Something weird happening to my landing edge blade?

[mikawendy]

I can't figure out what I'm doing to cause this, but the LBO edge of my skate (my landing foot) has had some weird stuff happening to it lately. About a month ago, I noticed that the last inch or so of the outside edge of the back end of the blade had been bent to the side. (So if I run my hand vertically from sole of boot to end of blade, I could feel the blade edge sticking out to the side.)

When I went for a boot fitting, I had my pro sharpen the blades to fix the problem, and that sorted it out for a while.

Now, I'm noticing the same thing, only this time, it's only about 1/4 or 3/8 of an inch that's bent to the side, at the very tail of the blade.

The first time I did it, I had just had a bad fall on the 8-step mohawk (I believe I may have stepped on my blade). This time, I can't figure out what it might be. I've been doing some lutz-loop combos recently where my weight is a little too much over my free leg. Could the blade problems be coming from wonky jump landings?

[luna_skater]

I've never heard of that happening before...what kind of blades do you have?

[mikawendy]

MK Pros.

I've had them for nearly 3.5 years (and there's getting to be less sharpening life in them). I have new skates and blades on order, so I'm lucky that this odd thing only just now started happening. Otherwise I have had no problems with these blades and have really liked skating on them.

[Casey]

Do you have a sharpener in your area who is competant with a blade straightener? I warped the landing blade too a couple times when I had MK Gold Stars...I dunno exactly what I did to do it, but when you land your jumps, are you coming down on the toepick first rather than the flat of the blade?

http://www.backstreetinline.com/page13/img18.gif

[Bill_S]

MK Pros.

I've had them for nearly 3.5 years (and there's getting to be less sharpening life in them).

I wonder if repeated sharpenings over time have reduced the amount of metal so much that they have become susceptible to bending? My Coronation Aces blades are about 5/8 inch thick about a half inch in from the end, and I've tried my best to bend them (not on purpose of course!)

I could see a blade with less than 1/2 inch thickness left being substantially weakened compared to a new one.

[doubletoe]

What a mystery! But it's good that you are replacing them. My blades only lasted 3-1/2 years before they had no sharpenings left so it's probably time for yours, too. What blades did you order?

[jazzpants]

WOW!!! What's with all these scary falls on the 8 step mohawks anyway!!! 8O

If you had your blades for 3.5 years and you've been consistently skating and sharpening your blades, chances are good that they're probably ready to be replaced now anyway... But just in case, did you go back to the skate sharpener guy to explain what was going on??? If so, what did he say?

This is scary... I have MK Pros and I've never had this happened. Then again, I never really had blades for more than 3 years...

[dbny]

WOW!!! What's with all these scary falls on the 8 step mohawks anyway!!! 8O

It's really easy to step on your blade doing the FO Mohawk. I've seen it happen enough to be seriously scared of this move every time I start to get some speed on it.

[Skate@Delaware]

It's really easy to step on your blade doing the FO Mohawk. I've seen it happen enough to be seriously scared of this move every time I start to get some speed on it.
I had the heel of one blade "stuck" in between the stanchions of my other blade..8O ..luckily, I was able to unstick them before I fell and only tripped. Of course, I looked stupid to the 10-15 others that saw me....but I didn't care. I was only afraid of going down with my feet stuck together! Stupid mohawks!!!

[phoenix]

It's really easy to step on your blade doing the FO Mohawk. I've seen it happen enough to be seriously scared of this move every time I start to get some speed on it.

Repeat after me: I luurrrrrve my short short dance blades!!! :mrgreen:

[mikawendy]

Thanks for all the ideas, everyone. I will mention it to my regular pro when I have my next sharpening (but I think I recall he said this can happen from time to time. I'll have to ask him more about how etc.).

The guy that I ordered my skates and blades from is farther away (and trained the person who trained the person who sharpens my skates now). I'll also mention it to him next time I see him. He does have a blade sharpener (my previous pair of skates had blades that had gotten bent because they had only a temporary mounting and I didn't know any better and no one told me at the time 8O).

I ordered the same blades (MK Pro) and the same boots (Jackson 2700), except this time I got a split width so my heels won't move and the toes won't need to be punched out so much. For what I'm working on right now, the MK Pros still seemed right.