AfftonDad

I agree with JR and Rachel that going back to ROH once is a useful exercise for anyone that has used FBV for a while to (re)convince yourself. When I switched from ROH to FBV the performance difference was definately noticable and welcomed but it didn't seem HUGE. Since I have my own sharpener and they sent me a 1/2" spinner with it I decided to try 1/2" one day going to a stick and puck with my son. I didn't even want to stay for the entire session! I have used the same words Rachel did every time I tell someone about that experiment.... "It was like skating through mud". I don't know why it seemed to be a much greater change going from FBV to ROH than it did going from ROH to FBV, but the difference was huge. I am sure there is some psychology involved that accounts for the perceived difference. Regarding the ability to control the edging... It has always been my perception that (and I have said this to many people) I am more able to control the "amount" of edging with FBV than ROH. Having said all that, you really need to be able to trust that the guy doing the sharpening is getting very even edges or have some way of checking edge evenesss yourself. I think that it is probably a true statement that a botched FBV sharpening is worse than a botched ROH sharpening.

I wish I would have bought the X-02. I bought the X-01 for me and my son. I figured I would do a couple of others skates for free as well. Once word got out though it got to be a lot more pairs than I expected. I'm probably doing 20-30 pairs a month now. I had to start charging (albeit only $4) to cover my expenses and to keep people from giving them to me every time they see me. Anyway, my X-01 has been making some minor noises for several months now that I think is maybe a rough spot that forms on the bearings (or maybe some grit). The noise evenutally works itself out but I'm constantly wondering if it is going to shoot craps. Blackstone has assured me that replacing the motor is neither that difficult nor that expensive. But if/when it finally does go south, if they will sell me an X-02 without a holder I may go that route instead. BTW... I am not slighting the X-01 in any way. I'm using it more than it was intended for.

I have done down to youth size 12 with the X12 holder. Sometimes you have a little difficulty at the toe when the grinding wheel gets small. You can cut off the front corners of your holder and "cheat" the skate a little towards the heel to give yourself a little more clearance though.

You should go back and read the entire thread (yes I know that will take a while). But there is some useful info you can gleen from it. One thing I would want to caution you about before it's too late (and you can find info about it in the thread) is that you probably need to "loosen up" the spring washer that compresses against the spinner causing it to spin more slowly than the grinding wheel so that it is possible to dress the grinding wheel. As delivered, it tends to be (at least it used to) a little too tight and doesn't let the spinner spin enough. This can cause you to eat through the diamonds in one particular spot on the spinner (this happened to me) shortening the life of the spinner.

Question for all spinner users, but particularly those who work at shops and go through a lot of spinners... Would it be true that a spinner is done for as soon as you can see any metal spots on it? -OR- Would it be true that if there is only a small metal spot (for the sake of argument let's say less than 10% of the circumference) that the rotating action of the spinner is enough such that you can still effectively use the spinner longer? Thanks for your expertise.

I just noticed that the price of the X-01 went up around $100 and I noticed that it now comes with the X-12. They show a picture of the X-12 with the little ball shaped handles. Mine didn't come with the handles and I always assumed that it was just a different picture (perhaps of the U-12) that they used because they didn't have a picture of the X-12. But now that they actually show it that way on the X-01 page, I was wondering if any of you actually got X-12's with the handles on it? (I don't know that I really care because I have never really missed them... I'm just curious) Thanks.

The following is JUST MY OPINION... I sharpen several 8-9 year old kids skates on my X-01, including my son's. I talked to someone at Blackstone (or maybe it was No-Icing Sports, I can't remember) around a year ago and they said that in their opinion any kid under around 100lbs ought to probably be in 100/75. Their reasoning was because of the weight factor and because in the long run they would be better off getting used to having more edge early on anyway. The did say however, that if the kid is one that just can't stand "bite" then they would drop them down if they didn't like it. About 70% of the 10 or 15, squirts that I do use 100/75, with the rest using 100/50. My 8 year old, 82lb son has used 90/75, 100/50 and 100/75. He has used 100/75 for most of the last year. As an experiment, I recently switched him to 100/50 for around a month and he asked to go back to 100/75. Ditto for one of his teammates. I have used 90/75 and 100/50 myself and I have settled on 100/50 (and I weigh WAY more than an 8 year old).

