SkateScience blades

djkaye said:

I have not used them, but heard about them. John Wilson blades are superior in my opinion, I may be wrong but they have been the most used blades for decades and most of the top skaters use them. I’d be interested to see if anybody here has used them

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bunnybarista said:

I just heard about SkateScience blades today - sounds like they've been around for a few years (2013-ish?) and are claiming to revolutionize blades, yada, yada... I'm curious if anyone on here has used them?

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Ic3Rabbit said:

I can only tell you about their dance blades. I previously wore an MK dance, but a friend of mine who wears them got me interested. I'm now wearing them on my dance boots and I'm in LOVE! They take a little getting used to if one is coming off wearing an MK dance like myself, but they lend themselves to deep edges (which are my thing lol) and are wonderful and smooth for twizzles.

If there's anything else you'd like to know you can come to my inbox and I'll try to answer for you. I can't say too much about their synchro or freestyle blades as I've never worn them.

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bunnybarista said:

I'm taking them for a spin (pun intended) tonight! I've never skated in a dance blade before at all, so this will be interesting - bracing myself to feel off-balance due to the short heel. And the stanchions are so high on these! Too bad my edges aren't deep enough to actually benefit from that yet haha.

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tstop4me said:

If you are planning to purchase the blades (or already have), I'd recommend that you inspect the braze joints (between the stanchions and the sole and heel plates) carefully. I saw Skate Science blades on display at a local pro shop in late 2014. I think they had three models on display. What caught my eye was that the braze joints on all the display units were spotty and irregular (with gaps), instead of smooth and uniform continuous beads. Maybe they were flukes, or indicative of early production problems; but I was surprised. I hope current units don't have that problem; but it would be wise to check.

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djkaye said:

Sounds worrying but maybe they have ironed out the problem. Be careful and ask an expert to check them if anybody purchases them.

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tstop4me said:

If you are planning to purchase the blades (or already have), I'd recommend that you inspect the braze joints (between the stanchions and the sole and heel plates) carefully. I saw Skate Science blades on display at a local pro shop in late 2014. I think they had three models on display. What caught my eye was that the braze joints on all the display units were spotty and irregular (with gaps), instead of smooth and uniform continuous beads. Maybe they were flukes, or indicative of early production problems; but I was surprised. I hope current units don't have that problem; but it would be wise to check.

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bunnybarista said:

So, I have to say that I ADORE these blades! Having never skated in a dance blade at all, I can't identify if I just like dance blades in general or if there's something especially lovely about these SkateScience ones. I was worried that I'd feel like falling backwards due to the shorter heel, but I've felt surprisingly stable. I've done a lot of three-turns and mohawks in them, as well as upright and back spin, an exploratory waltz jump, and part of the Ten-Fox in them. They turn so easily, and they feel really stable and nice while spinning. However, it does concern me that they are from a company that seems almost unknown.

Ic3Rabbit, maybe you have some insight to address my fears... since there isn't a bevel on these, how would I know how many sharpenings are left in them? And similarly, how does a sharpener know how to maintain the correct profile? Do they require any special sharpening equipment? I haven't talked to my sharpener yet but I'm foreseeing that he won't have seen any SkateScience blades yet. On another note, I'm sure you've tried many different dance blades over the years - I know you mentioned the MK Dance at least. Are there any other dance blades that are comparable / that you might recommend if I wanted to go for a more widely accepted dance blade? (I enjoy the larger toepick on these, so maybe I should even think about a synchro blade - decent toepick plus short heel.)

Thanks in advance!

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bunnybarista said:

I believe the ones I'm trying out were purchased in 2018. They definitely look a bit weird around the joints - not the smooth soldering that I'm used to from John Wilson - but I don't think there are any gaps. Let me see if I can link to a picture of mine. Sorry for the huge files, they're uploaded on Facebook.

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Ic3Rabbit said:

I can only tell you about their dance blades. I previously wore an MK dance, but a friend of mine who wears them got me interested. I'm now wearing them on my dance boots and I'm in LOVE!

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tstop4me said:

From what I can see on the pix, there doesn't appear to be any gaps in the braze joints shown. So that's good news. To be fair, you can't compare the cosmetics with that of Wilson blades. The Wilson blades are fabricated from plain carbon steel and then chrome plated. I have skated on several pairs of Coronation Ace, and it appears that the chrome plate is applied over the braze as well. During the chrome plating process, a plating of nickel is usually first deposited to smooth out surface irregularities, and then the chrome is deposited over the nickel. So the plating process tends to hide any surface imperfections.

The Skate Science blades are fabricated from polished stainless steel; no chrome plating to hide surface imperfections. But I have skated on Eclipse Aurora blades, also fabricated from polished stainless steel with no chrome plating. The braze joints on the Auroras look more uniform cosmetically than those shown in your pix.

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bunnybarista said:

I have yet to ask my sharpener if he has any experience with SkateScience blades. I am still unsure if they require any special knowledge or equipment, especially as they don't have a bevel the way other brands do to indicate blade life.

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tstop4me said:

It's strange that Skate Science doesn't have any indicator of the hardened and tempered zone. On the Eclipse Aurora, there is a laser-scribed line (Eclipse calls it a "simulated chrome relief") running down the length of the blade that demarcates the hardened and tempered zone and indicates the design profile. With a new Skate Science blade, you could track how much material has been ground away [and ask Skate Science what the maximum depth that can be removed is]. With a used blade, you would have to approach it the other way around: measure the total depth of the blade at several places [and ask Skate Science what the minimum total depth is]. But as I wrote in a previous post, for intermediate and advanced freestyle blades, service life will be determined by when the spin rocker becomes too flat (and that is reached before the hardened and tempered zone is exhausted). I don't know whether that's true of dance blades.

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tstop4me said:

OP: A friend of mine just happens to need new dance blades. Do the SkateScience blades have the thinline/slimline blade profile (blade thickness near the edge is less than the blade thickness of the blade body), or is the blade thickness uniform? If you have a micrometer or caliper, could you tell me what the blade thickness (or thicknesses) is? Thanks.

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Bill S said:

I'm curious about the blade thickness and configuration too.

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