Query
01-31-2009, 09:36 AM
Heated blades (for hockey)! Other possible improvements to blades and boots.
Figure skating is a very tradition minded sport. Boots and blades have been very slow to evolve.
I would love to see someone make boots and blades designed to meet modern capabilities. The result would be much lower weight, better performance, complete customization and perfect fit, leading to a completely comfortable fit, and fewer sores and injuries, perhaps while maintaining the traditional appearance that competitive skaters may be expected to maintain.
I've posted some ideas on these things here before. I'm trying again, with my latest variations, and will send the ideas on to manufacturing companies. Feel free to add your own.
BTW, I'm claiming no patent rights on any of the ideas here that are mine. I wish I were good enough at mechanical things to make blades and boots myself.
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A company called Thermablade is making electrically heated skate blades for hockey. They claim a small performance advantage, and one article cited 30 NHL players trying them out.
The blades are currently about $400 for replaceable blade + rechargeable battery + mount, but well within the price range of figure skaters.
It will be interesting to see if they try to move into the figure and speed skate blade business. I'm not sure how much of an advantage heated blades would offer to figure skaters of various disciplines. It's hard to guess.
There are other innovations in hockey blades and mounts that haven't come to the figure skating community, but should.
Although many figure skaters complain of cold feet, electrically heated boots and better insolated soles are still quite uncommon.
Hockey boots have much lighter weight mounts, and plastic side pieces that reinforce the blade. Replaceable blade runners that fit into a more permanent mount are very common in hockey and speed, but the only such blades made for figure skating (Ultima Matrix) have been discontinued.
Speed blade mounts are much easier to adjust position and alignment than figure mounts.
Because of the tradition element, it is clear improved figure blades would have to look pretty much like normal blades. E.g., the plastic side pieces containing the reinforcing or heating elements, and possibly the mounts, might be coated with metallic paint. Maybe the outside of the mount would also have to be shaped like a traditional mount and heel.
It would be really nice if they added in the ability to custom specify precise length, thickness, taper, honing, rocker, hollow, sweet spot position and amount, and toe pick shape and size, using a computer controlled laser cutter (at least one manufacturer already uses laser cutters), so skaters could get and experiment with replaceable runners that met their exact desires. Even nicer if the replaceable runners were cheap enough for skaters to experiment a lot, and they were removable using bolts instead of rivets, to better switch between skating disciplines.
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I'm certain the high degree of tradition has also adversely affected boots.
Except for the extreme low end, most skaters still use leather boots styled to look somewhat like western-style ballroom dance boots or formal riding boots. Even some of the low end plastic boots are polished (painted) to look like traditional leather boots. (Though high end boots now contain an inner core of plastic, foam, or clay [?] which enhances stiffness, and helps mold the leather.)
This while most high end hockey and speed boots have moved on to the modern composite materials (e.g., plastic resin reinforced carbon fiber) developed to support the high performance marine and aerospace sectors - which offer better weight/strength ratios, and more controllable stiffness properties. I.E., carbon fiber is not itself particularly stiff - you control stiffness by controlling thickness, # of layers, and the type of resin, as well as by weaving or interleaving carbon fiber with S-glass, fiberglass, kevlar, and foam. They can also be shaped more precisely than it has been possible to sew and shape leather.
So a composite material figure boot could have variant properties at different parts of the boot, allowing ankle flexing while retaining the desired lateral resistance, in a much lighter package. In addition, they could be molded to be an extremely precise fit to a skater's feet, while the molding of leather boots is strongly limited by the physical properties of leather.
I personally think the right way to make a boot would be to use an elastic balloon-like material on the inside and outside. They would add in the holes, and hooks or cleats, possibly place a few layers carbon fiber cloth between the two balloon layers, add the polish and a stretchable liner. Then you put the skater's foot into the boot to stretch it to its exact shape, and pour liquid resin inside to the desired thickness in each part of the boot, to control stiffness and heel height. All while holding the foot into proper configuration and weight, to control the amount of arch, pronation and supination. The result would be a near-perfect-snug-fitting extremely comfortable boot that could be much lighter than the leather alternatives. Unlike leather boots, which sometimes require repeated stretches and/or heat molding to maintain their shape, at least for people who require major boot stretches ("punches"), the result would be fairly stable. If a cast was used instead of the foot, a higher temperature meltable resin could be used, and the boot remolded (with more resin) as the skater's feet grew or the need for stiffness and heel height evolved, at least up to a point. The boots could come as a kit - you put your feet or a cast in, and add and mold the resin. You could hire a bootfitter or podiatrist to help, if desired.
Jam-cleats (i.e., plastic or metal pieces between which the laces are pulled and jammed into place) instead of normal lace holes and hooks would deal with the problem many kids and adults have lacing tightly, and provide short-term stiffness variation (e.g., less lateral resistance while ice dancing than while jumping).
