Hi everyone,

I recently got my blades sharpened at the same place I usually get them sharpened. In the past, I have always been satisfied with the sharpening, and it's a place where many skaters (some very high level) from my rink and the general area take their skates. I asked for the same radius of hollow as usual, etc etc.

When I got on the ice, I noticed right away that they felt different, particularly when entering a spin. It's been frustrating because I feel like I'm having to rework a lot of my timing as I go into them (the camel spin is particularly awful), and I pretty much rely on miracles for them to be centered.

I put up with it for about 2 weeks, but finally decided to give the blades a good examination (I'm the type who always blames my own skating first and then looks to see if there's possible equipment failure second). I noticed three things: 1) the hard metal is nearly gone on both skates from the first toepick to about 2" in (there's only about 0.5-1mm left) whereas the rest of the blade has a good 2-3mm left; 2) if I run my finger down the blade, I can actually feel a BUMP in the blade about 0.5" to 1" in from the first toepick; and 3) while I can't tell if I turn the boot upside down and look at the hollow from the heel of the blade, if I look at how much of the hard metal is left on the blade on either side of the blade, there is definitely less left on the inside part of the blade, right around the rocker. On both skates.

So before I panic...
Is this in any way a "Normal" way for a blade to age? They're Pattern 99s, two years old, and I get them sharpened about once every 4 months, or about once every 80-100 hours (I know, it's terrible).

OR, has someone completely messed up my blades?

It is highly possible that this has been developing over time and I just never noticed before. I don't have the world's most sensitive feet in terms of feeling the ice or my blades, and like I said before, this particular place where I bring my skates sharpens the blades of many high level skaters, and so they've definitely done many Pattern 99s before. Oh, I should add that there's nothing fancy about my blades--no parabolic, K-pick, or any of that. They're "plain old" Pattern 99s.

I absolutely can't afford new blades right now, but I'm coming up on the competitive season. Is there any way to salvage blades that have bumps and uneven sharpening?

Thanks.

If you've had your blades for just 2 years and only have them sharpened every 4 months, that would mean they've been sharpened 6 or 7 times, right? If that's true, they should have most of the hard metal (or is it called soft metal?) left. I've had my MK Pros for 2 1/2 years and get them sharpened about every 2-3 months, depending on how much I've skated, and I've got about 3 mm left on most of the blade - at the end near the toe pick, it's maybe 2 mm.

This happened to some people in my area who got their blades sharpened at a pro shop where the woman didn't really know how to sharpen. Sometimes she would do OK, other times, she would really mess up the blades by taking off all the sharpening metal at the front of the blades as you describe. The person you go to may be usually good, but he/she may have made a mistake in this case. Definitely take them back to where you got them sharpened and explain the problem. Having waited 2 weeks to report the problem complicates things, but if they are a reputable shop, they'll stand behind their work and make things right, like replacing the blades with new ones.