AfftonDad

The thing in your post that jumped out at me was the flat feet/pronation comment. My son has joint hyperlaxity (overly flexible joints) and because of this has what looks to most like flat fleet but is really over pronation. I have been through many different skates over the years including Grafs trying to help him out. We also always use superfeet in his skates. I could live with the price of these skates if they would help his pronation issues, if I believed I could get let's say a year out of them. Thankfully at eleven and size 6.5 he has outgrown the new skates every six months phase and I now only have to get them around once a year. However, I'm worried since these wrap and form so well that the will only fit him on the day that he gets them molded (exaggerating of course). Do you know/expect that you will be able to reheat these over the course of a year to get them relatively well fitting to his growing foot for more than a few months. Thanks.

TotalHockey did that as well a couple of weeks ago.

To be honest, the difference between the first two pictures doesn't bother me that much. How "high up" the angle piece is on the gauge piece is determined by how far down you clamp the gauge piece, so a shift up or down shouldn't concern you. The third picture however, definitely shows that you've got a problem. If I didn't know any better I would say you flipped the skate around, which would of course cause the unevenness to "flip" to the other side. However, it looks like you have the skate the same direction in all three pictures so that's not the case. Also, depending on how good a sharpening job it was (I know you didn't do it yourself), WHERE you put the checker on the blade can cause it to show a difference (because the sharpener may not have made the edges uniformly even throughout the blade). This is especially the case the closer you get to the heel and toe, particularly when you get to the "rounded" parts. There's not really a lot of places for things to go wrong (with the edge checker). I mean it's just a couple of flat pieces of metal, one of which is pressed up against another flat piece of metal and the other which is sitting on the two edges. There aren't really any moving parts to become "variable". So what are the things that could vary?... 1) The local flatness of the pieces of metal. I believe that the pieces of metal (runner, gauge piece and angle piece) are all very flat, so I don't think that is an issue. If you have a piece of tape on the angle piece (which I highly recommend), you need to make sure the piece of tape is extremely flat and doesn't have any wrinkles or bubbles. I start on the back of the angle bring the tape around the bottom and then wrap it all the way to the back again. This way I can apply some tension to the tape as I am wrapping it around to help it to lay flat. I then make sure to smooth it out after I'm done. If you have any wrinkles or bubbles (or debris under the tape), this will prevent you from getting repeatable results, so take off the tape and try again. 2) Debris on the side of the blade where the gauge sits or the top (bottom) of the blade where the angle sits. Make sure you brush off the side of the blade, the top (bottom) of the blade AND the bottom of the angle piece before you check edges. 3) Play in the gauge piece. You need to make sure that it is clamped tightly enough so that there is no movement in the gauge piece (don't go overboard though or you will wear out the nylon screw) 4) Angle piece "hanging up" on gauge piece. Like jsykes said, make sure there is a little air gap between the gauge and the angle. I usually do this by pressing the gauge up against the angle piece prior to tightening and then backing up the gauge a slight amount and tightening. This gives a gap and makes sure the angle piece is still "aligned" to the gauge piece (when the angle piece is not "aligned" to the gauge piece it can cause you to observe false unevenness due to parallax). Like forbs02 suggested, I always tap the angle piece a tiny bit to make it wobble to convince myself that nothing is "hung up" For what it's worth (and this ISN'T the problem between the first two pictures and the third), I have always had a hard time making pictures of the edge checker show the same thing I am seeing with my eyes. I don't know why this is the case but I expect that the camera and it's positioning for the picture is more susceptible to parallax than the eye is or perhaps there are lens distortion issues. Also, I noticed that I can see your feet in all of the pictures. I generally will check edge evenness with the skate horizontal so that gravity can help the angle piece to "lay flat" Good luck.

They come in 14's (I have them). Total Hockey and HockeyMonkey have them.

