Rusty Blades and Gummi Stones

When I first got a dog, every time she got an upset tummy, I rushed her to the vet. After the third visit in a month, my vet told me, "I'm happy to take your money, but trust me, dogs puke at the drop of a hat."

And that is an excellent metaphor for rust formation on upper level blades.  It's going to be part of your life, like it or not. You need learn to prevent both situations with careful daily attention.

When this hits the ground a dog will hurl and a blade will rust

The first time I saw the leprous brown spots on my MK Pro edges, I showed them to a coach, "Is this rust?" I asked, "My Mirages never rusted."

The coach made a rude noise, "That's because they were made of aluminum." Which was a sarcastic way of making fun of the Mirages. Sturdy and forgiving of bad treatment they may have been, they were not top quality blades.

I won't bother you with the chemistry of rust formation on steel--let's just summarize with the statement, some blades rust really fast (in 10 minutes), and aren't forgiving of rough treatment, or an open glass of water in the same room.

Taking tips from the coach, I developed a way of reducing the occurrence of rust on my blades.
1. I do not use hard guards unless for some reason I have to walk across a non-matted area. The coach had me look in my guards, and they are nasty. Even A FEW minutes wear can lead to rust.
2. Instead, I use the TerryTuff blade soakers with the ribbon on the bottom, when I'm walking on rubber matting.
3. I take a blade rag to rinkside and use it to wipe down my blades rather than use the soakers to do it. This keeps the soakers less damp.
4.  When I get to where I'm putting the boots in the bag, I dry them down again, with a different dry blade rag.
5. I store the boots for transport with a separate set of soakers than the ones I walk around in, so these soakers are always dry, and haven't been tramped around in on the wet rink floor.
6. When I get home I take the boots out and store them with the blades exposed so they dry out.

If rust does develop, and this may be inevitable, the coach showed my how to use a hard Gummi Stone (hard). Effectively, this is a diamond rosin embedded in a stiff rubber core. It only looks like a stone. Its purpose is to polish out the rust. It doesn't appear to be hard enough to take an edge off, so it's not like a sharpening stone. A couple of minutes of elbow grease and the rust is gone from your blades without disturbing your sharpening. You can find gummi stones online and in some ski shops.

Gummi Stone (hard)--it doesn't look like much

I've read of people who rub petroleum jelly, or WD-40 or Rustoleum on their blades. I'm not ready to take that step.

But how did I solve the dog problem? My dog was gulping her food down too fast, so I put a tennis ball in her bowl to slow down her eating. Problem solved!

Solving both problems just requires persistent daily attention! You can't let up for a minute.

Merry Christmas to Your Skater

I'm taking a one day pause in the skating protection series (Hips tomorrow) to talk about what to get your favorite  skater for Christmas while you have time to shop. First off, I'm not suggesting the usual things, I'm going for the new and unique.

Gloves, Soakers, and Blade Rags


How cheap are you? Did you think you could get away with buying some gloves from the Dollar Store? Not a very good gift are they? Same for blade rags and soakers. But what if you get them all in matching colors!  Maybe in your skater's favorite color! Not very expensive, and may take some work to pull together since you have to look for each piece individually, but it's a nice little touch.  I mate my freestyle boots with a yellow set, the dance boots in blue.


Blade Guards

No, not those cheap blade guards that everyone uses, there's special stuff out there now. Two companies have come up with blade guards that are drool worthy.

Kootsu has an extra wide non-slip sole. Requires a hacksaw to put together. Perfect for those times I leave the iPod in the car!

Kootsu

Rockerz makes custom blade guards (many colors!).  Requires you know the model and the size of your skater's blades. You can order the blades in any color combination you want here! Ooh, I could match them to my yellow and blue skating stuff!

Rockerz

Other Stuff

Don't want to buy them anything too personal? Why not buy them a public skate card or a few freestyle sessions. I got two sessions one year from friends. Good times.

Small video camera for the rink so they don't have to worry about their expensive smartphone getting broken or stolen. 

Skating Protection!  Read my posts for some ideas.

Gift certificate to their favorite skating clothing website. If your skater is a guy, Blue Skies is still making custom men's skating slacks. 

Touch screen sensitive gloves for those skaters who insist on having their smart phones with them at all times. Or if you can sew and want to modify a favorite pair of gloves you can modify them to be touch screen sensitive with some special thread.

So, those are my best skating gift ideas for this year. I hope you and your family have a wonderful holiday!