AfftonDad

This has always been a source of confusion with Flat Bottom V. There are 3 things that are all intertwined. Flat Bottom Width, Edge Depth and Edge Angle. Edge Angle is determined by Flat Bottom Width and Edge Depth. Edge Depth is determined by Flat Bottom Width and Edge Angle. Edge Angle is determined by Flat Bottom Width and Edge Depth. Each one of those three things therefore has a "glide factor" and a "bite factor". For example as you make the flat bottom bigger (for the sake of this discussion, while keeping edge depth constant), you would get better glide due to the fact that there is a bigger flat (more surface area) for you to glide on. However, the increase in width also causes the edge angle to become more steep (sharper) which causes it to more easily cut into the ice. This decreases the glide factor and increase the bite factor. Because of the intertwining of the components, it is difficult to make "generalized" statements about which FBV has more glide than another. You should do yourself a favor and hold one of the things constant (I generally hold my edge depth constant at 75) and then tweak the other number until you find one you like. If you can't find one you like at that edge depth then try holding constant at one of the other edge depths and start tweaking. Because of this interdepdence, there is overlap in the FBV settings and you can get somewhat similar results in different FBV settings. For people who are familiar with bicycle gearing, it is analogous to how there is overlap in the gears and you can get very similar gear-inches in several different combinations of front and rear derailleur positions.

Can someone explain to me how they (VH) pulls off the integrated shot blockers? Wouldn't it ruin the moldability to wedge something hard in between layers of carbon fiber (or is it just MORE of the same material and therefore still moldable)?

Verbero's skates are coming out Aug 26th. Looks like they are similar to VH. Someone needs to get a pair of those and tell us how they compare to VH.

It's a common problem with the Mako's. Read back through the many pages of this thread and you'll see many people who have had it and how they dealt with it. In my opinion it's because of the increased range of fore and aft motion that you get with the Makos (A similar thing happened for my son when we tried 55 flex on other skates which also increases the motion but additionally also creates a bump inside the skates near the eyelets). The only real option for me was to wear moleskin when I got the blister, let it heal, let it happen again, then repeat... Eventually I built up a callous at those spots and quit getting them. I'm lazy enough that if I had to put on a sleeve every time I wore them that would have ended it for me. I've since moved to VHs, but I would go back to Makos (with skate fenders) if VHs weren't available. My kid has M8s and he has the blisters in those spots right now. He'll be playing with moleskin on tonight (as he has for the past two weeks). He'll eventually build up a callous too. I'm more worried about the first time he takes a clapper to them that hurts bad enough to make him not like them anymore (he's only 13 so the number of people that can shoot that hard is still low, but they are definitely starting to get up there).

Update: I just replace my X-01 motor. Wasn't bad at all. Hardest part was getting the hex head screws broken free.

I think that it's not just the pressure that causes it. I think it's also due to the fact that you are accelerating and decelerating at the heel and the toe. That makes the time that it spends at the heel and toe longer than the middle which of course gives it more time to grind away. I'm not sure but I would think an automatic sharpener would have the same issue (unless it accelerates/decelerates before/after it is touching the blade). I don't know if it is "correct" or not, but I minimize the "banana" effect by doing fewer passes at the heel/toe than in the "working" section of the blade.

Anyone have any experience replacing the motor on an X-01 and can comment on how hard it is? After 5 or 6 years of much harder use than it was spec'd at, my X-01 motor is finally giving up the ghost.

As can be seen in the picture, my VH's are slightly heavier than my Mako 1s. And my VHs are 10s whereas my Makos are 10.5s (btw... they both have CXN holders, although the CXN holders on the VHs are one size smaller. http://modsquadhockey.com/forums/index.php/topic/63437-vh-footwear/?p=1008810

Right. It was paypal that did the conversion. The point is that the price was quoted in CAD ($800 CAD for boots + $110 CAD for holders + $35 CAD for shipping = $945 CAD), but I paid the converted equivalent in USD ($892.49 USD on that day). Today, $945 CAD would be $751.77 USD. They could have made it $945 USD (then OR now) and I still would have paid it. I just think that the only difference in price (CURRENTLY... since they don't have separate US sales/marketing channels, EU sales/marketing channels, Russian sales/marketing channels, etc), should be the difference in shipping, taxes, tariffs, etc. Ok... so they used to be pegged to CAD and now they are pegged to USD. That just increased the cost to US (and international customers) but that's OK, prices go up. Furthermore, it sounds like they NOW have a US/International price of $900 USD and a Canadian price of $900 CAD. I'm even OK with that. It's just the price shouldn't move back and forth between currencies depending upon the exchange rate that week. I suspect this was a one time shift in their business practices and won't happen again. I'll probably buy another pair when mine are done (I may try to get a friend in Canada to buy them for me though!). However, if it does happen again it will probably make me think twice about buying them again.

