<p class="p1"><span class="s1">The Bont Platinum K390 is regarded by many short-track skaters as the best short-track blade ever made.

• The new Platinum returns with even better features than ever before.</span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">Bont was the first to investigate Böhler K190 steel for use in short track blades, discovering its had the best glide and wear properties for speed skating.
• Bont was the first to develop the perfect tempering of K390 steel (even harder and faster steel than K190)<span class="Apple-converted-space">  </span>using this special<span class="Apple-converted-space"></span> formula to harden the steel to an extremely hard Rockwell before bringing the hardness back to 64 Rockwell.
• </span></p> <p class="p3"><span class="s1">This gives the steel the glide properties of harder steel but reduces the brittleness in case you clip blades with another skater.
• It is their unique tempering of the steel that makes the Bont K390 steel so special.
• Unlike cheaper bimetal blades which flex and cause the blade to skip, K390 is the same hard steel all the way through the blade.</span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Consistency has been the focus of our new Platinum blade.
• Machining time is expensive and blade manufacturers grind the steel in batches at high speeds to reduce costs.
• This results in the steel warping due to the high temperature of the grinding stone grinding the steel.
• </span></p> <p class="p1"><strong><span class="s1">Bont's aim for the Platinum was to make every blade the same so they purchased the best grinding stones from Germany and they slowly grind one set of steel blades at a time.
• This is an extremely slow process with higher costs but the result is steel that has not warped.
• </span></strong></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">All skaters, not just Olympians, should enjoy perfect blades.
• However, we didn't stop with the grinding.
• We looked at the other aspects of making the blade even more perfect.
• We developed a new stronger glue that allowed us to reduce the tube slot width by 0.1mm.
• The tube slot needs a certain amount of room for the glue on either side of the blade.
• The greater the gap, the more chance the steel has to warp while the glue sets.
• By reducing this gap, Bont improved the consistency of the straightness of the blade after glueing.
• </span></p> <p class="p1"><span class="s1">Lastly, Bont invested heavily in jigs.
• Each blade is clamped in 9 locations while it sets and they let the blades set for 14 hours until the glue has fully cured.
• This means that they can only make a few sets of blades per day, but each set is perfect.</span></p> <p class="p5"><span class="s1">Aluminium tubes do not like to be bent.
• They always spring back to the straight position.
• To solve this problem, we have two solutions:</span></p> <ul class="ul1"> <li class="li6"> <span class="s2"></span><span class="s3">We make the tube out of aluminium which is more likely to stay bent than other brands of blades.</span> </li> <li class="li7"><span class="s1">We cut the slot for the steel blade in the aluminium tube on a slight bend.
• The tube is straight but the steel blade is already on a slight curve.
• This curve is slight and you will still need to bend the blade more to get the optimum bend to suit your radius.
• However, you now only need to bend the aluminium tube a very small amount to get your optimum bend.
• This small amount of tube bending is not enough to stress the tube and the result is a blade that holds its bend for a much longer period.</span></li> </ul> <p>Some skaters may never need to re-bend their blades.</p> <p><img src="//cdn.shopify.com/s/files/1/1059/0476/files/bent_cut_large.jpg?v=1521340508" alt=""></p> <p> </p>