Blackstone Flat-Bottom V Thread

[mckjim 2]

I have on occasion done passes only in the "profile" area. But only on skates that have been butchered by someone who has ground away the toe and heel of the blades into the plastic holder. I call it the "banana hook" look. I try to take off the steel only in this area on these types of skates. I finish with a pass along the entire length of the blade.

I was taught that the steel and the grinding wheel should only contact in one spot when sharpening and that if any part of the blade remains in contact with the grinding wheel longer than another part, it will take off more metal.

I try to always introduce the skate blade to the grinding wheel at the apex of the wheel facing the holder and turn the holder to maintain blade contact at the same location on the grinding wheel for the entire blade length.

If you bring the blade into the grinding wheel to the right of the apex and continue accross the grinding wheel then the first part of the blade to contact the grinding wheel will have a longer duration contact with the grinding wheel than the rest of the blade and result in more metal over time being removed from this spot than from the rest of the blade.

Also, I have witnesses people sharpening, whether the toe or heel is introduced to the grinding wheel first, that at the end of their pass, they allow the blade to contact the grinding wheel to the right of the apex and results in the "banana hook" phenomenon on the other end of the skate blade.

The grinding wheel rotates clockwise, and the grinding of the blades should always be done from right to left regardless of your preference of toe or heel first in the holder. I have a brother that did professional grinding here in Detroit for a specialty grinding machine shop, and he explained that a back and forth grinding from right to left and back again will produce heat on the edges and the edges will not be as strong and become brittle and will wear faster. If that is the way machinists grind, I figured it must work equally as well for doing skate blades, and over time, it has for me.

[chiefs17 2]

Thanks for the replies mckjim and rachael. I've been seeing a lot of heels and toes excessively worn away from heavy handed sharpeners too.

I also see skates that are way beyond the point where they should have been sharpened. These are mostly kids skates and I guess they don't complain as much about dull skates, or the parents don't know when to have them done.

For those skates, I also hit the flat section of the blade a few times because most of the wear seems to be concentrated in that area.

I think it says something if an NHL Eq. manager tries to avoid changing the profile by doing extra passes on just the flat.

[mckjim 2]

Just thought I would try to post some photos of my little work shop. I have two portable Blademaster machines an SPB-851 and a BRC2005 as well as an X02 Blackstone portable and a Blackstone Mag-75 for dressing the portables with the FBV. I also picked up the Edge Again portable blade maintenance tool.

All of this was accumulated over the years of sharpening skates for my three boys. Currently I have all of this set up in the locker room of my son's high school team. I take the X02 on away games and use the Blademaster machines daily.

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Edited May 23, 2010 by JR Boucicaut

[mckjim 2]

http://img43.imageshack.us/i/img00005201005211453.gif/

This last photo is of the Square Edge Tool (S.E.T.) I had a patent made for but have not as yet begun producing.

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Sorry these are all so disjointed, I am trying to figure out how to post photos as I go here.

[True North 0]

What tolerance level do you work with as far as the edge balance is concered.

Is anything less than .001" out of balance acceptable or do you aim to be 100% spot on?

After some tinkering, I seem to have it very close but I am not sure what the acceptable standards are.

Anyone else with an opinion on this please feel free to chime in

If anyone is interested, I followed up with the makers of the Hollow Depth Indicator (HDI) and got a call back from Brad whom I am pretty sure was the owner/creator. Great guy, very knowledgeable, gave me his personal cell # if I ever needed to followup with him on anything. Anyways, he told me that the if your edges are out of balance less than 1/1000" your doing great. I phoned blademaster technical support, who sold me my HDI, and the person I spoke with told me that 2-3/1000" was good........beauty is in the eye of the beholder as they say. I'm sticking with Brads advice

ALSO

Brad told me that they have a swap program in place so that if your HDI ever needs to get serviced, they will send you an HDI to use. When the loaner HDI arrives you ship your HDI off to them and that way you are not out of commission. I thought that was a pretty cool service.

Just thought I would try to post some photos of my little work shop. I have two portable Blademaster machines an SPB-851 and a BRC2005 as well as an X02 Blackstone portable and a Blackstone Mag-75 for dressing the portables with the FBV. I also picked up the Edge Again portable blade maintenance tool.

All of this was accumulated over the years of sharpening skates for my three boys. Currently I have all of this set up in the locker room of my son's high school team. I take the X02 on away games and use the Blademaster machines daily.

http://img3.imageshack.us/i/40241185.gif/

http://img268.imageshack.us/i/58856143.gif/

http://img171.imageshack.us/i/12457163.gif/

http://img412.imageshack.us/i/31865597.gif/

mckjim - OMG....WOW :o

I feel so inadequate. That must be some high school, it's amazing how highly valued team sports are in the US school system. I doubt you would find a school anywhere in Canada with an equiptment room decked out like that.

