stock profile step steel vs banana blades

[Nealoc187 10]

I don't really have time to go to open skate or rat to try out my new step steel and get used to it before using it in earnest. moving in less than 2 weeks and really busy with work, but the local sharpeners (even my buddy) are complaining about trying to sharpen my old steel because they are saying it's going to damage the skate holder very soon. got my step blacksteel runners last night and took the original LS2 steel out of my one.9s to compare them.

surprisingly, the front of the blade isn't as drastic of a difference as I thought it'd be, pretty close actually as far as the contour of the blade. the back of the blade on the other hand... whoa.

could be interesting tonight during warmups. i'm going to take my stock blades and nut driver out to the bench in case the new blades prove to be too difficult for me to skate in. I wonder how bad of an idea this is going to prove to be.

check out the difference. i marked the step blade with a silver paint marker to show the difference in profile without the original blade in the way in the last pic.

[BRUINS_FAN_74 19]

I hate the heel on Step! I had both sets of mine profiled and then had the heel shaved down to be more close to stock steel heel. My balance was all over the place with Step before I had them profiled.

[Nealoc187 10]

so it wasn't as bad as I was envisioning it being, but still had some trouble. i'm a strong skater, but i felt like i was turning on snow skis at first, got mostly used to "normal" turns as the game wore on, and acceleration on the toes was basically what I'm used to (not much difference in the shape of the toe), but trying to really cut and turn sharply did not work at all. just couldn't do it, i could turn like 40% as well as I'm used to when really trying to dig in aggressively. i skate again on thursday and will see how it goes then and see if i can perhaps get more used to it and get back the agility i'm used to. if not, i'll maybe give it one more go next week in some rat before i decide if i need to get them profiled or at least the heel shaved down a bit to more what i'm used to. i did not like my lack of agility tonight.

[BRUINS_FAN_74 19]

I'm really happy with the combo radius and neutral pitch I had done on mine and so glad the heel is like stock steel now. I sort of didn't like the extra height of the steel mixed with the extra height of the +4.0 holder, just a little too much in my opinion.

[stick9 896]

I essentially had the same problem, but for me it was going from an Easton to a Supreme. My agility and cornering was all out of whack. Even walking from the to the ice felt off, seemed very clunky.

In the end a radius helped, though I went through two variations before I felt good again.

[oldtrainerguy28 478]

IMO the changes you are feeling are from the profile on the old steel to the profile on the new steel. It is not so much the heel. I blend the heel a little but don't shave it down. If the new blade is profiled properly there should not be the dramatic changes mentioned.

[timmywah 1]

Skating on bananas blades right now myself and have very little steel left. I'm not looking forward to that dreaded adjustment period, but have a set of BlackSteel that was just delivered today so I'll be in the same boat here soon. Keeping my fingers crossed the adjustment period isn't overly long or terrible.

[vaporboy12 0]

Its looks like to me, step has changes the amount of steel that is on the front of the ls2's with the new steel coming from them in the plastic packaging instead of the white boxes.

[Nealoc187 10]

when a sharpener goes to profile and/or shave off excess steel such as on the heel of these blades, do they use the cross grinding wheel to get the shape close and then fine tune/finish with the actual sharpening wheel or what?

[MThockeydad 469]

Skating on bananas blades right now myself and have very little steel left. I'm not looking forward to that dreaded adjustment period, but have a set of BlackSteel that was just delivered today so I'll be in the same boat here soon. Keeping my fingers crossed the adjustment period isn't overly long or terrible.

It looks like you have a different profile and pitch. Lots more rocker on your old steel, and it also looks like the old blades had a more forward pitch (could be due to camera angle)

when a sharpener goes to profile and/or shave off excess steel such as on the heel of these blades, do they use the cross grinding wheel to get the shape close and then fine tune/finish with the actual sharpening wheel or what?

I wonder if a waterjet would be a good way to keep from overheating the blade when making a MAJOR change like shaving the toe/heel.

[Nealoc187 10]

It looks like you have a different profile and pitch. Lots more rocker on your old steel, and it also looks like the old blades had a more forward pitch (could be due to camera angle)

I wonder if a waterjet would be a good way to keep from overheating the blade when making a MAJOR change like shaving the toe/heel.

Yeah, I'd love to be able to quantify how much smaller the profile radius is on my old steel. I know step stock profile is 10'. I bought these skates (one.9s) used and luckily the profile on them was similar to what i was coming from (banana blades also) so there was no major difference in feel there. these new blades are a different story though. if i can get used to the stock step profile that would be great, saves money and i have a "repeatable" profile to ask for when/if it does get out of whack. if not though, i'm going to have to start shooting in the dark to try to get it somewhere usable if i can't get used to it the way it is. the last set of steel i had profiled i eventually finished at a 9' radius and +.5 forward pitch, those were with Mega Air 90s and custom+ runners, so a slightly different animal. I wouldn't mind trying a more significant forward pitch, i think i could get away with being a little more on my toes, but i have no complaints about whatever the old steel's "banana blade" profile was, except that the steel was getting so low it was making sharpeners mad, and making me mad when i tried to turn sharply and would catch the outsole on the ice, limiting my aggressiveness when turning.

i thought about a waterjet or taking them back to my old boss at the machine shop i used to work at in college and having him put them in the cnc mill and we could grind them down that way (with coolant flowing over the blade for heat dissipation), but i suppose that would be more work than just having someone do a proper profile on them at the LHS or Total or sending them off to jimmy. i just like to do stuff myself when possible though.

have another game tonight that i'm going to try them in, see how they do. i do already have a significant knick on the toe of one blade which i was bummed to see (clearly hit the blade on another person's blade or something hard on the bench).

[BRUINS_FAN_74 19]

I'm still getting used to it from only ever skating on stock steel

[Nealoc187 10]

Played last night, seemed to be a little more used to them, though the game was weak as hell (that team had no business being on the ice with us, they should probably have been 2 divisions down from us) so at no point did i have to push hard and really test things.