To get the most our of your skates it's very important to maintain your skates. This page describes how to do this.
Blade guards are intended for one thing only: Allowing you to walk around while wearing your skates when not on the ice. This applies to any time you're not on the ice; just because your ice rink has rubber matting doesn't mean you cannot damage your edges - a dropped earring or coin can easily nick the blade.
Soakers are intended for one thing only: Transporting your skates. Water left on the surface of the blade will cause rust, and if you leave your skates in soakers (which as their name suggests, soaks up water), you're prolonging how long the blade is in contact with water.
Our advice is to only use blade guards and soakers for these purposes - when you come off the ice and remove your skates, take the guards off. When you get home, remove the soakers.
Our recommendation is to wipe your blades down twice: Once when you come off the ice and remove your skates, then putting soakers on for transport, and when you get home/not later than one hour later remove the soakers and give your blades a really good wipe down.
The reason for this is simple: When you come off the ice, your blades will be cold. The air inside an ice rink is typically dehumidified too, so there's not much water vapor in the air. The moment you take your skates outside, water in the air will form condensation on the blade, making them damp again. If you then leave your skates - in their bag, in soakers, in the boot of your car, without wiping them down a 2nd time, this now damp blade will start to form rust.
Leave the skates for approximately one hour to allow the blades to warm up to normal air temperature, then wipe any remaining dampness away again, making sure you wipe in all the tiny nooks and ensuring any dull parts, or parts where rust starting to form are completely dry. Do not put your guards soakers back on the blade until you're sure they are completely dry.
Blades will rust with any amount of moisture - therefore it's important to store your skates: - Without guards/soakers (unless completely dry) - In a reasonably warm, but dry place
You're basically looking to make sure there is no opportunity for water to form on the blades. If you leave your skates somewhere the temperature or humidity changes a lot, condensation will start to form on the blades increasing the chances of rust.
Sharpening isn't just to maintain good edges. That's a big part of the sharpening process, but sharpening has a secondary, equally important job, which is to remove any rust spots in the hollow of your skate before it really sets in and becomes 'Deep Rust'.
Keep an eye on your blades - if the hollow on the bottom is becoming very dull, or even brown with rust, then consider having them sharpened.
The truth of the matter is there's no right or wrong 'number of hours' before sharpening your skates - it depends on a lot of factors including how you're skating, whether you've accidentally left them wet after skating one time, whether you've accidentally caught your edge somewhere...
There are many videos on the internet demonstrating how to test your blades sharpness. Our advice is simply: Know your blades. Feel how they respond to turns (on different parts of the blade) just after sharpening, and if after a number of hours skating you find you cannot maintain that same turn, it's likely that they've become blunt. Have them sharpened when you notice, or shortly after - don't leave them too long as the relative difference when you get them sharpened again will make it difficult to skate for a short while.
We're a bit like the dentist of your skates - if we can see some trouble spots we'll tell you about them before they become a problem. This is not to worry you, or to get you to buy something - it's simply to let you know which areas of your skates need special attention.
If you have any questions about skate maintenance please ask your skate technician, or ourselves.