Do you mean for the moaning noise or the other noise? The other (sort of vibrating noise) is definately not the wheel because it happens when the wheel is off (I took it off to make sure). I'm not that worried about the moaning noise. I think it is just due to a difference in the composition of the ruby wheel. I do a pretty substantial dress when I put on a brand new wheel, marking with a marker around the entire wheel so that I can be sure I dressed it completely.

No "extra" chatter marks. I always end up with a little fish scale until I do my final passes. I hear a bit of "moaning" as I go through the middle section of the blade but that is unrelated to the sound I am talking about and I had never heard that until yesterday either. I associated that moaning with being related to the ruby wheel because I also heard it for the first time yesterday but I suppose that could have been there for a while and masked by the vacuum as well. Except for in the very begining, when I know I didn't have either noise, I always ran it with the vacuum and couldn't hear anything. The noise sounds like a little vibration. I think it is either 1) Something has loosened up and is vibrating, 2) A bearing is going, 3) some grit has worked its way into the motor.

I've always believed that the edge on my skates are not as sharp (and I mean cut your finger sharp, not depth of hollow sharp) on my X-01 as what they are able to do at the LHS. I just got my first "ruby" wheel and unless I am imagining it, that was the difference. It feels much more "cut your finger" sharp to me. I don't know if that is going to turn out to be a good thing or a bad thing though (I don't want to have to do the old rub the skates on the plastic at the bench door trick again). Now, what to do with my extra orange wheels? On another topic, I'm starting to hear a new noise out of my sharpener (sort of an extra vibration that comes and goes). I hope it isn't a bearing going. Anyone else have such a sound? Do any of you do any regular maintenance on your X-01 other than just wiping down and vacuuming off?

That's interesting... Thats what FBV moves us closer to... a flat blade with a little burr (sort of) on the edge. That makes sense though. They don't need edge control and therefore don't need any edge angle or V, because they don't have to hockey stop and do transitions. So they just need little runners like the old metal sleds. Seems to me blackstone could enter the speed skate sharpening market as well (not that there is much money in it) by making some special shaped spinners, like this [ , to do the job for them as well.

BTW... I never answered the specific question that you asked (I made a spread sheet where I can just enter the FBV values and it will output the INCREASE/DECREASE stuff to make it easy on myself... I can send it to you if you would like) Going from 90/50 to 80/75 Glide due to flat bottom width DECREASE Glide due to edge depth DECREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth INCREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle SAME Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth HARDER Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle SAME Going from 90/50 to 85/75 Glide due to flat bottom width DECREASE Glide due to edge depth DECREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth INCREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle INCREASE Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth HARDER Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle HARDER Going from 90/50 to 95/75 Glide due to flat bottom width INCREASE Glide due to edge depth DECREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth INCREASE Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle INCREASE Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth HARDER Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle HARDER Going from 90/75 to 80/75 Glide due to flat bottom width DECREASE Glide due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle DECREASE Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth SAME Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle EASIER Going from 90/75 to 85/75 Glide due to flat bottom width DECREASE Glide due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle DECREASE Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth SAME Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle EASIER Going from 90/75 to 95/75 Glide due to flat bottom width INCREASE Glide due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge depth SAME Pushing/Cornering ability due to edge angle INCREASE Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge depth SAME Transition to stop, mohawk, etc. due to edge angle HARDER

Yeah... I know what you mean. I inentionally chose speed though. I associate glide with the absence of drag. I was actually using "speed" to differentiate (at least in my own mind) from the absence of drag. If you can glide really well, but can't get anything out of your stride, you would not be fast. A cross ground skate would have GREAT glide, but I doubt the player would be very fast. As I said in my last post, I am pretty certain that some of the factors are much less significant, but I wouldn't want to speculate on which ones without any data to back it up. I'm hoping blackstone will enlighten us with the university data. If Blackstone is really going to have that many FBV's, I was thinking... I could envision a computer program (I'm a software person) that Blackstone could make available to LHS's and us home sharpeners that would allow input of height, weight, position, age, some skating style aspects, skate model, desired attribute's, etc and the software would poop out a suggested FBV. That would be a VERY complicated physics model to pull off though. Incidentally, does anyone know how a speed skate works? I've always been told they were flat. How can they skate so fast if that is true?