I'm very interested in these except I'm a little scared of the forward pitch (being a defenseman and not wanting to hurt my backwards skating). I've never tried a skate with a forward pitch. For those of you that have, i.e. Grafs and MLX's or Mako's, should I not be worried about that?

I think that you just have to try them and see which one you like best. Because there is interplay between the variables, I actually prefer to think of the 50 edge depth ones and the 75 edge depth ones as two distinct scales. For example, I think if they made them and they were free, I would like to have spinners of... 88-50, 90-50, 92-50, 94-50, 96-50, 98-50, 100-50 and 88-75, 90-75, 92-75, 94-75, 96-75, 98-75, 100-75 I would then tell a person to pick an edge depth (50 or 75) and then tweak within that scale. Since they aren't free though, that would of course be cost prohibitive.

This chart does... http://www.blackstonesport.com/FBV_Comparison_Chart.pdf They started with just the four. Then they added more. I'm pretty sure the shops around here just offer the original four. I have 95-75 at home though and that is what most of the people I sharpen for prefer (admittedly though, if they don't know what they should use, that is the one I start them on).

I understand. I have bought custom radiused steel from you before for my son (and will continue to do so). You were very helpful and very easy to work with. I wasn't literally scared... I was just explaining why I hadn't called No-Icing. Thanks.

I'm in the U.S. I had checked out No-Icing before but since I don't want a custom radius, their statement below scared me away... These fit all CCM and RBK skates with replaceable runners. Price is per runner and includes initial sharpening. These are STEP brand runners, which are of superior quality and have higher height and a longer sharpening life. Note: We are a custom radius shop and these runners are reserved for customers who are purchasing a custom radius. We do not sell just runners. Try another online store if you want just runners.

Can anyone tell me where I can get some of the "regular" Step Steel for E-Pro in 288. Hockey Monkey has practically nothing left and the sizes that they have are fewer and fewer every day. Has Step quit making it for E-Pro?

OK... I thought what you were profiling was the spinner itself. I was hoping that the large drop off in the flat part of the FBV was a localized "pit" in the spinner that would be "averaged out" as the spinner spun on the wheel and then subsequently as the wheel spun on the blade and as the passes are made. I was hopping that the result on the blade "on average" was much flatter than the profile you showed. It sounds like you already looked into that and found that the "pit" actually is a "groove" that runs the entire length of the blade. It makes sense that a traditional diamond dresser would be smoother because it is the exact same single point that passes through every spot on the wheel as opposed to a textured surface applying it's texture to the wheel.

I'd also be curious to see what multiple cross sections of the spinner averaged together would look like. And more importantly, what individual and averaged cross sections of a spinner sharpened blade look like.

Wow! What a great tool to have around. I want one of those! Have you put it on a wheel and a sharpened blade to see what they look like? I'd also be curious to see how a mini-spinner compares to a full size spinner. Another thing you should do is get the profile of the spinner when it is new and check every N number of sharpens so you (we) can get an idea of how these things degrade over time. As far as the roughness, I would expect it to be rough as you pick up the individual diamond particles (just looking at the spinners you can see texture). I'm am surprised it's not flatter. Is this a brand new spinner?

Once I get it "tuned" I put a radial sharpie mark on the wheel lined up with a mark that I have put on the arbor and the rear guard, so that if I take the wheel off (for cleaning or whatever) I can put it back on in the same orientation.

I've found that if I put a wheel on and get a lot of vibration I can sometimes rotate it (with respect to the arbor) to a point where the vibration is gone. I think I'm effectively "tuning" the wheel's imperfections with respect to the arbor.

Along these lines, I got an unexpected, unsolicited, indirect compliment the other day. A father of one of the kids whose skates I sharpen on my X-01 needed them sharpened right away but I wasn't going to be home in time to do them. He took them to the LHS, which just so happens to currently have Bert Godin, the equipment manager of the St. Louis Blues working there during the lockout. The father told me that Bert checked the edges before he started (perhaps he saw the 95/75 that I had written on the blade and was curious because I don't think the shops around here offer that hollow). Bert told him, "I don't know who did these skates before but they did a really good job... I don't usually see edges this even." (I assume he was not talking about his own work). Anyway, that made me feel pretty good that I could get that compliment from him as a mostly self taught sharpener using a little X-01 machine in my garage.