What are your thoughts on the EdgeAgain device?

ALSO

Thanks for the tips on the holder adjustment knobs, I now have my edges pretty much bang on.

Edited May 23, 2010 by True North

[mckjim 2]

So far, so good. It appears to work as advertised. The only thing I notice is it leaves a small witness scuff on the side of the blade.

[True North 0]

So far, so good. It appears to work as advertised. The only thing I notice is it leaves a small witness scuff on the side of the blade.

Do you find that a hand hone will get rid of the scuffs?

[mckjim 2]

Yes. It is negligible.

[True North 0]

I have had my X02 + upgraded Tri-Lie Holder for about a week. I had somehow managed to get very even edges and a nice clean finish after a couple of days of practice.

I had been a putting fresh edges on my kids skates after each training session over the past few days and his skates were coming out great. I decided to take a kick at the can with my skates again and all hell broke loose.

I knew I was going to have to adjust the holder for my skates as they were perfectly set for my kids skates. My first run through on my Left skate I was expectedly out. I made some adjustments to my holder and it got worse.........I made some further adjustments...........it got worse.........this goes on for two or three more times and finally I decide to take a break.

I come back a couple of hours later and do my Right skate just to see how it turns out and............as it turns out, the edges are in almost perfect balance (less then 1/1000" out) after making no adjustments to the holder. I scracth my head and move back to my Left skate to see what happens. Once again my Left skate edges are WAY out of balance (+ 6/1000").

Does anyone have any idea why my Right skate would be almost perfectly in balance while my Left skate would be so out of whack with the exact same holder settings?

Any suggestions would be appreciated, cheers

[Chadd 916]

Does anyone have any idea why my Right skate would be almost perfectly in balance while my Left skate would be so out of whack with the exact same holder settings?

Who cares what the settings are, adjust the holder to get the edges square.

[chiefs17 2]

True North, have you checked to see that your Left skate is clamped properly? Make sure there is no contact between the boot and the holder, especially if you are sharpening Graf's. I've had this problem before and it always came down to some type of interference with a part of the skate and the holder.

mckjim, nice shop! How do you like that dust collection system? I'm using a shop vac as well, but I have a large scoop that catches the dust. I'm thinking with just a small pipe like your setup you would get more suction at the end of the pipe, and possibly collect more dust.

[mckjim 2]

True North

Have you adjusted the clamp of the holder to clamp the blade tighter for the bigger heavier skate? My guess is that if the boot is heavier, the skate will pull down more causing the grinding wheel to contact unevenly on the bottom edge and might not hit the top edge squarely.

There is also the possibility that your blade or blades are bent. A bent blade is the first thing I look for when all of a sudden I have one skate not sharpening like the rest. After a while you can see a consistent "spark pattern" while sharpening skates that will tell you the edges are even. I like to see a solid gold spark pattern to the left of the grinding wheel, very little sparks on the wheel to the right of the the blade being sharpened and little sparks seemingly dancing over the top edge of the blade usually indicate a good even grinding. Also, after a while you can "hear" the sound of a good even grinding. This however, is too hard for me to discribe. It is one of those things, that you' ll know it when you hear it.

Also, I have found when you don't re-dress the wheel after doing several pairs of skates it will cause the blades to be uneven. But this is usually consistently uneven along the entire length of the steel.

Last guess, is your hand pressure applied to the holder consistent? Putting too much force down on the holder inconsistently can cause your edges to be uneven from one skate to the next.

Chiefs17

Thanks! The dust collection works good for about $100.00 per machine. The reason I went to the smaller diameter pvc is for the extra suction. I notched out the 90 degree elbow by putting it into the grinding wheel. This gives me clearance and allows me to put the vacuum system as close to the grinding dust as possible. I am still trying to find a "quieter" way of dust collecting on the cheap. I keep looking for new ideas, any thoughts anyone?

[NuggyBuggy 0]

Well, since my first real attempt at sharpening my backup skates was fairly successful, I had a go at my regular skates and skated 4 times on it this weekend in a tournament. They felt great, subjectively no worse than when I would get my skates done at my LHS. I got my edges to within 1"/1000 (according to my Blademaster level), and the process is definitely getting much easier.

It is a wonderful feeling knowing I can get my skates sharpened on a moment's notice without having to haul the toddlers out for a 45-min round trip to the LHS or negotiate with the wife.

Thanks to everyone who offered advice to me here, in particular Afftondad, mnpucker, rachael7 and chiefs17.

