colins

I'm tracking which skates I sharpen, how many passes and which ring I used in a spreadsheet (that's normal, right??) because I'm curious about the grinding ring use as well. From Russ' explanation, it seems pretty straight forward - the machine knows how many passes a grinding ring has made and by the 320th pass, the light is going to indicate the ring is worn out and you should get a new one. Now from a technical POV, that has me curious... is it the machine storing how many passes it's seen the ring for (that would be somewhat flawed but maybe cheaper to implement), or is the info about the number of passes stored on each ring itself and then transmitted to the machine when it starts up? This would be a better technical solution but I don't know enough about RFID to know if it's practical to put that capability in the RFID chip in the ring itself. The problem with the first approach is obviously when multiple machines are in play and rings get used between different machines, the tracking wouldn't be accurate. I had my first skate last night on my touched up edges (just 2 passes as I'd recently had them sharpened and there were no nicks), and my two boys (13 and 15) skated on full 4 pass sharpenings two nights ago. All I can say is we all agreed it's as good as any commercial sharpening we've had. For comparison, I normally will only bring my skates to a buddy (who's a bit of a perfectionist) that owns a Blademaster 850, or to a local shop which uses a CagOne. If Steve or Russ are checking in on the thread - one question I've got is regarding brand new steel. I know from experience that new steel can be a problem for the first sharpening as peaks and valleys in new blades can create dead spots, and if a shop doesn't take the extra passes necessary to level the blade off the first skate can be a real unpleasant experience (don't learn this for the first time during a big tournament when you break a blade folks!). How many passes of a regular grinding ring (on average) would you suggest for new steel (assume CCM speed blade hyperglide runners, if it matters?). I'm thinking the cross grinding ring is next on my wishlist, both for new steel prep and cases where a deep nick has to come out. Colin

Received my Sparx sharpener today. Here's an unboxing and first use video. Literally 15 minutes to unbox and begin sharpening, including time to read the instructions. So far - impressed. I havent skated on Sparx sharpened blades yet (not until next Thursday), but I will report back with my experience once I do. Colin