Leif

I was talking to a rink owner yesterday about his Sparx, which was one of the first in the UK. He travels with it, and on one occasion he dropped the bare machine (not in a case) from waist height down a flight of stairs. It bounced down 7 steps. It has also taken direct hits from a puck, including to the glass, and has some cosmetic damage as evidence. It still works perfectly, which shows how solid the internal mechanism must be. The fact that it is not out of alignment is surprising. Mine copes with the stresses of sitting on a carpeted floor. 🙂

Excellent advice from Vet88 except that I’ve known gel pads to work for several people including myself.

There’s huge amounts of useful information about lace bite on this forum and elsewhere. I used to get it with Bauer S160 skates. I had the Bauer scan and it put me in Vapors which have even less depth, so they should be even worse. Mmmmm. Anyway, I now have Bauer S2 Pro skates, I skate more often now, and I’ve never had lace bite with the new skates. Higher end skates tend to be more comfortable. When I used the S160 skates, and lace bite appeared, I’d wear a bandage with a gel pad made by Silipos, similar to Bunga pads, u til the lace bite went away. Don’t just skate through lace bite as it will get worse. As said above, wide non waxed laces are good, I liked Howies, I have had issues with QC on the last two pairs of A&R laces, one pair being unfit for purpose ie impossible to put on a skate. Anyway, let’s hope this was a one off for you.

Unfortunately Massive is not sold in the UK. 🙁 Thanks Nicholas, any idea how many passes the Sparx would need on new runners? I know one local shop charges £10 for the first sharpen compared to £6 usually, but it’s free if the runners are bought from them.

Does anyone sharpen Step black steel on a Sparx with a normal ring eg 7/16”? Do you have any issues? I’ve used mine on Bauer LS5 and standard Step steel, and they sharpen nicely. However, I prefer the Step blade profile, so I’d like to move over to Step black. Does it work okay on other brands of black steel? And a side question, how consistently flat are Bauer LS5 and Step black? My ordinary Step steel blades were not plane parallel, and gave different BAT readings on each face.

It looks like a Jewish skull cap on his head. The guy is big.

I could never get the same reading on both sides of my old blades for that reason. Which steels are not punched? I now have Bauer LS5 runners and they have parallel sides. My previous Step steel runners didn’t. Just a sample of one set of each though, so you can’t draw firm conclusions.

If it makes you feel any better, the UK price is £1200, or over $1,500. That includes 20% sales tax. I’d be curious to know how well they sell in Europe.

Nicholas G. said "Our store is considering doing a loaner/lease program to the hockey association for the 16U and 18U AAA teams " If you're going to do that, you need to know if the machines can stand up to the sort of abuse customers will give them. I am also interested in the robustness of these machines, in case I do transport mine. I'm going to take care, but accidents do happen, and it'd be nice to know the sort of abuse they can take. A two foot drop onto a floor is unlikely, but a 6" drop could easily happen. Colins posted a nice video which shows the Pelican case is very tough. But I honestly don't think I can trust myself to carry a $1500 machine around.

You missed the key point, which is that I (maybe not you) find the Sparx hard to carry as it is big and heavy, and it has no carrying handles, and I’d quite likely drop it. With two people it’d be fine. I doubt there are any laptops that weigh even half the Sparx weight. Most people don’t walk round with TVs.

Yes, I know the Sparx is made with a solid steel frame and the case is tough. My concern isn’t damage while in the case, it’s concern at what happens if it drops on the floor while putting it into or taking it out of the case. I find my Sparx hard to lift as it is so heavy, hence easily dropped if I slip. That’s why I’d opt for the ProSharp if portability was a key requirement. Regarding the glass, I know someone with Sparx machines that have taken a hard puck shot to the glass, it’s tough. The exterior metal case is tough too, although the cosmetic plastic ends might break more easily.

I guess there’s two issues. How many grinds can it do before failure, and how robust is it when knocked about. It looks like it can do oodles of grinds, but can it survive regularly being carried, and potentially dropped albeit in the carry case, or even accidentally dropped 6” onto a bench? These things are heavy.

I doubt Sparx said shops suck, but I find most are poor, and the good ones are 25 miles away. Anyway, if a shop buys a Sparx, it requires far less attention and concentration, so they can serve customers more quickly at peak times. My LHS has one of two top staff members sharpening at the weekend. I’d rather they were serving customers because they kniw what they are talking about. Curiously they have a ProSharp SkatePal, looks like an aluminium camera case, but it sits unused. The wheel clogged up with steel and customers apparently preferred the hand sharpening. That said, my Sparx is incredible.

