AfftonDad

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.

Also the darn little lace lock thing on Reeboks/CCMs can get you sometimes too.

Sorry, I was at a tournament that my son was in in Chicago this weekend so I didn't see this until now... If the surface where the grinding wheel and the arbor (the thing the wheel sits on) meet is not perfectly flat and aligned (due to machining and/or assembly error) then the wheel will move up and down slightly and because it is canted a litle bit it will also cause the wheel to act as though it is not perfectly round. If you could slow it down and look down at the wheel it would appear to wobble slightly (I suppose a wobble could also result due to the hole in the grinding wheel not being perfectly centered). At any rate, the spinner will "take out" these imperfections in the setup in both the up and down aspect (assuming things aren't REALLY out of wack) and the "out of round" aspect. However, the correction that has been made is dependent on the wheel remaining in the exact position in relation to the arbor that it was when the dressing was performed. If you have this situation on your sharpener and you simply loosen and rotate your already dressed grinding wheel on the arbor, the next time you go to sharpen a pair of skates it is likely it will feel like the skate is hopping as you make passes. This is because the wheel is no longer perfectly round relative to it's new orientation and the dressing is moving up and down relative to it's new position. You will see a lot of "fish scale" on the blade and I would imagine this would mess up the edges quite a bit as well because dressing on the wheel would be effectively moving up and down during the passes. It sounds like Chiefs17's was probably worse than mine because he reported excessive vibration in the sharpener that I fortunately haven't experienced. Simply not moving my grinding wheel between dresses has been enough of a solution in my case.

I have drawn representations of the FBVs and ROH hollows to scale for a 0.110 inch blade. You can see the doc here: http://docs.google.com/uc?export=download&...2Y2ZTc1NjFmYTY2 I have tried the straight edge and can't see much gap. I tried using different wheels for different spinners at first, but then I realized that when a wheel goes onto the arbor in a different orientation than it did last time, you get the wheel hop situation again and have to do a pretty substantial redress to get the hopping to stop. So I decided (along with advice from some of the people on this board) that it wasn't worth it to have different wheels for different spinners. I considered making a mark on the arbor and a mark on each wheel so that I could get the wheel on the arbor in the same orientation each time, however I haven't tried this yet to see if I can get it back on repeatably enough to eliminate the hop. FYI... the sparks I was refering to that you can see as you are "knocking down" the edge are actually in the area of the wheel surface, not the plume of sparks to the left.

NuggyBuggy: A few things I have noticed and/or learned since getting my X-01 and learning how to sharpen. 1. You can't see much hollow on an FBV sharpening. It looks mostly flat. The fangs are MUCH MUCH smaller than in the Blackstone pictures, which are drawn in a greatly exaggerated manner for emphasis. The "edges" area on the spinner and the wheel for that matter, is a much larger area than on the blade so you are going to see the shape much easier on the spinner and the wheel than you are going to on the blade. Try using the 1/2" spinner that came with the sharpener just to convince yourself. You'll see the hollow then. 2. You need to dress a little more when changing from one spinner to another (especially from ROH to FBV and vice versa) than you do if you are sticking with the same spinner. This is because you are basically just "touching it up" when you are dressing with the same spinner whereas you are changing the shape of the dress when you are changing spinners. 3. For whatever reason, at least with the mini FBV spinners that I have had so far, I don't get as much bite as the same setting "commercial" spinner at the LHS. I suspect that it is differences in the tolerances that the mini-spinners are made at compared to the regular spinners. I have simply stepped up to a spinner with more bite to compensate for this. 4. You can't (at least I wouldn't want to) sharpen skates without a magnetic square. I am very picky about getting my edges perfectly even. And I have learned that while you might be able to get away with not making adjustments when doing the same skate or similar weight skates over and over (with the upgraded holder that is... all bets are off with the standard holder), when you switch from child skates to adult skates or vice versa the difference in weight is going to slightly change the angle at which the skate touches the wheel and affect the eveness of your edges, causing you to have to make adjustments. I went my whole life without knowing about "even edges" and never knew that they were not necessarily getting them even at the shop. More often than not, when I get the opportunity to check the edge eveness on a freshly sharpened pair of skates from the two local shops that I used to use all the time, I find that the edges are pretty dramatically uneven. And more often than not, the people at the shops do not check the edges. I'm sure that there are shops that check evey time, but the two that most people that live near me go to unfortunately do not. 5. One sign that your wheel definately isn't dressed properly is if the skate "hops" as you try to sharpen it (the passes should feel smooth, not jumpy). This is due to the wheel and arbor combination being "out of round" and generally only happens when you change a wheel. The converse is not necessarily true however (not hopping does not guarentee that your wheel is properly dressed). One way to MAKE SURE that your wheel is fully dressed is to make a black line covering the edge of the wheel with a marker and then dress until the line is completely gone. HOWEVER, I DON"T RECOMMEND DOING THIS FREQUENTLY because it is overkill and will use up both your wheel and your spinner much more quickly. However, it was helpful to me in the begining to be able remove that variable of "is the wheel fully dressed" (I really burnt through my first couple wheels though!) 6. As you sharpen, you can get a clue as to what is going on with the edges. For example, If you use your edge checker and determine that the top edge at the heel is too high and the bottem edge at the toe is too high and you make adjustments to the front pitch wheels to lower the heel a little and raise the toe a little, as you make your pass you will see a brighter line of sparks on the top edge of the wheel as you go through the heel which will transition to a brighter line of sparks on the bottom edge of the wheel as you pass through the toe. This is the wheel "knocking down" the edges as it sharpens. On an already "sharpened" pair of skates that I am just trying to even up the edges on, it usually takes me around three passes to make that bright line "go away" indicating that the edge has been modified as desired. Hope I said something that you can use.