The following IS NOT based on any first hand knowledge of those FBVs but rather just what changes are being made to the shape. Well lets see (and forgive me if I make a mistake, it's a lot to keep straight)... If you were at 90/75 you could move to one of four (assuming you had all of the choices in the chart and you were only going to move one position at a time). NOTE: For each item listed I don't mean one of them will happen, I mean ALL of them will happen If you went to 85/75 -You would increase drag due to the smaller flat bottom width -You would maintain the same drag due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would maintain the same pushing ability due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would decrease pushing ability due to the less sharp edge angle -You would maintain cornering ability due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would decrease cornering ability due to the less sharp edge angle -You would increase your ability to easily scrape ice (stop, mowhawks, etc.) due to less sharp edge angle. -You would maintain your ability to easily scrape ice (stop, mowhawks, etc.) due to less edge depth in the ice. If you went to 90/50 -You would maintain the same drag due to the same flat bottom width -You would decrease drag due to less edge depth in the ice -You would decrease pushing ability due to less edge in the ice -You would decrease pushing ability due to a less sharp edge angle -You would decrease your cornering ability due to less edge depth in the ice -You would decrease your cornering ability due to a less sharp edge angle -You would increase your ability to easily scrape ice (stops, mohawks, etc.) due to less sharp edge angle -You would increase your ability to easily scrape ice (stop, mowhawks, etc.) due to less edge depth in the ice. If you went to 95/75 -You would decrease drag due to a bigger flat bottom width -You would maintain the same drag due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would maintain the same pushing ability due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would increase pushing ability due to a sharper edge angle -You would maintain your cornering ability due to the same edge depth in the ice -You would increase your cornering ability due to a sharper edge angle -You would decrease your ability to easily scrape ice (stops, mohawks, etc.) due to sharper edge angle -You would maintain your ability to easily scrape ice (stop, mowhawks, etc.) due to the same edge depth in the ice. If you went to 90/100 -You would maintain the same drag due to the same flat bottom width -You would increase drag due to more edge depth in the ice -You would increase pushing ability due to more edge depth in the ice -You would increase pushing ability due to a sharper edge angle -You would increase your cornering ability due to more edge depth in the ice -You would increase your cornering ability due to a sharper edge angle -You would decrease your ability to easily scrape ice (stops, mohawks, etc.) due to sharper edge angle -You would decrease your ability to easily scrape ice (stop, mowhawks, etc.) due to more edge depth in the ice. So like I said before it's not that simple. I would think you definately wouldn't want to bother with 85/75 because it doesn't have any speed increasing attributes. As for the other three, unless one of them jumps out at you as "yeah that sounds like what I need" then I think it is going to be a trial and error proposition. Now some of those attributes are probably much less significant when compared to the others which would mean that you could ignore them. I don't have a clue which ones would fall into that category. I'm sure that is some of the things they are looking at in Blackstone's university study. Now when someone someday figures out how to dynamically vary blade width... that will be very sweet... think perfectly, individually optimized hollows...

This is the chart I'm putting on the wall by my sharpener...

