The blade

A figure blade is not flat along its length and not flat across it. Both curves decide how it skates.

The rocker

Along its length the blade is ground to a curve called the rocker. Figure blades are commonly ground to a radius of about 7 or 8 feet; the figures in this guide stand on one of 7 feet. A tighter rocker turns more easily and a flatter one runs faster and steadier. Most blades are ground to more than one radius: a long main rocker, then a tighter spin rocker towards the front. Some add a third, tighter curve up to the pick, and blades are described as two-radius or three-radius for that.

Heel on the left, toe on the right, height drawn 3 times taller than it is. One three-radius profile: 7 ft along most of the blade, 27 in for the spin rocker and 12 in up to the pick. A two-radius blade has no separate third curve, and profiles differ from blade to blade. The skaters drawn elsewhere in this guide stand on a simpler blade, the 7 ft curve all the way along.

Because the blade is curved, only a short stretch of it touches the ice at once, and which stretch depends on how the boot is tilted. On the single 7 ft curve the guide's figures stand on, tilting the foot forward by one degree moves the contact 3.7 cm towards the toe, and past about 3.5 degrees the next thing to touch the ice is the pick. A real blade's tighter front curves change those numbers but not the idea.

That is why a coach talks so much about where your weight is. Gliding and most edges sit a little behind the middle. Spins sit forward, on the spin rocker, just behind the pick. Rocking too far back puts a skater on the heel, where the blade stops steering.

The toe pick

The teeth at the front are the toe pick. They are for jabbing into the ice: the vault of a toe loop, flip or Lutz, and the push of a toe-assisted hop. They are not for standing on, and a skater who drifts forward onto them while gliding trips. The pick is also why figure skates are sharpened differently from hockey skates, which have none.

The hollow and the two edges

Across its width the blade is sharpened with a shallow groove, the hollow, which leaves a sharp edge on each side: the inside edge and the outside edge that every element in the guide is written in. The groove is part of a circle, and it is named by that circle's radius. A smaller radius cuts a deeper groove, grips harder and is harder to stop on; a larger one is shallower and slides more.

7/16 in

1/2 in

5/8 in

A blade 3.5 mm wide seen end-on, the width of one measured for this guide, sharpened to three common radii of hollow and drawn to the scale of its width. The two dots are the edges. The deepest of the three is 0.14 mm, and it is enough to decide how much the blade grips. Blades vary: makers publish widths from 3.8 to 4.1 mm, reference works give 3/16 in (4.8 mm), and on a blade that wide the same hollows are 0.26, 0.23, 0.18 mm deep.

Most figure skaters skate on a hollow between 7/16 and 5/8 of an inch, and 1/2 inch is the usual starting point. A sharpener can suggest a different one for your weight and what you skate. Light skaters, young children especially, sometimes skate on a smaller radius such as 7/16 in, because a deeper groove bites with less weight pressing the edge into the ice. It is a small number with a large effect, so change it one step at a time.

Where to next

Looking after skatesGuards, soakers, drying and sharpening.
The eight edgesThe inside and outside edges, on each foot, both directions.
SpinsThe elements that live at the front of the blade.

Rocker radii and common hollows: Charleston Figure Skating Club, Equipment: blades. Blade width: a blade measured for the guide, and Encyclopaedia Britannica, Blade, for the reference figure, and two blade makers' published specifications. Everything else on this page is computed from the blade the guide's figures stand on.