Sparx Edge Checker - Get the Most from Your Sparx Skate Sharpener
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- čas přidán 7. 07. 2024
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The Sparx edge checker, while expensive, is the best way to get the most out of your Sparx skate sharpener. After using the edge checker to check for even skate edges I was able to consistently get the best sharpenings out of my machine, right in my own home. See troubleshooting section below for ice hockey skate edges below:
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UNEVEN SKATE EDGE TROUBLESHOOTING:
1. First and foremost, you shouldn't have to do this every time. Once you get your machine really dialed in, you should be getting pretty even edges on your own skates and others' skates (assuming that most runners are relatively straight). Don't adjust too wildly for any one pair of steel for this reason... you wouldn't want to make heavy corrections for bent steel.
2. Assuming you've sharpened with enough passes to remove imperfections, (On my own skates with the same hollow: ~2 passes every two skates, on others': ~4 passes) deburr the blades and take a few edge readings.
3. Identify which edge is the consistently high edge so that you can correctly turn the alignment adjustment knob. If you sharpen with the toe facing the right, and the closest, forward-facing edge is the high one, you will need to turn the knob clockwise to pull the grinding ring closer to the front. Reverse if the back edges are high. This adjustment will help even the edges.
4. When adjusting I turn the knob 2-3 clicks in the appropriate direction, run two more passes, then take additional edge readings. I repeat this process until I am happy with the edge heights.
5. In certain circumstances you may try adjusting for imperfect steel. If you have readings that are way out of whack and can't get them much better after a few of these iterations, lay your steel flat on a level surface to try and determine if it has any bends or warping. Occasionally you may come across a pair that you can't get level throughout the length of the blade. In my experience it's relative apparently to the naked eye there are imperfections. This can be a real bummer and I've been there myself. I had a pair of Bauer LS4 steel bend very early on. I've tried sharpening them, can hit the edges decently well on the machine, but they are bent to the point where I will occasionally catch edges while skating for no reason. I've decided that I don't want that happening as I'm skating hard into the boards and have reluctantly retired them :(
6. If you have specific comments on your situation drop a comment below!
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I play hockey at Center Ice in Oaks, PA. If you ever need your skates sharpened for the next session drop your skates with me. I'll run them on my Sparx sharpener. I have the 3/8", 1/2”, 9/16" and 5/8" Sparx grinding rings.
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#SparxHockey #IceHockey #IceSkates - Sport
I’ve found ‘The original Edge Checker’ a great alternative for about half the price.
Really good service from them too. Easy to use and just as accurate.
Dude, super impressive video! Nice work man👊
Thank you! I'm cringing at this one already though, so that means I'm making some progress! lol
I think it’s reasonably priced for the quality. I bought a ProSharp edge gauge, and it was out by a few thousandths of an inch, not good. I sent it back and complained. They said it was fine, it wasn’t, it disagreed with Blackstone and Sparx gauges at a local shop. That was £60 down the drain. I bought a cheap gauge from eBay, it’s ugly, looks cheap, but it works.
It definitely seems like the best one all these years later.
Nice review!
Thank you!
Coated steel is the way to go! Thanks for the video.
Agreed!!
Well explained
We just need to get you into a lifetime of hockey and you'll need one of these in no time!
@@SeenByYosh Let me learn first how to stand up straight with skates and then we talk about hockey lol
baby steps haha
@@SeenByYosh haha maybe I can be the keeper
Hi Josh,
I love the videos. Newbie question...If my edges are uneven and the Sparx is aligned perfectly, will the edges become even or do I have to adjust the alignment to sharpen one side more than the other side?
Thanks
In theory. In reality, your blades may be imperfect. One of my LS4s that came with my skates bent pretty badly almost immediately, a tragedy really 🥲I couldn’t get that straight, even adjusting back and forth for it. It was bad to the point where I’d have a high edge on one side depending on how I tried to compensate and I would catch it randomly. Figured it wasn’t worth going into the boards on it. Most slight curves or imperfections won’t be that bad, and I rarely adjust the alignment even doing many different skates… but that’s where it’s nice to have the checker. If you take a reading at the toe, mid, and heel and they’re all off in the same direction, you can adjust. Or I sharpened for someone who I could get all the way even except the very back left edge because of a slight warp. It was nice to know that - instead of realigning to try to make the back better (which would mess with the majority of the blade), it was better/safer just to hit most of the blade correctly
I really don’t want to do any sharpening with my runner in the holder of the skate anymore since I took it to my friends machine shop and found the holder causing my blade to be .020 bent but it’s good out of the holder . When I would have it cut 1/2 my right skate outer edge felt very hard to get any bite
Yeah that's not a good feeling when you're missing part of an edge. Hopefully it's been working ok outside the holder. It's a big bummer when they're bent so badly they need to be replaced!
there is only one adjustment on the sparx to bring the stone in or out laterally across the blade.... how does that allow you to adjust for edge height?
It can be tricky to visualize without a diagram. Because the grinding rings are curved, they create a hollow in the skate blade, removing more material (think deeper) in the very center of the blade than it does toward each edge. In a perfect world, the middle of the curve of the grinding ring is completely centered on skate blade (and you have steel in good condition without a bend). This will create edges or fangs of the same size/depth. If the stone is off center, either too far toward the front or back of the machine, either your inside or outside edge is going to have more material removed than it than the other.
As an example, facing the machine, if your right skate is on the sharpener, toe facing right, and the grinding ring is off center toward the front (closer to you in that lateral adjustment)... your outside edge will be smaller, resulting in a deeper inside edge, often leading to that sticky feeling, or an inside edge that catches.
If one edge is higher/lower than the other why can’t the machine level it out itself (assuming the alignment is perfectly straight), rather than having to click the grey knob 2-3 clicks?
My guess is that it, in theory, could. Using some type of electronic mechanism or laser or something. Keeping it mechanical and user-adjusted keeps cost/complexity way down. Also, if you have some bent steel it can be tough to get perfectly even edges if at all. So that's one scenario where you might want to be able to adjust skate to skate.
The Sparx is great but all things considered, it's fairly simple as far as tech devices go. I think in the future you will more likely see something like this: ideally you could tell it which set of steel you were sharpening through a mobile app and it would just remember (or better yet learn) the specific adjustments. And if the machine could hold three grinding rings at once and cycle through them automatically... then you really start to have a "set it and forget it" machine.
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It was super old but they still sell it: www.cheesesteaktees.com/hunting-season/
How would this be different than just ensuring the sharpener is aligned properly? I'm trying to decide if I should buy this edge checker...
It's certainly possible that others are more precise with the included calibration tool than I was, but I found that once I had the notch "centered" a few clicks to either side also seemed just as correct. Once you get to that best guess point with your eye, this is the only true way to measure how close you got. I would say it makes more sense to get if you are doing more than just your own skates too.
It's tough though because if you are feeling generally happy with your current results, you can obviously get two new rings for less money
Nice vid but I got a question were did u get it I don’t wanna get scammed for 100$
Do you mean what brand or what store? If someone is claiming to offer a new one for dramatically cheaper than retail I personally would avoid that as it would appear to be a scam.
@@SeenByYosh yeah
@@eggman8218 I would just make sure you're getting it from fulfilled by Sparx, whether that's through their site or their Amazon seller page. Those were the only places I saw it last time I looked.
use a quarter
A quarter can only tell you if they're "close" or "bad". That is probably fine if you're just checking to verify if a shop did you dirty with a very uneven sharpening. Whether it's this checker or another though, the lines help you dial in the machine.
Agree.. $130 is a rip-off!