In my opinion what most people would call bite comes predominantly from two things in FBV. 1) Edge angle and 2)Edge depth. How deep the blade is in the ice relates mostly to how well you can push. The edge angle relates greatly to how hard you can turn and how hard it is to go from pushing to scraping ice (hockey stopping, doing mohawk transitions, etc). You went from a depth of 0.75 to 0.50 and an edge angle of 85.7 to 87.1 (the way that blackstone is calculating edge angles in the "technical specs" doc means that bigger edge angle numbers are actually less bite, with 90 degrees being "no bite at all". So you decreased your "bite" in both of the changes you made, which is what you were trying to do (if you were trying to go faster). FBV doesn't eliminate the reality of the tradeoff between bite and glide. They just lessoned how much of one you have to give up to get more of the other. But that was one of the correct two to try if you were tryig to go faster while minimizing the change to bite. Speed is determined by Flat bottom width and Edge Depth "Grip" is determined by Edge Angle and Edge Depth. The interdependency comes from the fact that blade width is fixed and that you therefore can not change any single one of those (edge depth, edge angle, or flat bottom width) without changing one of the other two.

No I was referring to me and my tendency to get long winded. Going through life as an engineer is a curse brother... you have to analyze EVERYTHING!

OK... and now for an apology from me... I just realized that I ERRONEOUSLY thought that the chart was a product of the university study and came from empirically asking a group of skaters what ROH a particular FBV felt like. I now realize that the ROH values on the chart come simply from the trigonometric edge angle calculation in the "Technical Specs" document. So after this realization, I agree wholeheartedly that the ROH's in that chart relate in a large and meaningful way to "bite only" and that therefore the chart is a VERY useful tool to help pick which FBV to use. I have always believed that the edge angle is a major contributor (probably the largest contributor) to bite. I think the rest of my ramblings were valid though. Steve, JR and Jimmy, I'm on the same page now and I apologize.

Now if that is what the ROH comparison implies (i.e. BITE ONLY of 1/2 and NOT glide of 1/2) then that is a different thing entirely than I had thought the chart was trying to imply. That becomes a very useful piece of information and would make the selection process VERY easy for me. I would pick the FBV with the MOST glide and least (shallowest edge) that claims to compare to 1/2 inch (this would be 90/1.00 from the chart). I would be able to pick this because I have a sharpener and can sharpen whenever I need to AND will give the utmost care to edge eveness, etc. If it turns out that I can't even get through a single skate without catastrophically damaging that edge, then I would increase it to the next "more edge" that has the most glide and correlates to 1/2 inch (90/0.75). What I don't understand though is that after a lifetime of playing hockey, I did in fact settle on a 1/2 inch. So 90/0.75 should be the optimum for me (of the original four that were offered). This is not the case though. I have used 90/0.75 and 100/0.50 extensively and I like 100/0.50 better (because 90/0.75 does't feel like it has enough bite for me and 100/0.50 does, and if the ROH comparison IS truly a "bite only" comparison, the chart says they should feel like they have the same bite). As I stated before though, I don't think it is that simple. When empirically taking the statistics, if you ask skaters in a large randomized double blind study to try an FBV and "tell me which ROH BITE this FEELS like", I would contend you can't actually get a meaningful answer to that question. I don't think they would be able to separate the two interlated ROH components of bite vs glide. None of this really matters to me because as I said I have found a great FBV for me and I won't be buying different spinners at $65/per simply for purpose of trial and error to see if I can "squeeze a little more speed" out of it. It would be easier and cheaper to eat a few less donuts. I'm not knocking anyone or anything. I love FBV. After trying it first at the LHS I voted with my wallet and bought the sharpener, 10+ wheels and 9 mini-spinners (I've only used one spinner up... I do lots of friends skates and whenever I order something from Blackstone I want the free shipping so I order extras and I want to have them on hand right away when I do use them up.) I feel like I might be upsetting some people and confusing rather than enlightening, so I'll shut up now.