[NuggyBuggy 0]

Thanks! The dust collection works good for about $100.00 per machine. The reason I went to the smaller diameter pvc is for the extra suction. I notched out the 90 degree elbow by putting it into the grinding wheel. This gives me clearance and allows me to put the vacuum system as close to the grinding dust as possible. I am still trying to find a "quieter" way of dust collecting on the cheap. I keep looking for new ideas, any thoughts anyone?

mckjim, you may already know all this, but I recently got into woodworking (sidetracked as I was building a bench for my X-01, :lol:). Dust is a major health concern for woodworkers, so a lot of those guys spend a lot of time worrying about it. Basically, conventional shop-vacs are not ideal for dust collection: they are designed to provide suction but to collect dust in the air you need higher volumes and velocity of air flow. Here's the first thread I could dig up on the issue: http://www.sawmillcreek.org/showthread.php?p=864346#poststop.

Hence, woodworkers use fairly expensive dust collection systems (relative to Shop Vacs), e.g. http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/product10?&...390525103153487 (all prices Canadian).

Anyways, these devices are usually a little quieter than Shop-vacs - I believe owing to the type of motor, but are still very noisy. With a proper dust collection network (these machines can pull over longer distances) people often house the machine in a separate room and trigger it with a remote control, e.g. http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=CT075, which wouldn't work so well with a Shop-vac. One advantage here is that you could buy a single machine and run a simple network of pipes with blast gates set depending on which machine you are using.

Another suggestion is you could enclose your shop-vacs in a simple wood structure with insulation inside to absorb some of the sound.

Final suggestion is you could buy an expensive vac like a Festool or Fein, which are much quieter than regular, $100 jobs at Home Depot. I have the Festool CT-33 but they aren't cheap. Then again, it looks like you have the budget for any of the above :lol:

Edited May 25, 2010 by NuggyBuggy

[ice365 0]

I am looking at getting one of these three, X-01, X-02 or the classic portable because it is the same price basically as the X-02. This will depend on what you guys with experience have to say. What makes the X-02 better than the X-01? Is the classic portable better than the X-02. I am looking for the one that will in the end be the easiest to use. Thanks in advance for your help and suggestions.

[JR Boucicaut 3799]

Can't do FBV on a Classic unless you buy the standalone FBV dresser.

[AfftonDad 88]

True North, have you checked to see that your Left skate is clamped properly? Make sure there is no contact between the boot and the holder, especially if you are sharpening Graf's. I've had this problem before and it always came down to some type of interference with a part of the skate and the holder.

mckjim, nice shop! How do you like that dust collection system? I'm using a shop vac as well, but I have a large scoop that catches the dust. I'm thinking with just a small pipe like your setup you would get more suction at the end of the pipe, and possibly collect more dust.

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

[chiefs17 2]

AfftonDad, you are absolutely right! I had CCM Vectors and that little lace lock would always come into contact with the holder.

Glad to hear I'm not the only one who struggled with these problems.

[True North 0]

Thanks to everyone for their feedback and suggestions (chiefs17, mckjim, AfftonDad and Chadd). I finally got my left skate in edge balance nirvana......after 6 sharpenings....I know, I know, I feel the shame. I am doing alot of testing on my beater cheapo skates so I am not too phased at eating away at the blade. I wasn't doing anything wrong, I just needed to get over the fact that I was getting different results with Left and Right skates and focus on making adjustments to the holder until the edges were even.

One thing that has been helpful is that I created an excel sheet so that I can log all of my holder adjustments and the subsequent HDI measurements. For now and as I am learning, I can refer to the log to see what works and what types of adjustments needs to be made when I get certain HDI measurements. It has been very helpful. I still have to learn what adjustments to make with witness marks. I have not been using witness marks. The few times that I have tried to guesstimate holder adjustments off of a witness mark I have been way off. Even when I have been able to get what looked like an even witness mark, my HDI shows me that I am off.

NuggyBuggy

Now you got me thinking about proper metal dust collection as opposed to the shop-vac solution I have going now. Is the unit that you bought a bit of overkill for a single sharpener? What would you recommend for a single sharpener?

[NuggyBuggy 0]

NuggyBuggy

Now you got me thinking about proper metal dust collection as opposed to the shop-vac solution I have going now. Is the unit that you bought a bit of overkill for a single sharpener? What would you recommend for a single sharpener?

I only happen to know a bit about dust collection because I discovered I am extremely sensitive to wood dust and I have young children in the house.

Truth is, though, my X-01 is not currently hooked up to my dust collector yet - that's in our second garage for lack of space. I brought my X-01 home (my woodworking shop is at our cottage), so right now I am just setting it up on our deck and blowing dust out into the air. I do have a portable Shop-vac which will fit the X-01 with an adapter but I am not using that either. I know I should do something about that. I don't find much metal dust being ejected into the air where I would breathe it, however.