I am but a simple caveman, unfamiliar with your words of currency hedging. But when I ordered mine I'm pretty sure they were listed in CAD and when I was charged it was converted to the equivalent in US dollars. I distinctly remember using google's currency conversion to figure out what I would be paying. I didn't have any problem doing that. I think they should stick with a single country's currency until they get big enough to have big enough margins to ride out the currency fluctuations. I have always planned on buying another pair when mine are used up, but I won't be if they are charging me $150 (in US dollars) more than they are charging someone else. It's not that I wouldn't pay $150 more for them. I probably would if everyone was, I just wouldn't want to feel like I was being cheated for being a member of a "class" that was singled out to pay $150 more than some other "class."

If you are only charging to defray costs of equipment/supplies (i.e. not turning a profit), the IRS most likely considers it a hobby... http://www.irs.gov/uac/Is-Your-Hobby-a-For-Profit-Endeavor%3F

I tried on two different pairs in the SAME size of Mako 2 and one pair felt bigger than the other. I suspect that one of them had already been baked and the other hadn't.

A reason they might not be (and perhaps what smcgreg is refering to) is because composite materials are known (and engineered) to have extremely high tensile strength. What that means in every day terms is that composites are very resistant to breaking (or stretching) in the direction of the fibers.

If you liked the Mako pitch you should have had CXNs put on. That's what I did.

My kid still got them with the M8s (Mako II design). Rolled it out though and I guess he built up callouses because it went away.

If your question was for me... I've never had LS2. I had U+CLs before my Makos. When I went from CLs to Makos I found I needed to swtich from 95-75 to 90-75. When I went from Makos to VHs (with CXN holders) it was WAY too sharp. I had to switch to 85-75. Scott Van Horne said that was typical of his experience with the Winnipeg Jets players on VHs. They found that the VHs felt sharper and they either dropped to shallower hollows or went to a longer profile to compensate.

Yes 0 is definitely a thing. I tried it and felt it reduced the pitch too much for me (although I like the full CXN/ES4 pitch). If you wanted to lessen the stock pitch by approximately +1 to +1.5 and leaving a total skate/runner pitch afterwards of approximately +2 to +1.5 (depending on who's number is correct), you would tell him to set the profiling equipment to 0. In other words setting the profiling equipment to (depending on who's number is correct)... +2 would result in a TOTAL pitch of +3.5 to +4 +1 would result in a TOTAL pitch of +2.5 to +3 0 would result in a TOTAL pitch of +1.5 to +2 -1 would result in a TOTAL pitch of +0.5 to +1... etc. The bars have nothing to do with the pitch. They only have to do with the radius. The pitch is set by a knob that controls something you could think of sort of as a push rod that is offset from the center of the runner. The knob causes the runner/skate (toe if I recall correctly) to be translated by 1/32" increments for each click at some fixed distance from the center point of the skate (I don't recall what the distance is but I quickly/coarsely measured it once before and could find it if necessary). This causes an angular rotation about the center point of the runner/skate. Each click of the knob is what is referred to as +1, +2, +3, etc. Once again, all just my understanding... I could be wrong. EDIT: The best way to get to where you want to be on pitch is going to always be trial and error. I remember seeing one of those behind the scenes shows on NHL Network and the equipment manager and the player were iteratively messing with the pitch of a runner in almost real time at a practice using feedback from the player to get to where he wanted to be. Now of course they have the luxury of not having to worry about using up the steel, paying $35, waiting for it to get done, finding another opportunity to skate to see if you like it and then repeating the process several times.

Keep in mind that if the +1.5 value on the ES4 runner IS correct, profiling to +1 will be at most a slight change (a smaller change than the profiling equipment is able to do). So it may not be enough to put you where you want to be (and if smcgreg's number is correct, it would be NO change). I'd hate to have you waste $35 and some steel.