Don't get me wrong. I think the chart with the FBVs on it and the axes labeled on it is great. I just don't think I could ever get much out of the ROHs on the chart, except for perhaps where to start on the chart. However, I contend that if that chart is correct in it's ROH comparisons (and I most definately believe that Blackstone and the university did their due diligence and it is) that someone could go to the chart, pick an FBV that matches their current ROH, say 1/2 inch, try it and say, yep this feels like 1/2", why would I want to pay $4 more for something that feels the same. I agree about edge strengh and wearability are largely irrelavent to those of use that have sharpeners (as long as they aren't so weak as to catastropically fail in a single skate). I sharpen every 2 or 3 times (I wouldn't if I was taking to a store). If Blackstone ever makes that whole chart available at LHS, that is when you will start seeing players (and employees) heads explode. I hope they don't do that (and I don't think they will). I'm very happy with what I have right now. Sorry for rambling about this so much. I am on a buisness trip and have time in the hotel room to kill :)

After thinking about it some more (and you guys are gonna kill me for this one)... I think each FBV may actually sit some place in something GREATER THAN five dimensional space! 1) Pushing Ability 3) Angled Skate Grip 4) Edge Strength 5) Edge Wearability 6) Glide I would suspect (although I'm not sure) that the one having the least consequence is "Glide". What I mean is that by simply SWITCHING to FBV you jump way far out on the glide axis relative to ROH and that the changes in glide after making that jump are minor and somewhat inconsequential. I would think that "Pushing Ability" is most affected by the depth of the edge. This axis would mostly be about how hard you can push. I think "Angled Skate Grip" would be most affected by the edge angle. This would be mostly about how much do you have to lean a skate before it starts to slip under a given amount of lateral force. Edge Strength would be about how easy it is to roll and edge or nick an edge. This would probably be most related to the edge depth and the edge width. Edge wearability would be about how long you need to go between sharpens (assuming no damage has occured to edge). In other words how long before the edge gets rounded off. I suspect this would be mostly related to the edge height and edge angle. Glide is probably most affected by flat bottom width and edge depth, but as I said earlier, I suspect this is the "factor" that you have the least control over and that at any of the FBVs you have already increased the glide immensely over ROH. (and I think it actually gets more complicated than above because I think there are actually other variables that would take into account player weight, strength, ankle pronation/supination and ice conditions, etc., and I am DEFINATELY NOT suggesting the someone try to make a visualization of such a complicated multidimensional system) Now the problem as I see it is, the variables that I have identified are not purely independent variables. There is some interplay between them (at least in terms of the things the we are used to talking about with ROH, namely speed and grip). To bottom line it, I think that there are too many variables and too much interplay to ever make any easy visualation about "what it all means". The bad news of my message is that I'm pretty sure it is going to always be a trial and error propisition. The good news is that there definately should be a combination that will improve your skating (over ROH). For those of you who have spent time playing with race (car) simulators (like Gran Tourismo), I would liken it to that. There is no scale anywere that says Less Winning Car <-----------> More Winning Car There are just many, many car setup parameters and you need to focus on one and then tweak, observe, tweak. And once you get the best performance out of that one parameter for a given conditions, you move to the next and tweak, observe, tweak (keeping in mind that when you are done tweaking this one you may have to go back and repeat the process on ones that you already did). Another analogy would be if you could only play golf with one club, deciding which one you would use. Out of the four clubs that I currently have, I'm sticking with 100/50. My 8 year old son chooses 100/75. But that's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Paradigm shifts aside, here is that chart sorted by the ROH value that was provided (assuming that my premise on 0.05 vs 0.50 is correct) 105/1.0 ....... 0.13 ... 1/8 107/0.75 ...... 0.13 ... 1/8 105/0.75 ...... 0.19 ... 3/16 100/1.0 ....... 0.25 ... 1/4 105/0.50 ...... 0.25 ... 1/4 100/0.75 ...... 0.38 ... 3/8 95/1.0 ........ 0.44 ... 7/16 90/1.0 ........ 0.53 ... 1/2 95/0.75 ....... 0.53 ... 1/2 100/0.50 ...... 0.53 ... 1/2 85/1.0 ........ 0.69 ... 11/16 90/0.75 ....... 0.75 ... 3/4 80/1.0 ........ 0.81 ... 13/16 95/0.50 ....... 0.88 ... 7/8 75/1.0 ........ 0.94 ... 15/16 85/0.75 ....... 0.94 ... 15/16 80/0.75 ....... 1.13 ... 1 1/8 90/0.50 ....... 1.13 ... 1 1/8 85/0.50 ....... 1.38 ... 1 3/8 80/0.50 ....... 1.63 ... 1 5/8 And a plot of the chart is here... I'm not saying there is anything revealing here, I just thought some of you might glean something from it.