I have a Festool CT-33 vac, but I don't have the right fitting to go to the X-01, so that's just used for my Festool woodworking tools.

Someone else asked me by PM about whether or not there is danger of metal sparks and particles from the X-01 possibly igniting dust/wood shavings/fabric bag in the dust collector or Festool vac, and I am not really sure. I hadn't thought about it much, although the stuff that comes off my X-01 is so small and the run of hose I have so large that I doubt it could ignite anything by the time it hits my vac.

Edit: Note, a single sharpener would take a long, long time to fill the bag in a "real" dust collector, even a little 110V one.

Edited May 26, 2010 by NuggyBuggy

[True North 0]

Hey Nuggy

Truth is, I was mildly concerned about metal dust particle inhalation prior to reading your post. Through some of the links you posted I came across this website

http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm

You probably have seen this site already, it is considered by many to be the bible on dust collection. After reading it for about an hour last night, I thought my head was going to explode. One of the things that got my attention is that a stand alone machine that creates fine dust should have a dust collector system with a CFM rating of 800+. The vacuum that you have only has a CFM of 134.

I have set up a work bench in my garage, so dust collection is a little more of a priority for me. As far as I can tell, dust collection appears to be a lot more complicated to understand and implement then skate sharpening.....

[NuggyBuggy 0]

Hey Nuggy

Truth is, I was mildly concerned about metal dust particle inhalation prior to reading your post. Through some of the links you posted I came across this website

http://billpentz.com//woodworking/cyclone/index.cfm

You probably have seen this site already, it is considered by many to be the bible on dust collection. After reading it for about an hour last night, I thought my head was going to explode. One of the things that got my attention is that a stand alone machine that creates fine dust should have a dust collector system with a CFM rating of 800+. The vacuum that you have only has a CFM of 134.

I have set up a work bench in my garage, so dust collection is a little more of a priority for me. As far as I can tell, dust collection appears to be a lot more complicated to understand and implement then skate sharpening.....

Hey True North -

I have the following:

Festool CT-33. It's CFM is indeed low, because even though they call it a "dust extractor", it's really a very high end Shop-vac and remember that Shop-vacs are really designed to pick up debris and not fine dust. However, it works better than most because it is designed to work with Festool tools, which are designed for very good dust extraction. Also I bet they're more conservative with their CFM ratings than others.

The dust collector I have is this one: http://busybeetools.ca/cgi-bin/picture10?NTITEM=CT029N. It's the biggest 110V dust collector I could find at my local woodworking supply store, rated for 825 CFM, but as I said it is idle because I my garage workshop does not have space for it.

Then I have a Ridgid shop vac and a small Shop-vac. I have read that some of these Shop-vacs actually make things worse because they end up blowing a lot of air around.

Bill Pentz is considered an authority on dust collection. He has an interesting story and he gives away his plans for free. IIRC, however, it's not cheap to build one of his dust collectors.

As for the X-01, I'll probably continue to work on my deck and wear a respirator. When it gets cold, I'll hook it up to my little Shop-vac and still wear a respirator. I might get a white tarp to actually determine how far the dust disperses - I suspect it does not go nearly as far as wood dust. If it's a problem, maybe I'll build a little shroud for it to contain the dust.

[goblue9280 33]

So what does Blackstone say regarding dust collection? Do they have any info in the x01/x02 manuals? Has anyone called them to ask what they recommend for these personal sharpeners?

[NuggyBuggy 0]

So what does Blackstone say regarding dust collection? Do they have any info in the x01/x02 manuals? Has anyone called them to ask what they recommend for these personal sharpeners?

There's a small (2-1/2" I think ) dust port on the back of the machine, but this will only capture dust from dressing the wheel. Debris from the actual sharpenening will not be caught. I don't think the manual says much else about this.

I did what someone else here suggested and bought a hood which I just lay to the right of the X-01 (http://store.workshopsupply.com/catalogue/product_info.php?products_id=2011). It catches some dust from sharpening, but not all of it. When I was hooking up the X-01 to dust collection I would connect the back port when I was dressing the wheel, then disconnected that and connected the "Big gulp" when I was actually sharpening. I planned to install a dust collection network with blast gates but never got around to it.

If I get around to building and using a better dust collection setup I would probably split my dust collector line into two, put blast gates on each line, and run one line to the back dust port. Then I'd split the other line into two again and run one line to the Big Gulp and the other line would go to some articulating hose like this which I would position closer to the grinding wheel.

Edited May 26, 2010 by NuggyBuggy

[True North 0]

On my X02 the exhaust is a 1" pipe. I have no idea why they would have made it that small. It's a real pain if you want to hook up some sort of vacuum system to it