I have sharpened youth 11.5's on the upgraded holder and X-01 but I need to use a relatively new wheel because of the heel/toe clearance. I cut off the front corners of the holder baseplate to improve the heel/toe clearance situation. I do Jr. 2,3,4's all the time. Just out of curiosity, does anyone know what the height setting for the UPGRADED holder's pitch wheel should be (I haven't moved my pitch wheel but I'd like to check it)?

For those X-01 owners out there (and possibly X-02?) that sharpen small childrens skates and want to squeeze a little more life out of your grinding wheels (you'll need to have the juevos to take a saw to your holder though)... cut off the front corners of the holder. This allows there to be less interference when going around the heel and toe of small skates. I did this with my upgraded X-01 holder but I suppose it would be applicable to the standard one as well. The tip came to me from someone else but I don't remember who so I can't credit them here. The front corners of the base plate that is.

Anyone have any reports or experience with someone saying that 100/50 (or whatever) feels different on an X-01 than on the high end blackstone sharpeners? If so, any explanations (besides one person is doing it right and the other isn't) of why this might be the case? Incidentally, I can't feel any difference between my X-01 and the shop, but this really picky guy swears my X-01 has less bite than the LHS.

I have used the standard X-01 holder and I now have the upgraded holder. Big difference in my opionion. I only need to make minor adjustments (if any) between different skates. This wasn't the case (at least for me) with the original holder. Incidentally, I had to pay $125 (not $100) for the upgraded holder and I still think it was worth it. I tried to get them to substitute the FBV spinner (plus the extra $$$) with no luck when I ordered mine, so consider yourself lucky if they are going to do that for you.

Question for people with X-01/02s out there... It has been said in this forum that having a different wheel for each spinner will help save life of wheels/spinners by not requiring redressing so frequently because the correct shape is already on the wheel and you therefore don't have to remove as much material. I have been doing this however, I notice that more often that not when I switch the wheels and begin sharpening the shaprening is very rough and causes the blade to "bounce" a lot as I do passes. This continues until I do pretty much a full re-dress of the wheel. I suspect that what is happening is that there is a slight pitch to the wheel or perhaps the wheel is pushed to a different side of the hole that fits around the center bolt causing a slight out of round condition that must be removed before getting smooth passes. I was wondering if anyone else experiences this? Do you think that in light of this it would be better to just leave the same wheel on and re-dress so that you don't have the issues with slight variations in wheel position?

I have used the "Edge-Pro" one. Works great. Way easier than the BatGage (anyone want to buy a slightly used BatGage?) I also made my own using some pieces of right angle aluminum extrusion and magnets from Home Depot for a few bucks. It works fine also. Make sure to use JR's tip given in this forum of putting electrical tape on it to eliminate the scoring from the skate blade edges.