I think (AND THIS IS ALL PURE SPECULATION ON MY PART AT THIS POINT!!!!)... 1) I think there is a typo and there is a decimal point shift and 0.05 ought to be 0.5. The reason I say this is assuming that 0.75 is the /75 from before .05 would be 15 times less edge depth than 0.75. This would be an EXTREMELY shallow edge (and I suspect that would be an edge depth below the resolution of the holder's knobs to be able control). Furthermore, if you look at the four page technical (original) pdf document, it has the same notation (0.75 vs 0.050) but if you do the math to correlate to the edge angles in the second table on the last page you need to use 0.5 instead of the notated 0.05 In other words for 100/75 Theta = atan[(0.110-0.100) / (2 * 0.00075)] = 81 deg (This would represents 100-0.75 and correlates to the edge angle in the 2nd table) Theta = atan[(0.110-0.100) / (2 * 0.00050)] = 84 deg (This would represent 100-0.50 and correlates to the edge angle in the 2nd table) Theta = atan[(0.110-0.100) / (2 * 0.00005)] = 89 deg (This represents 100-0.05 and DOES NOT correlate to the edge angle in the 2nd table) So for whatever reason it appears to me (JUST SPECULATION) that there was a typo in that doc that was somehow carried over to the new chart) 2) I think the chart actually represents a 3 dimensional space and that you can't really interpret the newly provided chart as a two dimensional thing. I don't think 100-0.5 would represent the absolute perfect solution for EVERYONE as you suggest. The reason for this is because of that third axis in three dimensional space. Some people might put a higher premium on grip than speed. Some people might put a higher premium on longer lasting edges. The way I interpret the chart you could get more grip from 105-1 than 105-0.5 (but perhaps less fine edge control). On the other hand I think 80-0.5 would have "more glide" than 105-0.5. There are probably other things that muddy the water as well. As you attempt to go further out on the "Faster" axis, the edge gets shallower. That probably means that you'll have to resharpen more frequently. When you try to go out further on the "More Grip" axis you make the "fangs" more narrow which probably makes them more susceptable to rolling the edges and damage and more susceptable to bent blades and careless sharpeners screwing you up. If you go further out on the less edge axis you probably start getting pushed around in the crease more. In engineering when you get too many variables to understand adequately you often hold all variables but one constant while varying only one. If there are ever that many FBVs offered and I ever felt it necessaray to get the ABSOLUTE BEST POSSIBLE FBV for me (which god help me, I hope I never do), I would start smack dab in the middle that chart. If there was anything that wasn't satisfactory I would tweak that axis alone until that aspect became satisfactory. Then I would move on to the next axis. It will be however, an interative process. It is like pulling on something that is attached to three different points with rubber bands... You can't pull in any direction without changing the tension on all three axes. As much as people ask for it though, I don't really think that a chart comparing FBV to ROH is that useful. The reason people ask for that is because they are used to ROH and want to have an FBV that is comparable to what their current ROH feels like. There needs to be a paradigm shift. Isn't the whole point of this that IT IS SUPPOSED TO FEEL DIFFERENT THAN ROH!!! It should feel like you are faster AND have more control. If I wanted it to feel like a 1/2 inch I would have asked for a 1/2 inch! Sorry for the long post.

Thanks!

Has anyone done the math on how many clicks it takes on the X-12 (upgraded) holder to adjust for the different width of a CCM Rocket Runner? If not, does anyone know the delta per click on the knobs and how wide the plastic part of a Rocket Runnter is so that I can do the math? Thanks.