WPCNR Pressbox. By John F. Bailey. May 1, 2002. 3:00 PM EDT: The man who used to sharpen Dorothy Hamill’s figure skates sharpens the skate blades for White Plains figure skaters with one-of-a-kind precision instruments he designed 35 years ago.
BLADE MASTER FRED KOHLER sharpens skates in his Haverstraw workshop.
Photo by WPCNR
Your reporter met Fred Kohler at his home in Haverstraw Monday, when he was recommended by one of my daughter’s skating instructors. It’s the way Fred Kohler, 75, gets his clients. Strictly word of mouth. If you’re not landing your “Axels,” or bobbling your spins, one sharpening by Fred and bingo, the landings become pinpint, the spins “on a dime.”
“Leading Edge” of Skate Sharpening.
After a pleasant drive up the Palisades Parkway and into the rapidly growing community of Haverstraw we arrived at Mr. Kohler’s attractive home and were welcomed into his very neat little garage workshop. Little did we know this was the “leading edge” of skate blade sharpening in the world.
MEASURING THE BLADE POSITION, Fred Kohler uses a centering device to assure a precisely-positioned blade.
Photo by WPCNR
His “workshop” features a machine lathe with grinder wheels. Boxes of skating boots were stacked in precise order to the ceiling and some autographed photographs of well-known figure skaters whose skating blades Mr. Kohler sharpened: Kyoko Ina and Jason Dungeon, the pairs skaters and the American Champion, Elaine Sayak were just two of the photos of skating icons on his wall.
We met Mr. Kohler, a slight man in his seventies, thin with spectacles, Monday morning. He is “The Sharpener to the Stars.”
Troubleshooter on the Edge.
In his German-American accent, Mr. Kohler asked to look at my daughter’s blades. With his naked eye, he said he did not see how she could skate on these blades, or spin, because there was a bump in the spin area at the tip of the blade.
MEASURING THE HEIGHTS OF BLADE EDGES, with his own custom “Edge-O-Meter,” The Sharpener to the Stars discovers if edges are in sync.
Photo by WPCNR
Next, to my amazement, Mr. K. reached for an instrument that appeared to be a stop watch, that he precisely fitted onto the skate blade. (For skating amateurs, a figure skating ice skate blade is hollowed out in the center to create two edges, an inside edge and an outside edge.)
It turned out to be a gauge, (what the WPCNR, always in search of nomenclature will call an “Edge-O-Meter”) , which Kohler used to measure first the inside edge, then the outside edge. He showed me the difference in the needle positions, the readings confirming that one edge of my daughter’s skateblade was twice as high as the other edge, way out of whack.
Takes the Guesswork Out of Sharpening.
“I designed these instruments, and built them myself,” Kohler explained. “The gauge checks the edges that every edge is exactly the same height.” Kohler explained.
I asked if this would make a difference in my daughter’s ability to land her jumps. Kohler said absolutely:
“Because the skater if they have an edge higher or lower would have a hard time to get at that lower edge. They have to be exactly the same height.”
When a figure skater lands a jump, depending on the jump, the jump would require a landing adjustment depending on which edge (inner or outer), she landed on. My skater had trouble landing her axel three times over the weekend, and she never misses them, so Mr. Kohler’s analysis made a lot of sense.
Created for His Daughters’ Skates.
Kohler turned on the machine lathe/grinder device. Locking the boot into a custom mount, he proceeded to bring down the edges. By hand he brought them back with his own personally designed hand sharpening instrument. Mr. Kohler developed his sharpening tools when his daughters skated..
ONE OF KIND TECHNOLOGY: Kohler’s Edge measurement gauge, what WPCNR calls an “Edge-O-Meter,” on the left, is used by Kohler to synchronize the height of the blade edges. He uses the hand edge-sharpener at right to bring up the edges, and checks them with the gauge.
Photo by WPCNR
Both of Mr. Kohler’s daughters were figure skaters. He created his instruments because when he had his daughters’ skates sharpened in New York, they were never right:
“When my daughters were skating, we had to go to New York for skate work. Sometimes when we came home, something was wrong with the skates. So, back to New York. So, I figured there had to be a better way. I started doing it for them. Then I did it for friends. And before I knew it I had people from all around. I had a lot of skaters.”
Kohler has never patented or marketed his “Edgeometer,” or his skating instruments, though he gave one to the Chinese figure skating organization twenty-two years ago when they were developing their figure skating team for the first time. Perhaps the rapid rise of Chinese figure skaters is a direct result of “The Kohler Edge.”
Grinding Away Shabby Sharpenings.
Kohler enjoys a reputation among skaters who have used him as the absolute master of “the skater’s edge.” One of my daughter’s instructors has been having Kohler sharpen her skates since she was 7 years old. Kohler laments that other professionals sharpening skates in the area are simply not paying enough attention to their important work:
“First of all, I think, most of those people don’t take enough care, or don’t have enough training to do it that accurately. Secondly, they don’t have the gadgets that I have.”
Previously my daughter’s skates were sharpened by hand. We asked why Kohler uses the machine grinding on the skates: “I do machine sharpening and hand-finishing. You have to get that old sharpening down first with the machine. You have to get the old sharpening down to a dull edge, then you have to put a new hollow into the blade. You have to be careful not to take too much off the blade, because those blades are very expensive. This is like a hobby to me.”
So “Edgy”, Skaters Send Kohler Their Skates from All Over the World.
Kohler said he has professionals sending him their skates from faraway places who pay for overnight shipping to get their skates back with the coveted “Kohler Edge.” The overnight shipping costs more than his sharpening.
The reason: the Kohler Edge works.
While I was visiting, Mauro Bruni’s mom, called up Mr. Kohler. Bruni, a well-known young man who learned to skate at Ebersole Rink in White Plains, and competes nationally, competed in Luxemburg, Germany recently, and finished second. Mrs. Bruni called to personally thank Mr. Kohler for the skate-sharpening, which she felt contributed to her son’s strong finish possible.
Monday evening my daughter took to the ice with her new “Kohler Edges.” Previously, whenever my daughter had her skates sharpened she was cautioned by instructors to break them in a little and not sharpen skates right before a show. This time, the blades showed a difference right away. Jumps were landed crisply. Spins solid.
Her analysis: “They’re really good, Dad!”