----
So what do people think? Any other ideas?
Figure skating is a very tradition minded sport. Boots and blades have been very slow to evolve.
I would love to see someone make boots and blades designed to meet modern capabilities. The result would be much lower weight, better performance, complete customization and perfect fit, leading to a completely comfortable fit, and fewer sores and injuries, perhaps while maintaining the traditional appearance that competitive skaters may be expected to maintain.
I've posted some ideas on these things here before. I'm trying again, with my latest variations, and will send the ideas on to manufacturing companies. Feel free to add your own.
BTW, I'm claiming no patent rights on any of the ideas here that are mine. I wish I were good enough at mechanical things to make blades and boots myself.
---
A company called Thermablade is making electrically heated skate blades for hockey. They claim a small performance advantage, and one article cited 30 NHL players trying them out.
The blades are currently about $400 for replaceable blade + rechargeable battery + mount, but well within the price range of figure skaters.
It will be interesting to see if they try to move into the figure and speed skate blade business. I'm not sure how much of an advantage heated blades would offer to figure skaters of various disciplines. It's hard to guess.
There are other innovations in hockey blades and mounts that haven't come to the figure skating community, but should.
Although many figure skaters complain of cold feet, electrically heated boots and better insolated soles are still quite uncommon.
Hockey boots have much lighter weight mounts, and plastic side pieces that reinforce the blade. Replaceable blade runners that fit into a more permanent mount are very common in hockey and speed, but the only such blades made for figure skating (Ultima Matrix) have been discontinued.
Speed blade mounts are much easier to adjust position and alignment than figure mounts.
Because of the tradition element, it is clear improved figure blades would have to look pretty much like normal blades. E.g., the plastic side pieces containing the reinforcing or heating elements, and possibly the mounts, might be coated with metallic paint. Maybe the outside of the mount would also have to be shaped like a traditional mount and heel.
It would be really nice if they added in the ability to custom specify precise length, thickness, taper, honing, rocker, hollow, sweet spot position and amount, and toe pick shape and size, using a computer controlled laser cutter (at least one manufacturer already uses laser cutters), so skaters could get and experiment with replaceable runners that met their exact desires. Even nicer if the replaceable runners were cheap enough for skaters to experiment a lot, and they were removable using bolts instead of rivets, to better switch between skating disciplines.
---
I'm certain the high degree of tradition has also adversely affected boots.
Except for the extreme low end, most skaters still use leather boots styled to look somewhat like western-style ballroom dance boots or formal riding boots. Even some of the low end plastic boots are polished (painted) to look like traditional leather boots. (Though high end boots now contain an inner core of plastic, foam, or clay [?] which enhances stiffness, and helps mold the leather.)
This while most high end hockey and speed boots have moved on to the modern composite materials (e.g., plastic resin reinforced carbon fiber) developed to support the high performance marine and aerospace sectors - which offer better weight/strength ratios, and more controllable stiffness properties. I.E., carbon fiber is not itself particularly stiff - you control stiffness by controlling thickness, # of layers, and the type of resin, as well as by weaving or interleaving carbon fiber with S-glass, fiberglass, kevlar, and foam. They can also be shaped more precisely than it has been possible to sew and shape leather.
So a composite material figure boot could have variant properties at different parts of the boot, allowing ankle flexing while retaining the desired lateral resistance, in a much lighter package. In addition, they could be molded to be an extremely precise fit to a skater's feet, while the molding of leather boots is strongly limited by the physical properties of leather.
I personally think the right way to make a boot would be to use an elastic balloon-like material on the inside and outside. They would add in the holes, and hooks or cleats, possibly place a few layers carbon fiber cloth between the two balloon layers, add the polish and a stretchable liner. Then you put the skater's foot into the boot to stretch it to its exact shape, and pour liquid resin inside to the desired thickness in each part of the boot, to control stiffness and heel height. All while holding the foot into proper configuration and weight, to control the amount of arch, pronation and supination. The result would be a near-perfect-snug-fitting extremely comfortable boot that could be much lighter than the leather alternatives. Unlike leather boots, which sometimes require repeated stretches and/or heat molding to maintain their shape, at least for people who require major boot stretches ("punches"), the result would be fairly stable. If a cast was used instead of the foot, a higher temperature meltable resin could be used, and the boot remolded (with more resin) as the skater's feet grew or the need for stiffness and heel height evolved, at least up to a point. The boots could come as a kit - you put your feet or a cast in, and add and mold the resin. You could hire a bootfitter or podiatrist to help, if desired.
Jam-cleats (i.e., plastic or metal pieces between which the laces are pulled and jammed into place) instead of normal lace holes and hooks would deal with the problem many kids and adults have lacing tightly, and provide short-term stiffness variation (e.g., less lateral resistance while ice dancing than while jumping).
----
So what do people think? Any other ideas?