The Beer Leaguer
The podcast for the discerning beer league hockey player. We cover all things adult recreational hockey from folks that never played professionally, but just want to have fun and get a little better every game.
The Beer Leaguer
Long Term In-Depth Sparx Review Part 1
In this episode, part 1 of a 2 episode series, I give a quick explainer of the Sparx. How I've been using it since I got one. What I will and won't do on my Sparx. Some of the things I don't love about it, and my take and experience on the big debate of Sparx vs a manual sharpening.
Sparx sharpeners
http://thebeerleaguer.com
https://thebeerleaguer.buzzsprout.com
https://www.instagram.com/thebeerleaguer/
https://linktr.ee/beerleaguer
Music by RomaRecord1973 via Pixabay
And you've definitely heard about the sparx escape sharpener, promising professional little sharpening at home and an easy to use package. Throw in portability the ability to easily change out hollows, and it sounds almost too good to be true. But is it in this part one of a two part series? I tell you everything I've learned from owning a spa. The good, the bad, and the frustrating. In this episode, I talk about the good, the bad, and everything I've learned over the course of owning the sparx since they launched on Kickstarter. So to kind of give a quick explainer for those of you who don't know what a sparx says, or maybe you do and you don't know all the bits and pieces of it. Let's start there. What is the Sparx feature? That Sparx is a self-contained portable sketch. It's a sharpener, not every edger. A lot of people get those confused. Readers. Are those small handheld tools that you keep in your bag to just kind of do a little catch up on your skates in sharpening. And what those do is they don't really sharpen anything. They just kind of fold your the metal on your blades back in the shape. They're not meant to really cut any metal like a sharpener does. So they're really just for a little touch up or if you, you know, realize, hey, Miss Gates feel really bad and I can't run out before a game and get them sharpened. You can use one of those reader tools. The Sparx is an actual full on sharpener. It cuts steel and grinds it down and cuts steel. There have been three different generations of the sparx sharpeners since they came out in 2015 2016 via Kickstarter. Like I said, that's where I got mine directly from the Kickstarter. So I have kind of the oldest. You can get the Gen one. In that time they've also done pro and consumer models. They're not that different. They work exactly the same way, use the exact same hardware and same accessories and everything. But the big differences are the pro models have a larger, sturdier base because they're meant to just kind of sit in a pro shop or, you know, a hockey store or something like that and not really move anywhere there. They're not going any places. And also, the pro models have a way to attach vacuum to the base. That way you can get out of little metal shavings a lot easier, whereas the consumer models just have a filter in there because it's a consumer model, they don't expect you to sharpen nearly as many skates as the pro models do. All the sparx sharpeners, all generations use the same proprietary ring system for sharpening and the way those work as their little rings that every ring of a different hollow. And so when you interchange out hollows, you just change out rings and it sharpens to a different halo. They also have their own fire sharpening, which is the Sparx version of a flat bottom profile. So it's very similar to like the flat bottom V profile, just their version of it. So that gives you kind of the overview of what actually is a sparxs sharpener. So how do I use my sparxs? Like I said, I've had it since the Kickstarter, so I've had it for about eight years now. It's just a consumer model, not a pro model or anything. So just one you could go buy in a store or anybody can buy online with it. I've sharpened, obviously my own skates. I think I was adding up about 17 other people's skates that I've sharpened. There maybe a couple more in there. I think it's like 17 people and they're very sharp and people skates, especially if I'm sharpening them for the first couple of times. I always ask for feedback, make sure that what they think of them. Never had anybody say that they've gotten a bad sharpener. They don't feel right or something. Honestly, the only negative feedback I've gotten is I did have a couple people say that they felt too sharp, and I don't know if that's because of the hollow that I put on them. Maybe was different what they what they were getting. Because a lot of people, a lot of big leaguers, when they go get their skates sharpened, they don't see how they want. They just say whatever, you know, whatever the store does, which is usually like a half or a 5/8 kind of hands where you're going. So I might have done a different one for them because they didn't know. That's my assumption. But I consider to Sharp, it's not really been an issue. Now with Sparx, one of the things that you can adjusting should adjust is how many passes the sharpening wheel makes on a blade and generally they recommend something between four and six passes for a regular sharpening ten. Possibly if you're doing a brand new hollow on some steel or you have completely on sharpened steel, you know, fresh out of the package. Now, myself, when I sharp my own skates, I sharpen them every 2 to 3 games. So for me, that's every two ish hours of skating approximately. And I usually do two passes on there. And that seems to be great for most other people. When I do their skates, unless I see any issues with stuff I usually go for. And that seems to work out just fine. I also, when I'm sharpening blades, I never try to fix issues. If people have like big nicks