Hi guys I need your enlightened opinion
I'm looking for a home sharpening solution, since I'm getting old and cant be asked.
I know nothing about sharpening but i know what a good sharpening feels like, I've been playing for over 30+ years and the only few times I got a perfect cut were either because the guy knew exactly what he was doing (usually sharpening for pro team or a whole ice rink and knows the exact ice temperature/hardness or whatever other parameters, usually these guys don't even ask anything they measure your steels tells you have that much radius/hallow, grind the things and give them back to you and ask you to come back if you're not happy) or it was pure luck. I can count these times with the fingers of my hands to be frank... those times when your blade cracks the ice with that satisfying sound.
I always found sharpening from LHS pretty awful, when back on the ice it grips too much, feels awkward, put me off balance, I literally have to wait a few skates for my skates to become "normal" again without ever feeling sharp along the process. That has been like that since my childhood. Is it because once your skate is worn out, the mechanical exact science of hollow and radius fails due to the holder/outsole/steel being slightly off or deformed with time... I don't know. To be honest, new or used skates I've never seen the difference, sharpening has always been bad for me.
My questions :
1) Prosharp home or Sparx? what are the differences?
2) Can you really get a good sharpening, or will it be at best the same as some LHS now using teenager operated home sparx/prosharp machine ?
3) Is it really user friendly and build like a tank or with time the things becomes loose, misaligned, and you need to fiddle with it to get it going ?
4) how good is the warranty/support in Europe ? or inexistent ?
5) Any flaws ? reliability issues ? you guys have experienced ?
6) Is it reasonable to use this in an apartment ? They say you can use it in your kitchen but ... I dont see myself sharpening next to the pasta bake.
Also note, I'm currently based in Europe. Eye watering >1k at the monkey, when I used to see big discount ads on MSH in the previous years.
Thanks for reading