How to sharpen skates at home: the features of the process

Ice skating is the most popular sport, in which not only skill, but also equipment is important. That is, skates should not only be comfortable and firmly sit on their feet. Their blades must be sharp enough. In the article you will learn how to sharpen skates at home.

Why do I need to do this procedure?

In order for you to be free to skate on ice, special attention should be paid to the blades. A lot depends on the correctness of the grinding procedure: how you will gain acceleration, whether you will be able to brake in time, how well the complex elements of the program will be performed.

Proper sharpening of the blades makes it possible to maintain maximum stability on ice. Producing the procedure is necessary when the speed of skating is lost, you can not quickly slow down or during the ride you feel slippage. Also, before you sharpen your skates at home, look at the surface of the blades: are there any scratches, burrs or other damage. In addition, the important point is the groove. Thanks to him, stability, maneuverability, skating inclination during turning are controlled. On new blades, the groove may not be, so sharpening is an obligatory procedure, which must be repeated periodically.

What tools are needed to work?

To begin with, you must collect all necessary equipment. Before you sharpen your skates at home, prepare these tools:

- grinding machine with abrasive wheel;

- Vise or other tools that can fix the blade at the required angle;

- fine-grained grindstone;

- Sandpaper;

- Round file.

During the selection of tools, it should be noted that the hardness of the metal from which the file or bar is made should be much higher than the hardness of the alloy from which the blades are made.

Features of sharpening skates without grooves

In principle, this method does not require special efforts, since it is the simplest.

The main principle of this method is to sharpen the sole of the blade at right angles to its side walls. To work in this case, either sandpaper or a file is used. Moreover, the second tool is preferable, because it must be harder than the alloy from which the blades are made. However, with a file you will have to spend more time.

How to properly process skates if they have a groove?

Here already it is necessary to work a little. And the accuracy of sharpening should be very high, otherwise you can just damage the blades. For work, you will need sandpaper and a file of circular cross-section. Before you sharpen your skates at home using these tools, inspect them. If you need to deepen the groove or do it, use sandpaper.

Next comes the file, the diameter of which should not exceed 10 mm. With this tool, try to maximize the correct form of the trough. Simultaneously, you will process the edges. Note that the depth of the groove should not exceed 0.6 mm. As for sharpening the edges of the blade, the correctness of the procedure should be checked periodically. To do this, you need to put skates on a very flat surface. If the work is done accurately, then the blades will stand strictly perpendicular.

Lastly, for metal, you should go through a fine-grained bar, which should finally eliminate all burrs and other defects from the surface. Here you also know how to sharpen skates with the help of simple instruments. Now you need to understand how to perform this procedure with the help of special equipment.

How to make the right sharpening of skates with the help of a machine?

In order for the process to be as simple and fast as possible, you should use special equipment. Before you sharpen the skates at home, buy a special machine, in which you have to remove the horizontal stop, because it will only interfere. It is best if the unit is equipped with a vertical guide, which should be fixed at a distance of 2 cm from the edge of the disk.

Naturally, you can immediately buy a machine that is ideal for sharpening skates. Otherwise, you will have to rework your phone a bit. Now proceed, in fact, to sharpening. To do this, the heel end of the ridge must be placed down to the guide. Now the blade should be pressed a little to the rotating disc at the right angle. Then you must slowly drive the horse down. Try not to strongly press the hobby to the abrasive wheel, as you can easily burn it.

All actions should be carefully performed: wear protective goggles and overalls, wear gloves. Keep the horse tight so that it does not fly out of your hands. Note that the circle should rotate in the direction away from itself, otherwise the sparks will fly straight into your eyes! After using the machine, you will have to work a little manually: with an abrasive stone, walk along the blade to remove any burrs or scratches from the surface of the metal. Now you know how to sharpen skates. Good luck!