or gouges in their blades, I tell them you got to take them to a person you know, I know that technically if you have a neck, I could sharpen the blade down past that neck, or if there's a gouge or something like that in it and take care of it. But one, I don't want to, you know, use up a ton of the sharpening we all for who knows how many passes that's going to take if it's not right on the edge. And also, I don't know that they necessarily take care of it. I think it would in my head that makes sense, but I don't know. So I do tell people, if you have something like that, I'm not going to sharpen them, take them to a person. Now I also other sharp things I've done for myself, for other people. We've never noticed any kind of change to profiles. That is something I know people mention with their sparxs is that they're worried that using a sparxs machine is going to change your profile. But it really shouldn't do that because the way it works, it's all off of spring tension. That's what holds the wheel against the blade as it's sharpening. And as long as you set it right at the height, right, that you're not, you know, really jamming into that steel, it should not change at all. It should actually change the profile less than a manual sharpening where you're counting on someone applying extremely even pressure as they go past the wheel. Every time before I sharpen a new set of steel on the sparxs and by new I mean change somebody else's steel or doing mine after doing someone else's, I always check for the wheel height and adjust it as needed. A lot of times it doesn't need adjusting, but I always check. Takes a couple of minutes. I also listen as I sharpen skates, at least on the first couple passes. I always make sure I listen. You can definitely hear a sound change if there's something wrong with the blade, even if it's minor, you can usually tell if somebody stepped on concrete or has a small neck in there or something like that. And if I hear a new noise while it's sharpening and it's not corrected in a pass or two, to me that's a stop. Take a look. Make sure everything's working correctly on the machine. Everything's set up right. And if it is and it's still making that noise, to me, that's a red flag of, Hey, hey, have somebody else look at these things. Not run it on the sparxs like that. I do also use a non Sparx's edge checker on anybody's blades but my own every single time I sharpen them, I do check mine pretty regularly, just not every time, but anybody else's skates that I do. I make sure to check it. It's pretty much always stays level. I have had to adjust that a couple of times over the years, but by a couple times I mean three or four times over the years. It's never that out of level. I also don't move my sparxs around. It stays in one spot. I'm sure if I start traveling with it, I would like to take it to places. Then I will do a adjustment check and, you know, still be checking for level every time I sharpen because I'm sure jostling around, that's going to get a little bit out of a line in that time. Half out a few fiddly bits while working with the sparxs. It is a little fiddly to adjust the alignment on a genuine machine. It involves using a special grinding wheel that's not really a grinding wheel, but it's a wheel and it's got a line all the way around it and a magnifying glass device that sits where you clamp on the blade. You hit a button on the machine, it pulls that wheel in right next to the magnifying device, and then there is a plastic knob on the carriage that holds the sharpening wheel that you have to adjust kind of back and forth. You have to look directly over the machine, not in an angle, but directly down on it and kind of visually line up a like a little V notch and then a line. So not the easiest thing. I mean, it's not difficult to do, but it is very silly to check that. And I know people have put out what their guesstimates are of if you do use an edge checker, how out of a line your edges are with how many clicks one way or another you should have to adjust that wheel. It's a rough guideline. I've tried that. It is not perfect, but it kind of gives you sort of an idea. So not great. But like I said, I don't have to adjust it very often. And that to me, that's the fiddly bit of dealing with the Gen one. Now the Gen two and Gen three machines, they have an adjustment tool. Instead of having that thumb screw that to me looks like a screwdriver that you use for changing your, your alignment. And I think Sparx is heard that this is a fiddly bit and kind of a pain for people. So that's why they came out with their new beam edge checker. And what that does is it drops on top of a blade much way. These also kind of edge checkers would and it uses a laser beam to check for level and then works with an app on your phone to tell you how many turns you have to turn your carriage and stuff back and forth with your adjustment tool to get it level. It tells you that. So you're not doing what I'm doing in my Gen one machine, which is visually tracking. And then really I have to run a blade through there and then check it. So it's kind of saving all that and doing it with the smarts of the app. I haven't used it having used a Jen tour answering machine, having used to be an edge checker. Seems like a cool idea though, and if it gets rid of that manual process, that's awesome. I will also say along with that, just to throw out there for things that are on the newer machines that I have nothing to do with and I don't have an experience with is like I said, they have an app that works with that beam edge checker. The app also handles QR codes. They have QR code stickers. They can put on skates. So that way you can keep track of who gets kind of what sharpening and stuff, which handy if you're shopping, a lot of people skates. I