The guy that "measured" it is the guy who among other responsibilities is responsible for making sure that the constituent stores of a large national hockey store chain know how to sharpen, profile and perform all other skate and hockey equipment maintenance tasks. He used the blackstone profiling equipment to "measure" it. He placed the profiling bar on the machine and set up everything as though he was going to profile the brand new stock runners. He observed where/how the 0, +1, +2, and +3 settings touch the runner and where/how if he turned the machine on the grinding wheel would start cutting along the existing stock profile. He could tell that it was between +1 and +2, so we split the difference and called it +1.5. This method does not have the accuracy to measure 0.5 steps, but I do trust his position that it was between +1 and +2 (and his best guess was that it was around halfway between the two, so I'm going with +1.5) I am 100% certain that your guy's statement that it is not "profiled ahead of time" is correct. No runner is profiled ahead of time (at least not on what we think of as profiling equipment). They are MANUFACTURED to the profile that they have. Which in almost all cases happens to be (at least intended to be) neutral. But I believe that ES4 runners are manufactured with forward pitch. I could be wrong though. Incidentally, I have seen several people on this thread mention that Step ES4 replacement steel is manufactured to a neutral pitch. I can't quote either when I am using Internet Explorer. Quoting in Chrome works for me though. Have you tried Chrome?

I believe the monkey man is wrong... Although I believe it to be around +1.5 in the runner and +1.5 in the holder for a total of around +3 (not +1 and +2). I've had a set profiled to +1 (leaving a total of around +2.5) and a set profiled to 0 (leaving a total of around +1.5). I did +1 to give a previously torn MCL some relief from some pain I was getting due to the pitch. +1 noticeably reduced the pain. I then tried 0 to see if I could further reduce the pain. It felt so slow compared to what I was used to (having become accustomed to the extreme forward pitch) that I swapped them back out 30 minutes in to the pick up. I'm back to the full stock (total) +3 on my VH skates.

You have to adjust the arbor (the thing the wheel sits on). You have to use an allen wrench to loosen the set screw that is in the hole on the side of the arbor. Then the arbor will move up and down easily on the shaft. The secret piece of information that you have to know though is that there are TWO set screws (one behind the other) in the hole. You would have no way of knowing that there is a second one in there unless someone told you. Once you get BOTH of the screws loosened, then it will move. It's a pretty tedious trial and error process (at least it was for me) to get it perfectly centered though.

I think we have come to a consensus around here that the Mako pitch is about +3 (as set on profiling equipment... 3/32nds). Some of that is from the holder and some of that is from the blade (a guy who "measured" it for me by using the profiling equipment puts it at around +1.5 contribution from the blade). The profiling equipment rotates the skate about (around) the CENTER point of the skate uniformly regardless of the size of the skate (the distance of the "actuator" of the rotation from the center of the skate does not vary from skate to skate). So if the Edge holder/blade combination is neutral (I have no idea if this is the case) you would need to have a profiler put a +3 on your edge holder blades. A heel shim on the other hand rotates the skate about the TOE of the skate from the heel. Not only does this distance depend on the size of the skate, assuming that you only have a contact point at the front set of rivets and the rear set of rivets, the distance would be AT LEAST twice that of the profiling equipment. Now this is probably an invalid assumption, because all of the rivets are in fact in contact (probably the boot bends a little and the holder bends a little) so I don't know what that does to the math. I would think that a good starting point (assuming that the edge holder/blade is neutral) would be to use a shim around 3/32nds. If it didn't feel like you were quite there, add a little more. If you have reason to believe that the edge holder/blade is not neutral and already has a bit of forward pitch, maybe start with 2/32nds and go up from there. Since you now have tee nuts instead of rivets, you are in an ideal position to exercise trial and error. I have never profiled a pair of skates or used shims in my life though... so I could be all wet. BTW, I have had CXN holders for two or three years and I haven't cracked one yet playing 3 or 4 nights a week and blocking a lot of shots.

I have always put the markings down. When I first got my sharpener, someone at Blackstone told me to do this, although he also said that it doesn't really matter... he said just be consistent and do it the same way each time. As you are probably aware, being centered isn't important as long as the entire blade remains on the wheel. It wasn't centered when I first got it, but I adjusted my arbor height very early in the game to move the setup to be more centered. I also re-calibrated my holder to level at the new height and I also use the pitch knob to keep it level as I'm adjusting the front knobs.

I also use a marked pegboard. But I have never had one rub off to the point of not being readable. I put the markings down (to the outside). MNpucker: Which way do you orient your spinners? Perhaps there is more rubbing one way than the other?

Blue wheels on an X-02?