Leif

The ProSharp Home and Sparx claim to maintain a constant pressure, unlike a manual sharpen, which should preserve the profile. I checked an old LS5 blade against a fairly new blade, and the profile over most of the blade feels the same. The toe and heel are very different as expected as they are very different heights. I have old manually sharpened runners and they are nearly flat. When I swapped them out my skating improved markedly.

Something I forgot to mention, they have different warranties which might be a deciding factor for you.

I bought the previous version of the Sparx for £1200, back then the ProSharp Home was £2,000. I found very few owner reviews of the ProSharp but they were all positive. Hockey Tutorial reviews both on YouTube.

The Sparx wheels last 320 passes, if I recall correctly. Assuming four passes per sharpen, and two skates per user as typical (!), that works out at 40 pairs of skates sharpened. That was the original Sparx estimate. Sparx now assume less than four passes are needed for a sharpen, and give a value of 60 pairs of skates sharpened by one wheel. I find that I do one pass per skate per sharpen as that is enough to get the edge back, some people do two passes. Of course you need more if there is significant damage to the edges. There is a post by the owner of Sparx on this forum where he states that they tested the ProSharp Home, and found that it takes less metal off per pass and the per sharpen cost is similar for both machines. Obviously that's not an independent test, so maybe a good amount of salt is needed. I have no issue with the toe and heel, but I'm no elite level skater. You really do need an edge gauge even if you buy the ProSharp Home, so factor than in to the cost. I had a Prosharp BAT and sent it back to the head of ProSharp USA in disgust as it was out. Never got a refund, and they claimed it was fine even though it disagreed with Sparx, BladeMaster and no name gauges. I assume mine was untypical.

Didn’t Flare blades have a non parallel sides ie flared outwards? I think these have a rectangular cross section, but wider/thicker at the front and back. This freestyler has reviewed them: Unfortunately the review isn’t very informative, it lacks depth although he likes them. It’d be interesting to know the min and max blade widths and any issues with Sparx sharpening.

Everglides in Gosport have several automated ProSharp machines, which preserve the profile and I believe they can profile runners too. I think SkateStation can profile runners. They do good manual sharpens too. I no longer trust manual sharpens, one is fine assuming a competent operator, but over time they ruin the profile. I had runners that became flat after a year, one sharpen every fortnight. I don’t believe any person has the skill to preserve the profile, and if they do, they are few and far between. It’s hard enough finding someone who gets level edges. The new Sparx machine can be bought direct from Sparx at a very reasonable price.

When I change hollow, I mark the blade with a sharpie, and try a couple of passes. Two usually removes all of the ink when going from 1/2” to 5/8” normal hollow, and vice versa.

I do one pass every 4 hours or so assuming no damage to remove, I use a 7/16" ring and LS5 runners. I don't swap round rings between sharpens which helps. I once sharpened some cheap skates with fixed blades and that was awful, I gave each boot 5 passes, soft steel, just didn't feel right.

I play rec, or did before lock down and the ban on scrimmages. I would go to stick and puck sessions, basically drop in non contact hockey. I’ve been deliberately slammed into the boards, once I stepped onto the ice on a line change and a wannabe skated into me at full speed, knocked me flying, he just got off the ice and ignored me. I’ve had a slapshot to the helmet, above the forehead, to the shoulder and to the legs. I had a huge guy skate into me at full speed when nowhere near the puck (he looked very embarrassed and sheepish afterwards, careless rather than a moron). I’ve had someone take my legs out from behind, falling backwards, that’s the most scary and dangerous one. I’ve been cross checked into the lower chest, that hurt. There’s a lot of wannabes who try to prove their virility by steam rollering over some other players! I wear top end Bauer 2S Pro pads for health reasons, and I’m sure I’ve been saved from injury several times compared to entry level stuff. That said, the arm pads are rubbish.

A player of that ability could wear pink skates with dayglo green holders and flashing lights underneath and everyone and their dog would be queueing up for a pair. CCM do seem to have an ability to create fugly skates, it’s as if they don’t employ a graphic designer, and hand the job over to a friend’s ten year old child. Or maybe I am officially an old fart ...

“has the look that all players will remember when you fly right past them” Certainly has. And another advantage. The goalie will be laughing so hard that he’ll forget to try to save your shot. Look good, feel good, play good. Look like a dork ...

That is unfair as that is not what I said, and if the OP did think I said that, then I apologise to him. I commented because he said in his posts that “I do totally suck at skating” and “I’ll never be able to play or even skate well”. The point I wanted to make is that contrary to what he thinks a skating coach could teach him to skate well. I know from first hand experience that a good coach can turn a poor skater into a half decent one. And skating is the core skill for playing hockey. To be honest I really did not appreciate how big a difference a skating coach can make. In my own case I had to completely relearn how to skate as I had got everything wrong. I was a total muppet with no control. And once you get the basics right, you enjoy skating so much more, and in my case I was safer. As for beginners and intermediate players having high end and custom skates, if you have the money then go for it. They are worth it for the comfort factor. Anyway, I do hope the OP sorts out his skates.

