Flustercluck Will Tune You Up

A few couple things have popped up since I mounted these plates and let people skate them. Nothing major, but interesting.

In or around the middle of 2014 I mounted them up on boots for a skater I coach by the name of AnNa Molly. She was jamming mostly. They were still sporting the modified cushions I installed a while ago:

She liked the action, but when she got tired she had trouble controlling them. So I put the light blue ones in. For 2 laps. She hated them. Too stiff. Modified ones went back in. She was on them for about 5 months and played several games in them. 

Then I decided Molly Hatchet (an awesome junior derby skater) would get them next. So the junior Molly came over and we swapped the Falcon F-16′s for the Arius plates. Molly Hatchet is 15 and weighs about 125lbs.  Molly could not control these plates. I procured a set of the Lavender (77A) cushions and swapped them in during a practice.

This is why the skates were so uncontrollable. Now, my guess is that with the extra movement available with the modification, the urethane just couldn’t handle the flexing. I haven’t heard of unmodified cushions doing this. 

Correction: After this blog was posted I was contacted by a skater from the UK I played with in November he told me of two skaters he knew who had unmodified cushions fail in the same manner.

The new cushions were a PITA to get into the plates. They seemed slightly oversize and the casting flash on them was really ugly. A few laps later and they were working great for young Molly. 

Then I noticed a loose toe stop. No problem, I’ll snug it up.

Oh no. This is bad design. The broached hex drive came super close to the shoulder on the head. you can see where it failed.

Flush mounting uses the same T-nuts I use in most of my skate builds, but instead of a button head screw I use a flat head and counter sink it flush with the surface of the plate. It involves a bit more work as a suitable countersink must be located and you need to be careful while cutting so you end up with the right depth of cut. 

At the time, these were the most customized skates I had built. Toe box, three different colours, heel snug, custom strap. Bad Ass. All on a size 1 Avenger. 

Yeah. I decided to wait until these were actually getting released. They are cool, and I'm glad they did this.

NEW ANTIK BOOTS.

I was excited when I saw these at the Antik booth at Rollercon 2014. First thing i noticed was that they are now lace to toe.

I simply could not wear Antiks because of the really pointed toe box they had. 15 minutes of skating and my feet were agony. Lace to toe allows the lacing to be adjusted for people with feet not shaped to points.

But wait, there's more!

Less heel rise. Sweet. I like a low heel. Oh, they managed to keep the toe protector piece on there too. Nice.

Dropped back cuff for less restricted movement. Revised tongue design for same. Looks like no more of that foam that would tear off all the time on the tongue either. Nice. 

A look at the bottom shows a totally different forefoot shape. One that will fit your foot without squishing your toes together.

I tried these on and I can say I found them very comfortable. A complete 180 from the original Antiks. They are also lighter. Which is a thing that I care about quite a bit. The old AR-1 is almost exactly twice the weight of the same size Bont.

Occasionally I get asked to put together skates with soccer shoes. I like when this happens. The process is longer, but in the end, you have a totally unique pair of skates. Soccer shoes are exceptionally light. The leather used on some of them is very soft and flexible. This equals comfort. Eventually I'll put a pair of soccer shoe skates together for myself, but I'm waiting to find a pair on ultra mega sale. 

Here's the pair I put together for Ziggy Sticks. The boots are Nike Tiempo Legend IV in black and electric green.

First I cut the cleats off rough. I have used a utility knife, a hacksaw and a fine tooth wood saw. Doesn't matter what you use, as long as you get them cut off. I then use a belt sander to get the cleats all flat and level. I make sure that both shoes sit straight and true. I don't want one foot tilted to the inside or outside.

All sanded even. Notice the cleats at the front are longer. Many soccer shoes have an upturn at the toe. If you don't leave the front cleats longer, the shoe will deform when you attach it to the plate and you end up with pinched toes.

All mounted up. Sure-Grip Avengers.

...and here is the message I received in my inbox after she skated them:

I can't begin to explain how much I love my new skates! They are fantastic & super agile. I have not adjusted my trucks at all, I love how much more I can move. You are magical good sir. Magical.

More grip in the corners can be accomplished by a few different ways. The simplest way is by swapping out the rock hard cushions that came with your skates to a set of softer ones. They will allow your trucks to swing more freely and keep your wheels on the floor longer.

Here is a link to my cushion swap video:

When I was at Mens World Cup in Birmingham Earlier this year, I noticed that some of the Team USA skaters were sporting new skates. Some USA themed Antiks and some USA themed..uh..what are those? Turns out they were made by Roller Derby Elite. This is the top of the line offering from Roller Derby Skate Co. I know little to nothing about this company. I do know that Tony Muse of Team USA and Your Mom Men's Roller Derby wears them and he's really good. He was manning the Roller Derby Elite booth at Rollercon 2014 when I was there. I had a chance to skate with him during a challenge bout and he is a really nice guy.

Anyway, I recently had the opportunity to skate a pair of the Stomp Factor One boots mounted to some Octane 7000 Pro plates. This is the top of the line package offered by Roller Derby Elite.

I started out with an inspection of the skates. They had been skated on once, and as far as I knew were straight out of the box.

Fairly typical all the way at the back plate mount. Also, check out how long they left that rear mounting bolt. Sloppy.

So, two of the lockscrews tightened like crazy into the kingpin and one that is falling out. 

