How to Make Your Own Ice Skate Sharpener

Dull blades on ice skates greatly affect your enjoyment of skating. A sharp blade allows for easy maneuvering and an efficient grip on the ice. Keeping ice skate blades sharp and in good condition is not a difficult task. Blade sharpening is available at skating rinks or from professionals who use a grinding wheel. However, no sophisticated tools are necessary to hone your own skate blades. Do your own blade sharpening with a standard whetstone plus a vise and some honing oil.

Things You'll Need

  • Vise
  • Whetstone
  • Honing oil
Show More

Instructions

    • 1

      Attach a vise to a workbench to hold your skates while sharpening. The vise's movable jaws will hold a skate firmly in place while you work.

    • 2

      Select a hard whetstone, available in most hardware stores. These fine-grained stones for honing -- the term for sharpening blade edges -- are measured in grit, just like sandpaper. Several grades are available, but a typical 400-grit stone works effectively to sharpen, while higher-grit stones are used for polishing.

    • 3

      Obtain honing oil, a necessary part of your ice skate sharpener kit when working with a whetstone. The oil is typically a mineral oil-based lubricant applied directly to the stone to protect it, create a more refined blade edge and help float blade fragments out of the stone pores.

    • 4

      Wrap your skate boot in an old towel before clamping it in the vise; this will protect the skate from scrapes and scratches. Place the skate in the vise and tighten so the blade is held in a vertical position.

    • 5

      Pour a small amount of honing oil onto the course side of the clean whetstone.

    • 6

      Hold the whetstone at about a 20-degree angle to the blade, slightly less than perpendicular. Run the stone along the blade side, using long strokes from one end to the other, applying very little pressure. Apply this technique to the other blade side. Repeat this process until the blades have been sharpened to the desired refinement.