I just noticed that the small X-series "orange crush" wheel is more expensive than the full size "orange crush" wheel. Has anyone found a lower cost replacement grinding wheel for the Blackstone portables?

I have a (mini)spinner question... I just dressed my wheel for the first time with the cover off. I noticed that the spinner doesn't SPIN very much. Each slight bump that I do turns the spinner maybe an eighth of a revolution. I was expecting to see that thing flying around as it touches the wheel. Is this the correct behavior? I don't have it screwed down super tight but I don't want to loosen it more than it is for fear of variability of the spinner height as it moves up or down. I realize that there needs to be some resistance in the spinner for it to properly dress the wheel, but I don't want to end up with "flat spots" on my spinner making it junk prematurely. As for the shop vac hose thing... I don't know if it would work for you but I have a "Rigid" brand shop vac and I had previously purchased the "Rigid" Auto Detailing Kit from Home Depot. The kit included a more flexible smaller diameter hose which fits onto the larger hose of my shop vac. The small diameter hose has a plastic fitting on the end of it that you can push into the port of the X-01. The resulting friction fit isn't super tight but it is nothing that a little tape wrapped around it wouldn't fix. The kit wasn't cheap (around $30, I think) but it comes with some attachments that I use on my car anyway.

And those damn triangle shaped pyramids don't stand up for s***! I thought the triangle was the strongest geometric shape. That's why roof trusses (and just about everything else needing strength) is constructed from triangles.

For those of you that didn't use JR's tip of putting a piece of tape on the bottom of your magnetic edge checker... I made a replacement from some aluminum right angle extrusion and magnets from Home Depot. Just cut the extrusion to length and super glue a magnet on to it in the middle. I used two on top of each other for stronger magnetic pull. Enough magnets and extrusion to make several of them cost less than $8. I also tried to make the other piece (the one that sits on the side of the blade by cutting of a short piece of the extrusion and attaching it to the bottom of another length of the right angle extrusion. I attached a magnet to the side and I thought I was in business. Unfortunately this didn't produce a "true enough" right angle. I guess thats ok though since the only piece that I'll be wearing out is the one that sits on the edges of the skate blade and that piece works fine. If anyone can come up with a way to make the piece that sticks to the side of the blade with a true right angle using only ordinary home power tools, let us know.

I usually don't do witness marks (i.e. small little touches of the blade on the gridner). After I make the black line on the skate. I do a light full pass. I haven't re-dressed the wheel yet because I am just trying to coarsly find the middle and I feel the shape on the wheel from the last time is already good enough for doing that. After that first pass you can usually clearly see the situation that you have going on. If both the toe and the heel are high or low you will see that one side gets taken off and the other doesn't. If the toe and heel are opposite each other you can will clearly see the line transition from one side to the other down the length of the blade. So then I make adjustments and repeat the process. After I feel that I am doing a pretty good job of being coarsely "down the middle" I lightly bump the wheel with the spinner to get a 'good" dress on the stone. If by your statement "the mark is right down the middle" you mean you can see "silver" down the middle of the blade and black down the edges, then you aren't done yet, because you still haven't ground the edges on both sides. If all of the black is gone, then I would definately use the BatGage from there. The problem is that in my opinion the BatGage is a little difficult to get consistent results with until you are used to it. It is more susceptible to gravity and "catching" on things than the magnet based tools. Plus on my sons small skate it is difficult to get a good reading in the area that is clamped by the holder (most of the blade in his small skate case). The magnet based ones you can use in the holder area as well as the heel and toe. I got a relatively cheap one (it could stand to be a little heaver) called Edge-Pro for $39.99US at edgeprohockey.com. That's just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Kevin, I don't know if its a valid procedure or not but when I did my brand new wheels I took a flat wide felt tip pin and marked up the edge of my wheel. You don't need to go around the whole wheel because when it's spinning you can see it anyway. I dressed until the black line was gone. Per Chiefs17's earlier post about the black line from the fine shine, this might be too much, but I think it is a different situation because the wheel doesn't already have the basic shape on it. For subsequent dresses, I have a different wheel for each spinner that I have so that I don't need to dress it so much in order to conserve the wheel/spinner. And on the topic of felt tip pens, I also make a black line all the way down the skate blade each time so I can very easilly see if and how much high or low I am. Once I get it coarsly right with the marker line (line gone on both edges), I switch to using an edge checker. I might eventually get tuned in to it enough that I don't need to mark the blade anymore. I'm a newbie at this though, so take anything I say with a grain of salt.