Presumably because a metal dust tray is more durable. Mine came with one too. The plastic one did look a bit flimsy. The locking screw is in addition to the locking guard. Nice to see improvements after launch.

It doesn’t have to be a black and white discussion you know? I’m convinced the VT results have value, but as pointed out earlier, they also have serious failings. Once you recognise the limitations, you can then take them for what they are. One valid criticism IMO is that VT over egg their conclusions. In practice hockey is potentially dangerous, as are skiing and parachuting. You either mitigate those risks, or do something else.

Of course it is completely down to personal taste. Many reckon ~15 hours between sharpens: https://medium.com/@number9hockey/when-to-sharpen-skates-fc95f12de7f6 Our ice is quite hard, and after ~8 hours I do feel my edges sliding during crossovers. This might be poor technique of course. I happen to like the feel of fresh edges, a luxury that costs very little (~25 cents per pass) once a Sparx is available. I don’t sharpen my car tyres, but then again us Brits are often behind the times. 🙂

I skate at least six hours a week, lots of sideways slides, lots of sprints with deep cuts, generally before the Sparx I liked to get them sharpened every two weeks to maintain the edges. I'd have done more but it meant a morning driving. I have a 7/16" hollow. With the Sparx I can do one pass before every session, as I really like the feel of fresh edges.

Does anyone know how much steel one pass removes? I’m curious to know the lifetime of my runners compared to hand sharpens. Previously they (Step steel) lasted about 6 months. I currently have Bauer LS5 runners. I have been doing one pass before each session, and noticed a slight tilt to the edges at the rear which was cured by an extra pass, so an occasional two passes may be needed. I still think this device is phenomenal.

This is an interesting discussion. What I am taking away from it is that the VT tests will tell you which helmets provide more protection from certain kinds of impact, such as a puck to the forehead, but there are other significant kinds of injury that are not accounted for. Specifically they do not account for rotational forces which are a major cause of concussion. The danger of the VT tests (as stated by stick9) is that they could give someone a false sense of security, whereas in reality even with the ‘best’ helmet, you really do need to avoid certain situations. I’m also quite shocked at the levels of brain injury in hockey, something I had previously only associated with boxing, a sport that I abhore for its brutality. Is it right to subject athletes to life changing injuries in the name of entertainment?

I’m not sure what you mean by football headform. A quick search found this: https://nocsae.org/wp-content/uploads/2018/05/NOCSAE_Football-Helmet-Standards-Overview-_May-2018.pdf However, if I understand correctly, the above is saying that rotational forces are the ones that cause the most damage, and a helmet does nothing to reduce those. Was it an earlier link that said that ~124 out of 125 NHL brains studied had significant damage (CTE) from repeated traumas?

oldtrainerguy28: Thank you for the response, you clearly have an informd viewpoint. Are the CSA test methodologies for hockey helmets online?

A helmet will protect you from concussion due to a puck, or even a stick, hitting your helmet. I’ve had a slap shot bounce off my helmet, and barely noticed it. Without the helmet I would have sustained a nasty head wound and possibly brain damage. I’ve also gone into the boards, and my helmet has protected my head from concussion. What you perhaps mean is that a major cause of concussion is due to the deceleration associated with the head coming to a sudden stop, as seen often in contact hockey, but rarely in the hockey I participate in. I am sure we can agree that a helmet will not prevent concussion in such circumstances, but I don’t think you have scientific data to prove that a helmet cannot mitigate concussion ie reduce the severity. And neither do I, but I suspect it can reduce the deceleration, and absorb some of the shock waves from the impact. I suspect brain damage can result from shock waves moving through the brain. For my part I know from experience that the Reakt 200 is more protective than the 4500. Maybe not always, but enough to know that I won’t wear a 4500 again. Don’t Bauer argue with the VT results, and say that they perform their own rigorous testing? Sadly, a lot of this thread is “I think that” rather than “Studies show that ... “. You’d think governments would sponsor such testing on public health grounds.

I had the basic Bauer bag with two handles, lasted two years. Corners split, fabric split. I have a higher end Bauer bag with wheels, after six months the corners show noticeable wear. Not a fan.

I certainly would not transport mine on a regular basis without a solid case and the Pelican with foam is ideal. The original box is okay for rare use such as moving home. However the Sparx is heavy, easy to drop, so the ProSharp Home might be a better choice as a mobile machine. But the made in Sweden aspect makes it very expensive, and it lacks automation.

The UK and European price is unreasonable IMO. The Sparx is also much more expensive here, but still worth it.