Runners with special coatings like blacksteel, diamond-like coating, and mirror-finished steel can all offer some major benefits to skating and performance. However, when sharpening or making quick fixes before or during a game, these kinds of steel can suffer greatly if you were to use a standard or ceramic honing stone on it. For general care of the blade, STEP came out with a small honing kit complete with a rubber stone and leather cloth. The kit is optimized specifically for Step Blacksteel and V-Steel, but it will work well on other special finishes too.

About Special Coatings on Runners

Blacksteel goes through various extra oxidation steps to make it more durable, have more bite on the ice, and improve its edge life so you don’t have to sharpen them as often. Other procedures are done on DLS and mirror-finished steel for the same or similar effects. Due to the extra procedures, these runners require less—if any—honing after sharpening. This is because burrs don’t appear as often on these runners as they do on more conventional blades. However, they still occur, and you will need the right tools to keep them in good shape for when they do happen.

Rubber Honing Stone

Although it is not recommended to use a ceramic honing stone on special finishes, lightly brushing a rubber honing stone across the blade can help brush burrs off without scraping off the finish. It is important to be very gentle, as damage to the finish could diminish its effectiveness and make it harder to sharpen later on.

Leather Cloth

For a gentler treatment on your special-finish runners, you can run the leather cloth from the kit over the blade at a 45-degree angle, still being gentle with it. The leather cloth is also soft enough for you to use as a spare skate towel.