Does anyone else besides me think that an unofficial X-01 FAQ that compiles all the tips and techniques that we can cull from this group relating to the X-01 (and perhaps X-02) would be worthwhile? Or perhaps just an unofficial FBV FAQ with an X-01 subsection?

True. My understanding in the difference between a convection oven and a standard oven is simply that the air is circulated in a convection oven reducing or "evening out" the thermal gradients (of particular consequence are the gradients near the item being cooked), causing it to be cooked more quickly and more evenly. However, the procedure (found below) has you set the oven to the relatively low heat of 180°F and TURN IT OFF before you put the skates in. So how the oven got to 180°F doesn't really matter at that point And it will begin to drop in temperature as soon as you turn it off. http://www.hockeyx.com/hockey/dept.asp?dept_id=118& Incidentally, a car interior can reach 180°F. My skates frequently get left in my car. http://www.shell.us/home/content/usa/about...n_01042005.html The shop oven may be a convection oven, I don't know, which would perhaps heat the skate more quickly and more evenly. If I had both ovens I would definately use the one made for skates. But if it is going to cost me $50 I'll stick with the regular oven. I had a professional at a hockey shop pop one of my eyelets out of a pair of skates once. I have yet to do that at home. That of course has nothing to do with the oven. Of course, thats just my opinion. I could be wrong.

Don't take his response in a bad way. It sounds like he's been burnt before, e.g. answering peoples questions, they they screw him by opening their little under the table side business, often at prices lower than his, and then taking many of his customers with them. So I can see why he's gun-shy of helping you. Nothing wrong with being a home sharpener but don't expect your local guy to help you get your mini-business going. I'm not saying at all that's what you are doing, but as I said, he's prob been burnt a few times. It used to drive me nuts when people would come in and tell me that they were buying a sharpener so they could save money on sharpenings and make a couple bucks on the side, then ask me for tips. Of course, the same guys would also order tape by the case online and sell it for slightly less than our price. Then they wondered why we wouldn't give them a discount in the shop. I don't have any plans to start my own business. I have a 7 year old son. If I figure 1 time a month at $8 a pop for the next 11 years, it pays for itself. It's simple math. And that doesn't consider sharpening price increases, sharpening mine or the fact that with a sharperner I'll probably do his at least once a week (he skates 3-5 times a week all year round). And by the time he's ready to leave home I won't have much use for it any more so I can give it to him if it still works. Now I already have had a couple of friends ask me to do theirs and I have, but I do them for free. I'm 43 years old now and being able to sharpen my skates at home is something I've dreamed about since I was a kid. I don't mind that the guy wouldn't tell me. A few weeks ago at another (hockey only) shop in town, when I mentioned I had an X-01 on order the guy there took me back and spent 20 minutes teaching me how to sharpen. I was amazed that he would do that. I don't have a problem that the other guy wouldn't tell me. I understand that. It was just this particular kid's snarky attitude. He also proceded to inform a mom from MY team who I happened to be talking to in the store (the same store that I was at to hand over $150 for my kids travel jerseys) that what I had just told her about being able to bake the skates that she had just gotten for her son over the internet in an oven (there are instructions on the internet and yes I have done it before on my $400+ Vector 10's with no problem) is going to ruin his skates and that she should pay him $50 to do it (He claimed it was a different kind of heat... I'm going to have to go back and check my thermodynamics textbooks and find out about that different kind of heat that he's talking about). I spend probably $3000 per year on my kid's hockey. I'm going to look for anyway to save money that I can (and so will the rest of the parents). What that kid didn't realize (or probably more likely doesn't care about) is that I still spend A LOT of money in local hockey shops. Heck, every time a kid on my team has a birthday he gets a giftcard to the hockey shop. There are plenty of OTHER hockey shops in St. Louis, including the one where the guy taught me. Guess where I'm more likely to go next time. I work in the software industry. I can't begin to tell you how many free computer "tips" (and outright work) I do for free each year. That happens to be what I do for a living too. People asking for free advice pretty much happens in everyones line of work. Just ask a doctor, lawyer, or mechanic.