My first spinner went REALLY fast, but that was because the little bent washer was putting too much drag on the spinner and it wasn't really spinning (until I flattened it... you can read about people doing this earier in this thread). I asked the question a couple of years ago of "how do you know when your spinner is done for" and the response I got was something to the effect of "when it catches fire". That was the person's way of saying that you'll know because you'll see a lot of sparks coming off when dressing because bare metal will be exposed on the spinner. So under that criteria, I haven't used up any more spinners since then. I've probably gone through 20 or more wheels. But I have 6 different hollows of which I typically use 3 (really mostly just 2). A couple of weeks ago someone made the comment that they had used their spinner through 3 wheels, so it was about 75% used up. That comment was a bit surprising to me because I have gone through way more than three wheels per spinner and I still don't have bare spots. I haven't noticed any difference in the "feel" of my sharpening, so I think my spinners are still good. I didn't get a response when I asked if anyone knew if there was any truth to that 75% comment. A lot of times the diamonds don't look as sparkly due to carbonization (and probably some fine shine) on it. The guys at Blackstone said that's no big deal and you can wash it off with water if you like.

My X-01 arbor height has always put the grinding wheel near the top of the spinner as evidenced by the fine shine mark being almost on the bottom edge of the wheel after sharpening. Doesn't really affect sharpening but always bugged me a little. So I got the urge a couple of days ago to better center it. I took out the recessed set screw but the arbor still wouldn't move. Before tapping it with a mallet I thought I better ask someone who had moved one if it is really supposed to be that tight. Found out that there are actually TWO set screws (one in front of the other) in the recessed hole. After removing the second one the arbor moved easily (thank you's to Chiefs17 for the info that kept me from bending the shaft on my sharpener).

Cover that rotates, vacuum inlet for blade dust coming off of the wheel, revolver for spinners. That is sweet! I'm going to have to see if I can come up with the vacuum port and rotatable cover for my x-01 (I have not had the cover on since the first day).

It this (above) a true statement??? I was under the impression that until you get a bare (metal) spot the spinner is still good. I have done way more than 3 wheels on my spinners. BTW... Looks radial to me

What kind of holder is that that they are using?

On the topic of motors... I asked one of the guys once at Blackstone if replacing a (hypothetically) blown motor on an X-01 would be a repair that they would do. He said yes, but that he believed they could talk me through it over the phone and that the motor would probably be around $100 (don't hold them to that amount as he was ballbarking it off the top of his head).

A word of caution... If the spinner is not rotating pretty well while in contact with the wheel, there is too much drag on the spinner. The reason I warn about this is because I used up my first spinner in a month (wore through to bare metal spots) because of this. Earlier in this thread there is information on how to rectify that situation by slightly flattening out the wavy washer in between the drag cap's top and the spinner. This wavy washer is what creates the drag on the spinner. After I did this I haven't worn out any more spinners in the approximately 2-3 years that I have had the sharpener (doing maybe 10-20 pairs a month). As a matter of fact, I sometimes worry that my spinner is now spinning too fast to dress the wheel adequately. You could rectify this situation by getting a new drag cap from Blackstone however, I have found that there is a little cutout next to the spinner (at least there is on my X-01) that is perfect for putting my finger up against the spinner so that I can regulate the amount of drag (I have often wondered if that is why the cutout is there).

Garage with a shop vac. The vac doesn't do much though in my opinion but I do keep the cover off the sharpener which I'm sure hurts the suction. One expense that I didn't consider when I bought the X-01 in the summer was the kerosene heater I would have to buy in order to sharpen in the winter. It gets cold in the garage!

I left the pitch knob alone. He said they felt great. Thanks.