Huh? This kingpin seems to be missing the slots. This means that lockscrew does nothing and the adjuster nut can fall off. Also worth noting is the adjuster nuts were not tumbled or dressed at all and are sharp enough you can cut yourself. Upon closer inspection, it seems that the two "overtightened" lockscrews are actually just demonstrating the improperly machined kingpin. The counterbore appears to be oversized, allowing the lockscrews to thread in much too far. So these out of the box skates need 3 new kingpins. Hmm. It could be the lockscrews are the wrong diameter at the big end also. I don't know if I'll double check.

Nope. definitely kingpin.

First impression? Not great. I'm a stickler for details.  I just really like properly machined and assembled things. 

The plate itself is quite nice. The literature I found claims the plates are machined from 7075 aluminum. Pretty strong stuff. Finish on the plates is really nice.

On to the boots. They seem to be well constructed.The laces, like most laces that come with skates, are not the best quality. Multilayer leather sole, stitched on. Toe guard built in. Cool. Velcro strap right where you would need it. Aesthetically pleasing? I really do not care for how these boots look. More importantly, are they comfortable? Heck yes. They fit my feet quite well. No rubbing did I notice and no cramped toes.

I did wear these for a practice. Uh, well I wore them for 10 minutes of a practice. Due to the back mounted plate, I felt like I was skating straight up with all my weight on my heels. With the front axle directly under the ball of my foot, any pressure on the balls of my feet would cause the front trucks to turn. Very unsettling.

As anyone who regularly reads this blog knows, I am a proponent of forward mounted plates. Mine are more forward than most. I will not go back to a "standard" mounted plate.

The Revenge is a terrible plate. I covered why I think this way in an earlier blog post. The Rival is a much stronger plate but it suffers from the same pivot issue that the Revenge does. This means the pivot cups wear out super fast, and your plates don't do what you want them to. This is what the destroyed pivot cups look like:

You see the harder plastic insert has been pushed out the bottom of the rubber portion. To reiterate what I have stated earlier, this is due to a too tall upper cushion which doesn't allow the pivot to bottom out in the cup. This means the pivot bashes the bottom of the cup every time you put your skate down after taking a stride. The reason the cup fails is because the pivot cup boss, which is the machined pocket the cup fits into, is not machined to the same shape as the bottom of the pivot cup. There is a void under it.

It's not really clear is this picture, but the boss appears to be cut with a fairly standard twist bit. These bits are sharpened to be about 118deg. The bottom of the new pivot cup is pretty darn flat.

Anyway, here's how I fix this issue:

Old cups out, new cups ready. 5 minute epoxy standing by. 

The next bit went by quick. I smeared a bit of grease onto the new cups so the epoxy wouldn't stick to them. I then mixed up the epoxy and put a dollop into each pivot cup boss on one set of plates. I didn't get pictures as I didn't want to waste any epoxy set up time. I then assembled the plates. I put the trucks on and tightened them down to where they were (approximately) when I disassembled them. This puts the pivot cup where it needs to be to function properly.

The manufacturer put this convenient hole at the bottom of the pivot cup boss. The excess epoxy can be seen coming out of it. I wiped this off.

All clean

Ready to go back on the boots

I have been rolling Snyder Advantage plates for almost 3 years. They are a figure plate. First thing I did was swap out the rubber cushions for urethane ones. I started with Sure Grip Supers. Red barrels and cones. I was a new skater and I didn't have strong ankle muscles yet. Eventually I ended up putting in softer and softer compounds until I settled on Yellows. Finger tight. A small modification was required for them to fit nicely. A small chamfer on the top or the bore.

No big deal. These cushions are inexpensive as well. $10 locally. Unfortunately, they don't last very long. 

That's after a month of skating. I skate three practices a week. Sometimes four. Note the difference in bore size. Also note that the inner bore is all chewed up from the kingpin threads. The cushions fell off the kingpin. 

I started wondering if there were different options. I thought about trying the Powerdyne brand. They are more expensive, but maybe they would last longer?

Enter "Armadillo". Armadillo, or Richard, is a regular contributor to Skatelog Forum, a regular hangout for guys like me. Armadillo is regularly referred to as a "weight weenie" as he is always trying to build light skate setups. He does some neat and weird stuff with skates. I had heard that he had found some really great cushions and he was able to machine them to fit different skates, so I thought I would drop him a line.

After a series of questions and some measurements I made arrangements to send him a spare plate and kingpin so he could make up the cushions. After a couple weeks I received a package. 

8 cushion machined to fit my plates and some plastic spacers, which I never needed. The machining quality was good, but one of the cushions was smaller than the others. This turned out to be a non issue.

Before:

After:

No bottom retainer and a flipped over adjuster nut.

So how do they skate? Really well. Richard claims that these cushions, although softer than the SG yellows I'm used to, will provide more rebound. This equates to more traction with the same wheels. How? The cushions want to return to their normal shape, which means the trucks want to be parallel to the floor, which means more pressure on your inside wheels. This was noticed immediately as I ended up sticking when I expected to slide. Unnerving at first but beneficial. I like sticking to the track. As a jammer, I am usually wanting for traction. I also needed to tighten my adjustments, which makes sense if these cushions are softer than what I'm used to. I've rolled them for about 3 months with no need to make adjustments. That's pretty cool. I skated many practices and 11 games so far on them, as well as many challenge games at Rollercon. I like these cushions.

So, how do they look after a bunch of abuse?

Brand new special cushion on the left. 3 month abused cushion centre. 1 month old SG cushion on the right. Both used cushions are grey from rubbing against aluminum trucks. The centre one has some marks on it close to the bore that are just that, marks. The similar marks on the SG cushion are actual tears.