Grafs w/ t'blades

[horseshack 0]

A friend of mine let me use his Grafs 727 that has t-blades. Wow ! amazing! what an improvement on my skating. I have never used either product. Right now i am using mission skates. I want to buy the Grafs combination, but cannot afford it right now.

[kosydar 0]

Welcome to MSH and all that. Now moving beyond this, what exactly is the point of this?

[horseshack 0]

The point is these are amazing performing skates! Which skates are you using?

[Eazy_b97 1]

You could always look into getting some T'blades put onto your Missions. Then once you have enough for another new pair of skates, if you still want them of course, you could have the T'blades switched as well. I love my T'blades, and my Grafs are pretty good, but I'd like to try something new to compare to as well. Don't forget you can't judge a product after only one use as well, there's always a little bit of biased when your excited about trying a product.

[kosydar 0]

I've got 705s. No way in hell will you ever get me in t'Blades.

[PH_Hockey2 4]

One of my team mates had T-blades on his skates he took them off after a week, he told me he did't like them because they felt wried skateing in them.

[slapper_snipper_73 0]

I have Tblades on my 705's and ill never change to another holder

[Thockey17 1]

I've got 705s. No way in hell will you ever get me in t'Blades.

Same. Currently im hooked the 705/lightseed combo...

[mixtery 0]

Myself after being a bauer and vapor owner for the past 5 plus years I just got Graf 735 w/TBLADE and I'll never go back to regular holders. This is the beginning of a revolution in skate blade design. The consistency of edge is everything and you can't beat changing blades on the fly when an edge is lost, Which happens to me more than it should. You may not see pros on these because they have constant access to sharpeners, but for a non sponsored player I think they are great.

[Chadd 916]

Buy yourself a sharpener and you'll save money over the long term and you can actually make money of of your friends. Much better investment than T'blades.

[mixtery 0]

Try em before you knock them. I'm sure people felt the same about the OPS and now look

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

I tried them, knocking them til the wheels fall off.

Sorry.

[Chadd 916]

I borrowed a pair of skates with them from a buddy. He used them for a month and tossed them out. I'm glad I didn't spend the money on them. I have the luxury of my own skate sharpener. I see no personal benefit from them nor did I notice any performance gains with them. Opinions on them vary. Some like them, others don't.

[Buzz_LightBeer 974]

I tried them, knocking them til the wheels fall off.

Sorry.

They Aint No Air Jordans, says JR ;)

[Dave 1]

Buy yourself a sharpener and you'll save money over the long term and you can actually make money of of your friends. Much better investment than T'blades.

Unfortunately, a sharpener is too expensive for most, even if you can make some money with it. And even more important: The LHS guys like JR have stressed a million times that skate sharpening is an art and you can't learn it overnight. I don't see myself buying an expensive sharpener just to find out that I'm not able to produce good results with it.

@JR: Now you are "knocking them til the wheels falls off"? Strange, when you had put t'blades on your Pure Flies, you told me that you couldn't judge them because your specific hollow was not available (which would have been about 21mm in t'blades, a hollow t'blade starts making for next season). And yet you admitted that they indeed gave a better glide. I'm just puzzled that you flat out knock them now.

In essence, for me personally t'blades make a ton of sense because

- I do not have a sharpening machine, nor do I think I'd be able to put it to good use,

- The only place to get my skates sharpend is a 30 minutes (one way) drive away and

- The guy over there know shit about hockey, let alone about sharpening.

[Keith 0]

I have used them enough to be able to say that T-Blades are a quality product. They won't make you skate faster or turn sharper in my opinon, but they are great if you have a bunch of worthless hacks manning the sharpening machines in your area. I think the biggest virtue of the system is the extreme consistency it provides. It's nice to know that your sharpening will always be identical from runner to runner and that your blade/holder height never changes.

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

The t'blades had a deeper hollow, yet had less bite than my shallower sharpening. That's REALLY strange - that shouldn't be possible. Whenever I would glide, the blades would slip out.

My conclusion - a very good sharpening wins out.

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

All I know is that every t'blade conversion I've done except Keith's, the person has come in a month later wanting their old setup back.

[ambro 0]

The t'blades had a deeper hollow, yet had less bite than my shallower sharpening. That's REALLY strange - that shouldn't be possible. Whenever I would glide, the blades would slip out.

My conclusion - a very good sharpening wins out.

JR, what happened to that "amazing glide" that t'blades have? How can they have amazing glide if they slip out?

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

The more I skated in them, the more disappointed I was. I never got the confidence to ever use them in a hockey setting.

What I did was get a few strides in them, then put my skates together and tucked and glided...it was nice. However, the whole thing was whenever I tried to stride, I didn't feel much there. And like I said, I was skating on a deeper hollow than I usually do.

However, it's a good option for someone who can't get a decent sharpening.

Sorry if it was confusing...I posted that in the wee morning...LOL

[Chadd 916]

Am I dumb or what? There was a good post by Chadd right after Keith' post and now it's gone and replaced by JR's? A database bug or did one of you delete it?

I bagged it, didn't want to seem petty. Here's the gist of it:

A new Wissota is $700, assuming $5 to sharpen and doing so twice a month you pay for it in five years. If you learn to do a good job, you can make money doing them for others. I have ten people who always ask me to do their skates and I don't advertise. If you (or your child) is still growing you'll end up spending the same amount on new blades plus you have the expense of new holders every time you switch sizes. I paid a lot less for mine used and it's already paid off.

[MNhockey27 0]

yea i have the Graf 735 that come with t-blades. I LOVE THEM. t-blades are so much better than the regular steel blade. You dont have to worry about getting a bad edge from someone sharpening them. there always sharp and you get tripe the amount of ice time on the blades. I think im going to get Vapor XX with t-blades next.

[crosskore 0]

JR, I'am wandering if i have the same problem of "slipping out" as you. When I use to crosscut my blades would simply slide on the ice and I would fall. I got some new blades and it doesnt do that anymore, but I still dont want to try cross cuts on my left side. I was wandering why they would do that? were they just getting too dull?

If i go back to normal blades, will it take time to get used to them again? or will it just take two laps around the ice like when I got my t'blades?

[Eazy_b97 1]

When I tried normal holders after using T'blades, I noticed a decline in glide and felt it took more effort to get less results.

[Dave 1]

JR, I'am wandering if i have the same problem of "slipping out" as you. When I use to crosscut my blades would simply slide on the ice and I would fall. I got some new blades and it doesnt do that anymore, but I still dont want to try cross cuts on my left side. I was wandering why they would do that? were they just getting too dull?

If i go back to normal blades, will it take time to get used to them again? or will it just take two laps around the ice like when I got my t'blades?

I talked to JR about it before. My impression is that t'blades can "bite" the ice at least as hard as any other blade out there. BUT it seems that the angle at which t'blades start to bite is lower compared to conventional blades. This is hard to describe. During a stride your ankles bend so that the blade is no more perpendicular (90° angle) to the ice but rather 45 to 60 °. While conventional blades require little bending of your ankles, t'blades seem to require a more intense bending. But this is not a disadvantage IMHO. A correct stride starts on the outside edge, proceeds over the neutral edge and finishes on the inside edge. By "biting" later, I think that t'blades make your stride longer. But this will certainly be contested by many.