Sharpening – everything you need to know about sharpening and shaping
Sharpening – other questions
- Nicked blade
- Replacing blades
- How often to sharpen / when to sharpen
- How often to have skates custom radiused (profiled)
Sharpening for beginners
Sharpening
Shaping (custom radius)
- Refers to the hollow or edges of the blade
- Why Custom Hollow (which means to choose a specific hollow)?
- The right hollow can improve your game. Choose the hollow that works with your body type, skating style and position.
Shaping (custom radius)
- Refers to the sideways shape (profile) of the blade
- Why Custom Radius?
- Straight out of the box skates probably don’t have the radius and lie that are best for you. And often the blades don’t even match each other! – and if they don’t, you’ll really struggle on the ice.
- Nicked blades
- Most of the time you won’t notice small nicks when you’re skating. And, 90% of nicks can be fixed when we sharpen. But if you’ve put a serious gouge in your blade you might have to replace it. Bring it in, and let us take a look.
- Replacing blades
- If you sharpen a lot, and you’re old enough that you keep your skates for years, you’ll have to change your blades more often than the person who rarely sharpens. But, skating on sharp edges more than makes up for this. And compared to replacing the entire skate, blades are cheap.
- If you’re wondering whether or not to replace your blades, bring the skates in – we’ll let you know.
- How often to sharpen
- Rule of thumb is roughly after 3-8 hours of ice time or after 4-5 games or sessions.
- Be your own judge – you can feel it when your skates aren’t sharp.
- How often should I have my skates radiused?
- Depends on the skater. This ranges from every couple of months to years.
- Again, be your own judge – you can feel it when your skates aren’t “right” anymore.