Slightly off topic and apologies if this has been addressed, but I strongly suggest you take one on one skating lessons. In my case they are making a huge difference to my skating which in turn greatly improves my hockey. (Still can’t shoot for poop, hi ho.) Spending $1,000 on skating lessons will do massively more to improve your skating than buying $1,000 skates.

I know 3-4 people with custom trues, one friend’s feet go numb but he had no joy with stock Bauer skates, he has big wide feet. The others love their Trues. I know several people with custom Bauers and I have custom 2s Pros. I had blisters on my big toes for a month or two where the toe cap joins the boot shell, it seems to be design fault reported here by several people whose feet are widest at the front. Silicon toe sleeves cured the pain and expanded the boots, and silicon pads can be a solution for other people who have pain in other areas. Obviously they won’t fix short skates. My skates are amazing, they fit like gloves, better actually as gloves on feet would be stupid. I would have thought Bauer would get a good fit, given the heat and pressure moulding of the skates around custom lasts created from your scans unless there is a limit to how far from stock they can go. However, I’ve had two Bauer scans two years apart, and there are significant differences (one arch initially high, then below average for example), so maybe scans are sensitive to the way you stand when scanned, or maybe one scan was done wrong.

I wear size 9 shoes. Size 8 is painful. I wear size 6.5-7 (Bauer) and size 8 (Powerslide) inline skates, and size 7 (Bauer) stock ice skates, or 6.5 (L) and 6.75 (R) custom ice skates. The skate sizes just don’t make sense unless you use Mondopoint ie mm, in which case they are consistent.

Audi usually if not always share platforms with VW, for example the Audi A1 is basically a VW Polo in a fancy frock. Engines, gearbox, transmission, brakes etc will be the same. That reduces cost greatly.

I had the same issue with custom Bauer 2S Pro, with blisters forming on my big toes where they rubbed against the join between the toe cap and the upper. I wore a silicon sleeve (from ebay) on each big toe to prevent pain, but they must have expanded the boot because the rubbing has gone without the sleeves on. It only took a year. You’d think they’d fit the appropriate size toe cap to avoid this happening. Beautiful skates, but I’m tempted to try True when they wear out. As for cars, BMW seems to be de rigueur in the UK for ice hockey players. (VW, same company as Audi, for me.)

So where does the money spent on team gear come from? On topic, my (UK) LHS recently had a facebook image of True skates post bake with plastic film wrapped round, nice to see them done properly.

So if Bauer gives out free skates, and pays players to wear them, this must incur a big cost which is paid for by you know who ie us. It’d be interesting to know how much this ‘tax’ adds to each skate. Personally I don’t give a fig who wears which skate, but I’m sure the youngsters do care.

Baking is time consuming, and shops I know have enough on their plate without extra shenanigans. It would make more sense to scan a customer’s feet to determine the correct size if any. I can’t imagine a size 8 True TF9 would fit all feet that have the right length. What proportion will fit? Is the toe cap mouldable? My feet are flippers, some people have pasties, how do you cope with that?

I wonder how long a profile lasts when the blades are sharpened manually? Back when I used to have mine manually sharpened, I checked the blades prior to replacing them, and they were more like speed skates ie almost flat. Most other sharpeners down my way can’t even get even edges, never mind maintain the profile.

I had scans 18 months apart (ice skates, then inlines two months ago) and my (old style) scans look quite different: https://my.volumental.com/en/bauer/2f029e24-c1e1-4885-bd8a-706f9cc01baf/?utm_medium=myvemail https://my.volumental.com/en/bauer/1a55d684-3f9e-4837-9dfc-386f818a263c/?utm_medium=myvemail Most of this could be due to values being relative to the population, and second time around there was a much bigger database of scans. Some values are weird, look at my arches, very different in one, the same in the other. According to the scans, I am a duck. I noticed in one scan you were upright, in the other with knees bent. I believe knees bent is how you should stand, and the foot wiil change shape in that stance. On one scan one of your feet looks like the toes were pulled in. Tight socks? I was told to wear socks, but I thought it should be barefoot

I bought both my current sticks on clearance for half the normal retail price. If you don’t mind the previous season’s kit you can save a good wodge. But you do have to wait until they go on sale, and move quick.

I waited two years for mine to ship! (They wouldn't ship to the UK until 18 months ago.) I love mine, and don't have a need to change it even though it weighs as much as a battle ship, but I'm interested to hear reviews of the new pocket sized one.

I’m only an intermediate skater, but my views have changed as a result of experience. Generally skates for advanced skaters will need to be more comfortable and moisture wicking as the skater will be on the ice for longer each session, and more often, and more durable which often translates to stiffer so they don’t break down so quickly. And yes stiffer means better energy transfer. But honestly in many cases skating lessons would provide more benefit. (Not being rude, that was certainly true in my case.) A friend went through skates in a year or two. Then he spent a packet on CCM carbon fibre skates that lasted 8 years. I know relative beginners in custom skates. They don’t get sore feet, so why not buy custom? I have customs, I’ve often worn them for three hours in complete comfort, they are worth every penny. Doubtless I don’t need the performance. The True TF7 might be a worthy competitor if they are as mouldable as claimed. Regarding fit and finish, the recent Trues I’ve seen have looked much better. No globs of glue in sight. Could it be that True are making production more consistent and professional? And if they produce in higher quantities they can invest more in tooling.