US 9,795,860 B2 · Roller skate blade and sharpening thereof

Abstract

A roller mounting apparatus for an in-line roller skate blade comprises a body having a footware connector portion, a spacing portion adjacent the footware connector portion and a roller mounting portion adjacent the spacing portion. The roller mounting portion has roller mounts for mounting a plurality of rollers in tandem spaced apart positions such that contact points on outer surfaces of the rollers will lie on a first common curved line having no portion with a radius of curvature more than about 10 m, so that a contact point on a surface of a roller immediately adjacent to any given roller is spaced apart between about 0.1 mm to about 13 mm from a line tangent to the curved line at a point defined by the contact point of the given roller. A roller blade comprising the roller mounting apparatus is also disclosed. There is also disclosed a method of sharpening an outer circumferential surface of a rotatable roller of a roller blade by causing an outer circumferential surface of a rotating grinding implement to contact the outer circumferential surface of the rotatable roller at a contact point such that a grinder plane containing the contact point and a rotation axis of the rotating grinding implement is disposed at an angle to a roller plane containing the contact point and a rotational axis of the roller. Also disclosed is a method of sharpening an outer circumferential surface of a rotatable roller by causing an outer circumferential surface of a rotating grinding implement to contact the outer circumferential surface of the rotatable roller such that the rotating grinding implement tends to drive the roller in a first direction of rotation while causing a contact surface of a rotating drive wheel to contact the roller to cause the roller to rotate in a second direction against the first direction of rotation to cause relative movement between the roller and the outer circumferential surface of the grinding implement.

Claims17

Dependent claims

An in-line roller skate blade comprising:

a footware connector portion;
a roller mounting portion opposite the footware connector portion;
and
a plurality of rotatable rollers mounted on and along the roller mounting portion, the rotatable rollers being mounted in spaced-apart positions along the roller mounting portion such that contact points on outer surfaces of the rotatable rollers will lie on a first common curved line, the rotatable rollers each having a grooved annular running surface with first and second edges on opposite sides thereof;
wherein the first common curved line has a plurality of zones of curvature, the plurality of zones of curvature including a toe zone in a forward portion of the roller mounting portion, a middle zone in a middle portion of the roller mounting portion and a heel zone in an aft portion of the roller mounting portion, and wherein the first common curved line has a toe zone radius of curvature in the toe zone, a middle zone radius of curvature in the middle zone and a heel zone radius of curvature in the heel zone, and wherein the middle zone radius of curvature is greater than the toe zone radius of curvature and greater than the heel zone radius of curvature;
and
wherein respective ones of the rotatable rollers provide corresponding pivot points along the first common curved line such that a skater can rock the roller skate blade forward and aft to select a single one of the rotatable rollers to define a desired pivot point enabling the skater to pivot about a vertical axis generally perpendicular to a skating surface.

4 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Roller skate blade and sharpening thereof

Life of this patent

Roller skate blade and sharpening thereof

Life of this patent

Abstract

Claims17