A Note on Scale

The differences we measure and speak about when referring to Radius of Hollow are not easily visible to the human eye and if not for a couple fancy microscopes and CAD programs (and some math that’s way beyond me), we’d have a hard time expressing these concepts. For this reason, the majority of graphics we (and almost every other site out there preaching about sharpening) create are not to scale. If we really showed you the difference between a 1/2” Radius of Hollow and a 9/16” RoH in a graphic, it would look like this.

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The only problem here is that while it may not look like much at all, you can feel this difference when you're on the ice. We're trying to show that difference in feel--in visuals. Looking at the graphic below, if you were skating on a 3/8th in Hollow, it really bites into the ice and the deeper hollow on the left visualizes that bite. The graphic on the right could represent a large hollow, let's say 1 inch--and that doesn't have as much bite, and the difference in feel is really that drastic. But if we were to show you the two side by side, you still might not be able to tell them apart.

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So we exaggerate; a lot. We have to. We want you, the player/coach/parent to know what you’re dealing with. Radius of Hollow is a big deal and so are even/sharp edges. Even if some of this isn’t visible to the eye, trust us, it affects performance.