance of the skate is first and aesthetics are not of importance, but this and throwing in an unusably short laces is just luck of any pride in the product. Looks like a serious pep talk is in order there.

Problem with sloppy fit is that every stride the steel bangs the plastic parts inside the holder and wears them out at a progressively higher rate. It is like a bad ball joint in the suspension, once it starts clicking, it just getting worse and worse and eventually falls apart

Middle holes on the front are there, just not used with screws... At least on my early 2000 704s

Yes it will. On PeakSpeed skates, cobra holders are mounted with rivets from factory.

Chara, from what I gather, wears size 11.6 skates. So that chap in the pick definitely has one on Chara... Size 15 skates, size 17 say in shoes.... Baby feet comparing to Shaq's 22. Good think he s not skating, that would have been a weird looking skate fo sure :).

Plus you are not exceptional, you are more likely to pick up a few chirps on the way...

Doubtful Bauer would agree that it is the holder issue since the LS4 steel fits right and snug.

Desire to be approved by peers? I like the ones that go - Hey guys I have just ordered such and such and wondering what are your opinions on it...

Have to grow up on this one...

Endorsements are nothing but a name dropping. Who cares if some obscure NHL player (or even a superstar) said that this stick or MarsBlade is awesome? Until they actually use those in real games, It would take a certain personality to showup to a pickup game with MarsBlade holders and the airstick..

@Zac911 implied or even stated in some previous posts that two piece goalie skates and player skates use exactly the same holder. The blades however are different to make them flatter and have more contact front and back like goalie skates traditionally are expected to be. The holder toe cutouts are visible in the players holder and are basically knock-outs.

It was a failed Kickstarter. I think it failed because it looks goofy, and was aimed to be way expensive even by today standards, 3-4 years later. If the pledge was nearly $300, what would have been the retail on that? The benefit of aerodynamics, was a bit unclear and no one believes that it would actually improve the shooting. While blade was said to be very strong, the shaft, part that actually breaks, had no promises. If one of the major manufacturers today would have introduced something like this, I think public and NHLers might have been more receptive, but as a no name, goofy looking, overpriced stick, it would have failed today as well. I think the Air blade people have managed to patent this, so we will probably never find out now what this could have been.

As you might know all sharp edges (knives, scalpels, etc) are not actually smooth but look like a crappy saw under microscope. The finer the stone, the smoother edge it will produce (assuming the steel will allow). Useful in cutting instrumented, perhaps not so much in skates, but in principle it can extend life of the edge normal wear by some margin as sawteeth are easier to wear off than a smoother edge. I doubt the benefits will be noticeable in average skating. Obviously cosmetics is the other aspect. Coarse stones are for honing regular steel with brushed look. It is fast and when it scratches the steel, you can not really notice that anyway. You would want to go to finer grit stones if you deal with mirror finish and coated blades where the scratches and abrasions will be an eyesore, but finer stones would take more time to remove burrs.

Purpose of the quote in this context is quite illustrative, but attribution to Ford (assuming Henry Ford) is arguable at best.

Yes, that is why I brought up a Fiberglass paint remover. It is formulated not to affect 2-part resins such as used in fiberglass and carbon-fiber. I am hoping that there is no clearcote on this, so it is just a case of taking of the yellow paint, the buff it shiny. Sooner or later, abrasive action will require (although sodablasting is too weak to call it abrasive)

I would be pretty surprised if goof-off or nail polish remover was at all effective on these graphics. I would expect this to be similar paint that is used on bicycles or at a very least crylon fussion. The skates probably waxed and buffed that is why goof-off might leave a dull appearance. If I am right about the paint, one thing to try, would be Klean Strip Aircraft Fiberglass Paint Remover or something similar that is used for car-parts and bicycle frames.

It looks to me that he fluffs everything that comes across his desk. I kind of dismissed him for a demagogue. I like watching his unboxings, but take everything he says with a grain of salt as they say.

Someone said, the cup is there to protect the carbon fiber where it makes a sharp corner.

I pay for NHL.TV subscription because I like how things are organized and presented to me. Kind of like Hulu or Netflix. Price perhaps a bit high, but if you are real sports fanatic, you'd pay double that, so I get the demand/supply part of this. Once you pay the subscription. getting locked out of some games is pretty rediculous, but I see how networks can demand that and NHL has to agree. I am glad however that NHL seems to do a bare minimum enforce the geolocation thing.

I like the tech as well (although was a bit of a looker for weak points at first ).My personal appreciation is that with these holders you are no longer fixed to a profile/pitch. You can be on your toes or heels as needed. I guess one thing that might be a bit of adjustment is with these "small" assists, like heel digs and toe carves (or whatever they are called), but it is likely that these holders will have other tricks in their sleeve. Skilled players always find what they can do with whatever they have. it will be interesting to see if these holders will have an obvious impact on the NHL. ... on the other note, I have not seeing how easy or hard it is to swap the runners on those, and how easy or hard for the holder to get destroyed by a hard shot or a run into the boards. These two things are pretty important for NHL player as well.

Step have not been making the holder for longer than about a year or two. But it is pretty evident that they base the design on Graf Cobra holders. By the way, I am not saying this just because where the retainer screw is, I am actually comparing the runners. In the front, you have an oversize "fin" similar to LS2 or LS3, or Graf, they all basicaly the same with Graf being the largest, LS2 a little smaller, Edge the smallest, but because of the triangular shape, there is no real stress point, so all those should be very strong (and are). If you look at the rear. LS2 and Graf as well as the VH, have a "claw" which receives the retainer lug. Graf and VH runner are basically identical at the rear end, LS3 has a slightly different design. Both sides of the claw are the same and have very small amount of "meet" at the top and are fairly narrow. They are under the retainer screw stress straight up. A good impact in the right space, either snaps one of the off or the lug simply breaks through out from the claw sending the runner flying (as seeing in about a dozen cases during 2015-2016 NHL season and prior). If you look at this claw in Garf or VH, you see that the stress is on the angle, in addition to it, tehre is much more meat on the top half of the claw and the bottom half is basically the runners body and is unbreakable. If you look at Edge, it does not have claw, but instead has a "dog-leg" with fairly pronounced knee which is also is the likely fracture point (any sharp angle in still creates one). Once again, a right impact sends that runner flying (as seeing in a number of incidents during 2016-2017 NHL season). Add ti that a possible wobble problem and it is kind of a compromise between integrity and convenience of quick replacement. Now those are just my observations and opinions, not a certain fact or anything, but the only way I know Graf loose their runners, is after the retainer screw is vibrated unscrewed and out (which I believe is addressed by VH design). Here is the little picture for visual (blacks are the Graf runners, which are also would cover nicely for VH runner whose image I do not have handy)

I do not know, but I would suspect that in the vision of Scott and the rest of the VH propeller-heads, the combination of VH boot and VH holder would produce an optimum performance (hence they have that available and it is at least implied if not stated). NHL's fascination with Edge holder comes down to simply the convenience of replacing the blades and to Larry's point, NHL has a much different rotation cycle for the holders and blades (or the entire skates for that matter) than an armature player. Looking at the design of both holders/runners, it is pretty obvious that if you get a hefty slapshot in the blade, the VH holder/blade will most likely survive, while Edge will most likely require a surgery. On the other hand how often you get a stiff shot in the holders?

... just not because it is monoframe, is the point, but nice words catching