What hollow should i sharpen my skates to

How Skate Sharpening Works. Unlike most other knife-like objects with a single sharp edge, skate blades have two sharp edges that are connected by a hollowed-out region in between. This hollowed-out region is created by passing the skate blade along a grinding wheel.

In turn, the size of the hollow on your skate blade will affect how the skate feels and performs on the ice. Different Types of Skate Sharpening Hollows. The flatter cut allows for less energy to be lost into the ice, allowing for more glide and a greater top speed. This type of sharpening will slightly diminish the ability to make quick, sharp turns and quickly accelerate. Deeper hollows will put more pressure on the edges of the blade and dig into the ice more. Shallow hollows will do the opposite.

They distribute pressure more evenly throughout the blade, causing them to sit more on top of the ice. Other ways to customize your skate blades exist as well eg. So the next time you go get your hockey skates sharpened, maybe try a new hollow depending on the criteria above and find what works best for you!

Again, please note that the figures shown above are NOT to scale. The hollow on the bottom of your blade is actually much less pronounced. To give you a reference, here is a to-scale figure to show you what the radii actually look like. A smaller radius will give you more bite into the ice for tighter turns and quicker acceleration, but at the same time because your edges are digging deeper into the ice which causes greater friction, your glide and speed will suffer Also a more pronounced radius will be more fragile and less durable.

The main variable to consider when first picking a radius to try is weight. As a general rule, the heavier the skater, the larger the radius needed. An extremely light skater can tolerate a very small radius producing a deep hollow with lots of edge because they do not have much weight to bear on the ice.

A heavy skater trying to skate on a small radius too much edge will bite into the ice so hard that they will have trouble stopping without chatter or going over the top of their skates. Another disadvantage is they will also lose glide to excess friction and be working harder to skate full speed.