While the hockey season really never ends, it’s a good idea to perform some routine maintenance on your machine, especially after the season where it is used most.  Here are some tips keep your machine running at peak performance.

• TIP #1 – CLEAN YOUR MACHINE: Completely loosen the two red knobs on your machines guard cover and remove the cover completely, leaving just the wheel exposed.  Now vacuum or blow out and dust that has accumulated inside the guard, and if it has hardened you can use a flat head screwdriver or other hard object to chip off any buildup.  Check the underside of your guard cover as well and repeat this cleaning process.  Now move onto the skate holder and try to vacuum/blow out any dust that has set into the felt pads on the bottom of the holder or magnetic labels on your skate holder dials.
• TIP #2 – WAX YOUR BASE: Apply paste carnauba car wax to the machine base (part that your skate holder slides on) and let dry, then buff off the wax with a towel.  This will keep your machine base gliding like new and prevent any rust buildup on the surface as well.  If you do have any rust buildup, we recommend using steel wool to buff any surface rust off, then waxing to return a smooth glide.
• TIP #3 – CHECK YOUR CONSUMABLES: The two main consumables that will need to be replaced on any 911 machine are the grinding wheel (lifetime of about 200 sharpenings) and diamond dresser (lifetime of about 600 sharpenings).  You can use the grinding wheel all the way up until the wheel diameter becomes smaller than the motor diameter, and you can use the diamond dresser until the actual diamond tip completely flattens out to where it can not make contact with the wheel anymore. TIP- consistently rotate your diamond dresser so that the diamond tip stays well-rounded and does not flatten out.  We recommend having a spare grinding wheel and diamond dresser on hand so that your machine can always be in use.