Therma Blade

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

motion throws all that to hell anyway. This is purely an educated guess, but to pull it off with any sort of efficacy, I'd bet that the holder would melt.

[DarkStar50 679]

When was the last time your Tuuks melted in the trunk of your car on a hot summer day?

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

i've heard of it happening... I dont keep my skates in my car for that very reason... if its hot and i bring my stuff to work, skates come in with me.

Bear with me hear, DS, you know just as well that older pairs of holders with softer plastics have the blades start to angle. It's entirely possible that it would soften the plastic.

[schrempsky 0]

its not warm enough for skates to melt in the car in edmonton where i live, but how is 5 degrees celcius, which is the temperature of the steel(sorry guys i dont know conversion to farenheit) going to melt your holders?

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

When was the last time your Tuuks melted in the trunk of your car on a hot summer day?

Working in Florida, I can tell you that guys who skate once a week and leave their stuff in the car that long, we used to be able to squeeze Tuuks with our fingers...

[schrempsky 0]

When was the last time your Tuuks melted in the trunk of your car on a hot summer day?

Working in Florida, I can tell you that guys who skate once a week and leave their stuff in the car that long, we used to be able to squeeze Tuuks with our fingers...

a problem i will never know

acording to thermablade logic, you probably got a ton of extra glide for a bit

[DarkStar50 679]

The reason blades angle is due to stress. When the runners are no longer at a 90* angle to the holder, they are bowed out, not in. That is from skating on inside edges.

As for the Floridians, anybody who leaves their gear in the trunk of their car for a week is an idiot. It doesn't matter where they live.

[Rustpot 1]

Darkstar's just playing Devil's advocate.

For the most part, 99% of the posts in this thread are people protesting how stupid and ineffective they are without ever seeing a pair, seeing someone skate on them or having skated on them themselves.

Their PR, marketing and QC all screwed up, but does the product hold (or melt :P) any water? STFU and wait for Darkstar or JR or someone who has given them a real shot to speak up.

[DarkStar50 679]

^^^^^^ what he said!!

Yes, the marketing, PR, and QC screwed up, no doubt. However, until you have been on them, you really don't know, do you?

Did I notice something when I was using TBs? Maybe. Did I notice something when I took off the TBs and put my LSs back on? Yes. Its not when you have them on your skates that you notice a difference. It might just be when you don't have them on that you do.

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

motion throws all that to hell anyway. This is purely an educated guess, but to pull it off with any sort of efficacy, I'd bet that the holder would melt.

its not warm enough for skates to melt in the car in edmonton where i live, but how is 5 degrees celcius, which is the temperature of the steel(sorry guys i dont know conversion to farenheit) going to melt your holders?

i said that to pull off what they hope to achieve, it might melt the holder. 5 centigrade wont do what they want due to the fact that you move too fast for any sort of real heat transfer to make a difference. Only way to fix that is to get hotter.

The reason blades angle is due to stress. When the runners are no longer at a 90* angle to the holder, they are bowed out, not in. That is from skating on inside edges.

Right it angles due to stress... but if the blade heats the plastic, the holder provides less resistance against those stresses...

[DarkStar50 679]

Isn't the steel already heating the ice that we glide on? That is how we skate, right? The friction melts the ice that gives us the thin film of water we skate on. So, if TBs just make the steel hotter to 5*C, that would increase the melting of the available ice to water glide. Why do you think the steel has to be so hot as to melt the plastic holder? Its late, I've been up since 5AM with 3 hours of sleep. Just curious and confused a bit.

Blades stress out in the holders from weight and pressure!! I have a guy I play with who does this all the time to his Tuuks. He is a big guy and basically knows it is going to happen from all the skating he does. It is always bowed out from the inside edge stress. Heat has nothing to do with it in his case.

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

i know, the blade flares out due to normal conditions, im just saying it can exacerbate the problem and cause it to happen quicker.

The pressure melting and frictional melting happens through a different mechanism. Pressure melting has nothing to do with heat transfer, and the friction occurs from actions on both the ice and the steel. 5* will have a slight change, yes. I'm just saying to attain what they claim TBs can or should attain i think it would require significantly more heat

make sense? Im not saying you've got to agree with me, but trying to clarify my stance, since this is purely a guess on my part.

[Shark#81 0]

Darkstar's just playing Devil's advocate.

For the most part, 99% of the posts in this thread are people protesting how stupid and ineffective they are without ever seeing a pair, seeing someone skate on them or having skated on them themselves.>>>

Like a ton of threads! I believe the blade heating part does the job. It's low voltage higher-current, going through an element, generates the heat for the blade. Just a slight raise in temp.

The fact that there is an xx gram battery at the furthest point in your skating dynamic is not disputable.

Also - I don't believe the water-film theory. To me something cool happens on the molecular level that blade heat, a reduction in hollow, a smoother blade surface all yield for less resistance. It's the interaction of metal and ice. The reason I say this is how the plastic ice performs - water makes things worse. A silicone based lubricant is awesome.

[Jordan 13]

Interesting thought about ice and its' behaviour at the molecular level. There is some research done by a physicist (name escapes me), that suggests that ice is something in between a liquid and a solid. He believes that ice molecules move up and down but not side to side (as it would in a liquid). If it were a true solid, that movement wouldn't take place.