guess if you're kind of, you know, sharpening your whole team skates or you and your kids and your kids buddies or something like that skates handy. I use a spreadsheet to handle all this stuff and look at it. And also pretty much everybody I know uses the generic hollows, so it's not that big of a deal. Now changing the rings super easy. So if you have to change Hollows, it's really easy there. Again, just a thumb screw that you pop on and off. Never have an issue with it. They're just really easy to do. The only thing I've ever run into, and this isn't even an issue I don't think, is if you sharpen a lot of skates, like back to back to back to back to back then one, the ring gets super hot. So if you have to change it, it's super hot. You don't want to touch it. And two, it can stick to the carriage. So that's, that's been the only thing I've seen. But you have to sharpen a lot of skates in a row. Have that be a thing or I guess if you did a ton of passes on a couple skates. So like I was saying earlier, how I don't like to try and fix incorrect issues like huge nicks or gouges and steel if you are trying to correct stuff like that. And you had to do, you know, 15, 20 passes, it probably would get super hot like that too, and stick it again, not a big deal. You know, wait a couple of minutes, cools down, pops right off. But that's that is fiddly as that gets it's super easy. I mean generally changing one of the wheels for me is is going to take 30 seconds to do it's a super, super quick process. Now I see a lot of hate for Sparx's machines online a lot of times, and I totally get it. I agree with people that it does not replace a good manual sharpening. I say good manual sharpening not it doesn't replace any manual sharpening, but good manual sharp brings a trained equipment guy, does a whole lot more than just sharpen a skate. They check the steel, check the skate check rivets give advice on hollows, tell you if certain things are breaking down, you know, Hey, your tendon guard is starting to crack. You're going to need a new tongue, anything like that. You know, they're going to do a whole bunch of other stuff besides just give you a good sharpening. Obviously, Sparx is doing that. It's not checking any of those things. And if you're only going to somebody that has a sparxs and they're not looking at your skate for anything, you're losing out on all of that knowledge, all of that info that you could be getting. So that is that is something you definitely lose. Having a sparxs for is going to a good equipment person that knows how to do a good sharpening. So like I said previously, I'm not comfortable using the sparxs to correct any big issues with steel either. Anyone can get a sparxs and you have a lot of people that are using them and not paying attention to how they use them. They don't do hijacks, they don't check edge level, they don't listen to how this stuff gets sharpened. Nothing. They just drop an escape, hit the big go button, walk away. The problem with that is a lot of stores are starting to use sparxs only for sharpening. So like they don't have a way to do manual sharpening. We just had a hockey store open up near me. It's great we have a hockey store here now. They only have sparxs machines. They don't have anything else to sharpen. Skates with. And I've seen a lot of stores get away from having these machines because it takes time and expertise to learn how to use like a stand up, like a soda machine to to do that at all. Like you have to some of that knows what they're doing. And I've been turned away from like I played against sports to get my skates sharpened there back in the day because they're like, the one guy that knows how to use the sharpener. He's not here today. You know, that it alleviates from a store point, alleviates that problem completely because everybody should know how to drop a skate and hit the play button. But unfortunately, that's all they teach people to do. So that's what a lot of people do. So then you get a lot of people see the sparxs being used and there's no care for anything. There's no couple minute looking stuff over before they sharpen in a couple of minutes, checking stuff afterwards and you get you get a crap sharpening. I mean, it's really easy to to do that, but has nothing to do with the sparxs and then people blame it on the sparxs has nothing to do with that. You know, you have people that wouldn't have been allowed to do skate sharpening, you know, a year ago or whatever before they got sparxs. And now they have a sparxs. They go, Yeah, sure, anybody can do it. You know, day one, you can drop a skate on there and do it. Who cares? I think that's the biggest issue people have is a lot of these stores, especially and I don't know about regular consumers having sparxs machines because I haven't talked to anybody else that has one. But a lot of these stores, they get no, they don't get any training on sparxs. You know, if you're doing the regular stand up machine, you have a whole bunch of training and you try trial and error a bunch of times and you know, you're going through a bunch of iterations to make sure you know how to sharpen skates before you sharpen a customer's skates. Whereas now I think they show you once, probably the first skate that comes in for the day they show you and now there's nothing to it, you know, So you get a crap sharpening out of it because it is totally possible to get a crap sharpening out of a sparxs. So I think that's where a lot of this hate comes from, not from the sparxs, but from what it has, how lazy it is allowed places to get because they have them now. Thanks for checking out part one of this super detailed sparxs review. Please come on back for part two and as always, any likes, reviews and especially subscriptions are appreciated. See all the next one.
