What is a “radius”?
When someone asks this question, I have to ask which radius they want to know about. First of all there is the radius of curvature of the blade, which refers to the contour of the blade. The radius of a skate blade is a portion of a circle that is ground onto the blade. A detailed discussion of this topic can be found on the Custom Radius skate sharpening page. The other radius is the Radius of Hollow or simply “hollow grind”. When the skates are sharpened, the blades are ground to produce a concave hollow in the center producing two distinct edges on the blade. The depth of the hollow grind is measured as the radius of a circle that is cut into the blade. More information about the hollow grind radius can be found on the Radius of Hollow page.