One of the things I found most interesting about the thermablade thing, was when I started searching out information about ice, was finding that we really don't know very much about ice and how it behaves.

[TBLfan 25]

I've never bought the gliding on a thin film of water theory. Weight and speed seem like it would require a reaction ahead of your skate. I think a thin film of water may be a possible result of skating.

If you are on tightly woven carpet and you're on a 45 degree incline, you point your toes towards the decline, you will go that way. You're not gliding on a film or water, you're creating less resistance. You turn your skate and your momentum will take you left or right.

I've never really given the theory a whole lot of thought, it just doesn't seem to add up. What would make sense is that the warmer blades would allow less friction because it would soften the ice as it cuts it, a warm knife through butter... opposed to a cold knife through butter. Again, the higher the speed the hotter the blade would need to be to feel effects... In theory.

[chk hrd 164]

Here is some info on ice

http://www.exploratorium.edu/hockey/ice2.html

[Shark#81 0]

Hmm..... Ice is two atoms of Hydrogen (H) (H2O). The plastic I use to skate on is four atoms of hydrogen and two carbon. Teflon is four F's and two C's.

So there seems to be a relationship there - it is possible we are gliding on the hydrogen atoms. The next thing to look at is what happens to energy & heat. Ice is just below liquid state. The plastic is well below that so it is not as slippery as ice. But with a lubricant applied it is quite slippery - but still not as good as ice.

Ice in a way is self lubricating, with the presence of water droplets as the blade does melt some of the ice - but not to create the act of gliding, only to enhance it.

Some ice sheets are faster than others, but I think this has as much to do with the content of the ice (impurities) as it does with the ice temperature.

Exerpt from Wikipedia:

" Until recently it was widely believed that ice was slippery because the pressure of an object in contact with it caused a thin layer to melt. For example, the blade of an ice skate, exerting pressure on the ice, melted a thin layer, providing lubrication between the ice and the blade.

This explanation is no longer widely accepted. There is still debate about why ice is slippery. The explanation gaining acceptance is that ice molecules in contact with air cannot properly bond with the molecules of the mass of ice beneath (and thus are free to move like molecules of liquid water). These molecules remain in a semiliquid state, providing lubrication regardless of pressure against the ice exerted by any object. [3]

This phenomenon does not seem to hold true at all temperatures. The extreme conditions found, especially, in Antarctica have been observed to make ice and snow not slippery. Explorers report that at very low temperatures snow loses its "glide", and pulling a sledge across it becomes like pulling a sledge through sand.[citation needed]"

[Rustpot 1]

This phenomenon does not seem to hold true at all temperatures. The extreme conditions found, especially, in Antarctica have been observed to make ice and snow not slippery. Explorers report that at very low temperatures snow loses its "glide", and pulling a sledge across it becomes like pulling a sledge through sand.[citation needed]"

I can confirm this part. We had a nice -30F / -34C two days a month ago and the snow on the ground changed from powder to more of a sandy dust and the ice was more like concrete to walk on.

[Shark#81 0]

OK I just did a rough little experiment with the plastic "dry ice" sheet:

Heated skate blade v.s. room temp = no difference.

Heated plastic ice v.s. room temp = heated plastic ice was worse/slower

Add a nice film of lubricant = wow..glides like crazy.

In extreme low temperatures, there will be no lubricant present on ice therefore resistance will increase.

Thermablade might increase the presence of water droplets as lubricant, therefore improve glide.

If you added lube to your blades, every shift, same effect. Reduced hollow keeps you on the surface, also a good thing.

[JR Boucicaut 3805]

We did an on-ice blind test with one of my employees today.

We will be doing it with two more people, myself included.

Let's just say this for now - the results were hilarious.

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

Reduced hollow keeps you on the surface, also a good thing.

reduced hollow decreases surface area.

[Shark#81 0]

Oops, sorry - The way I think, if I decrease the effect of hollow, means I increase fraction# which creates less bite on the skate.

I got my skates done at 7/8 yesterday and the ice got harder as overnight temps are below freezing this week. My skates are right on the "edge" of feeling sketchy or too loose.

Top end speed and glide is awesome though.

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

I know exactly what you mean. and thats what i meant

5/8" has less surface area than 1/2"

[Shark#81 0]

OK good.

What I am saying is you ride higher up on the ice with a 1" hollow v.s a 1/2" hollow, and you may in fact have more blade area in contact with the ice with the 1". At least the contact will be more evenly pressured across the surface of the blade.

A 1/2" hollow will bite more, with greater pressure on the outside edges of the blade, less down the midline, and this sinks you deeper and creates an increase in gliding friction.

I figure that optimizing hollow and radius will do better than thermablading a "bad" setup, for which there is a weight penalty of the battery.

[Wolfpack_1986 154]

it's simpler than that. The 1/2" just cuts down deeper. It exerts more energy trying to push the ice its trying to cut through out of the way. Look at it like taking a knife and sticking it only 1/2 as far into whatever... it's just easier to cut than if it had to penetrate deeper. you can ignore midline pressure, and look at it from the standpoint that theres more ice that needs to be displaced.

either way, ice mechanics aside (i'll give TB the benefit of the doubt here)... I still maintain that changes experienced lack significance.