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On 11/29/2017 at 3:37 PM, RichMan said:

bc30, been a while dawg! Hope all is well. So you say that the Vaughn boot could fit in any other brand cowling? ie Bauer, Graf, CCM

bunnyman666, what size and model Vaughns you have?

I put the GX1 boot in a Reebok/CCM cowling with no problem. I don't see any reason they shouldn't fit Bauer or Graf

Not the Vaughn boot in the picture, obviously, but that's the cowling I put it in

Brian's phone pics 042.JPG

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18 minutes ago, Kayen said:

It's not the stepholder that bothers me (albeit i would stick with a vertexx holder if I went a different route than my bauers), it's the lack of toe cap reinforcement on those - doesn't look like any was added. 

Via Goalie Gear Nerd - Graf said that the toe cap is their standard toe used for their cowling skates, however the cap itself is 2x the thickness of others in the industry. They feel it's comparable to other cowlingless skates on the market

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1 hour ago, cwarnar said:

Via Goalie Gear Nerd - Graf said that the toe cap is their standard toe used for their cowling skates, however the cap itself is 2x the thickness of others in the industry. They feel it's comparable to other cowlingless skates on the market

Just saw that on the IG post. Also to note Vaughn Designer Brent Woods commented on having G7500 boots with the vertexx holders to no issue, so there may be some merit to that (especially if he's involved with this new skate at all). 

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Well well, they might actually have something good after all. I tried a traditional Graf skate on before I bought my 700x and they felt like slippers. Too bad they weighed a ton.V

he ones pictured above look no different than the VHs. Anyone knows what they'll go for?

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On 12/6/2017 at 3:29 PM, cwarnar said:

New cowlingless skate from Graf/Vaughn...

Ok, so when I first saw this pic yesterday, it kind of triggered a thought I was contemplating and although odd, it makes much sense when you muster on it.

Traditional goal skates had a specific height overall. Consider only the height of the holder and blade. Now as time and shapenings went by, you would lose some blade, hence some overall height. Ok so far?

Step blades came out so goalies could have a higher skate and better attack angle. There did come a point after so many sharpens that the skate (with the step blade) was the same height as the original blade in its new unused state.

Now consider the new cowlingless skates. The industry answered the call for an all-in-one set-up and thus the 1X/1S and VH and soon to be Graf are born. Set aside the step steel for this one - the skate height overall is higher than the traditional skates. Once again, as you sharpen the blade, you eventually get to the same height as the traditional skate in new condition, and with time (seasons) you would end up with a much lower skate, and maybe half (or more) of the blade gone.

In knowing this, it is safe to assume that your attack angle will still remain quite low and aggressive, right? So is this due mainly to the fact that the skates have no more cowling? Or is the extra blade/holder height necessary? Could a lower holder with a regular blade still be as effective all the while giving the goalie a safer skate in terms of mobility and stability?

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@RichMan - a few items... 

Why would Vaughn only do 2 cowling sizes? 

First and foremost? Probably to reduce costs as they launch a skate line. I hear Mike is a very savy and conservative business man. Molds for the cowlings is probably one of the biggest costs with launching a skate. They also probably didn’t feel that +\- a 1.5” would have a profoundly negative impact on anything 

As for the height / attack angle issue? The height of the holder, the height of the blade itself, and the angle between the edge of the skate blade and the inner edge of the skate blade will all effect attack angle. As your steels gets shorter, the angle will change a bit. Given how little steel is taken off with each sharpening, I don’t think it’ll be dramatic for a while 

In my opinion, Vaughn is sitting on a gold mine with Graf. Attack all of their guys with Graf like they did with Pro’s Choice and they could relaunch Graf very quickly 

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15 hours ago, TheGoalNet said:

@RichMan - a few items... 

Why would Vaughn only do 2 cowling sizes? 

First and foremost? Probably to reduce costs as they launch a skate line. I hear Mike is a very savy and conservative business man. Molds for the cowlings is probably one of the biggest costs with launching a skate. They also probably didn’t feel that +\- a 1.5” would have a profoundly negative impact on anything 

As for the height / attack angle issue? The height of the holder, the height of the blade itself, and the angle between the edge of the skate blade and the inner edge of the skate blade will all effect attack angle. As your steels gets shorter, the angle will change a bit. Given how little steel is taken off with each sharpening, I don’t think it’ll be dramatic for a while 

In my opinion, Vaughn is sitting on a gold mine with Graf. Attack all of their guys with Graf like they did with Pro’s Choice and they could relaunch Graf very quickly 

"They also probably didn’t feel that +\- a 1.5” would have a profoundly negative impact on anything" - You should of seen what I had in my hands when the skates arrived. The difference was much more evident than you'd think. I'm a 9 and the cowling looked and felt like a 12.

As for the height thesis I posted, lolll, I wouldn't mind testing a much lower blade for sake of experiment.

Think you could get Mike to chime in some more on the Graf skate posted above?

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15 hours ago, TheGoalNet said:

@RichMan - a few items... 

Why would Vaughn only do 2 cowling sizes? 

First and foremost? Probably to reduce costs as they launch a skate line. I hear Mike is a very savy and conservative business man. Molds for the cowlings is probably one of the biggest costs with launching a skate. They also probably didn’t feel that +\- a 1.5” would have a profoundly negative impact on anything 

Step actually made a player radius runner for most likely ONE reason: so the smaller size of skates would have a blade that did not feel like a snow ski! The player radius blade is a fair bit shorter than the regular Step runners. The ONLY reason why I used the Vaughn cowlings/runners for my VH skates is two-fold: 

1) it was what I had

2) I was at the top end of the cowling size

They would have felt like skis if I would have used a smaller boot. 

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On 2017-12-06 at 3:29 PM, cwarnar said:

New cowlingless skate from Graf/Vaughn...

F24F7767-1FCD-4431-AE6B-85A5C1172784.thumb.jpeg.4a5adcba2b15c80a2b85d41c94ae23c7.jpeg

While the skate looks  interesting the Step holder is a let down, like on the VH skates! If VH and Graf don't have the $ to invest in a mold to make a proper holder I would never consider these for my son. I think that STEP/VH/VAUGHN might want to pool their $ and invest in a proper blade holder for their cowlingless skates, rather than shleping a player skate holder on their goalie skates!

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So here are the pics of the GX3s I had purchased. First pic is what I THOUGHT I was getting. Second pic, if you look at the boot's toe section, you can notice the big gap within the cowling in comparison to the first pic. Third pic is comparing the size 9 GX3 with my size 9 One80 that I was using the past 2-3 years. The difference is quite noticeable, visually and physically.

22709874_10154891171411722_344432082_n.jpg

22656568_10154891171546722_1241308607_n.jpg

22524019_10154891165991722_465929434_n.jpg

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On 12/10/2017 at 3:47 PM, RichMan said:

So here are the pics of the GX3s I had purchased. First pic is what I THOUGHT I was getting. Second pic, if you look at the boot's toe section, you can notice the big gap within the cowling in comparison to the first pic. Third pic is comparing the size 9 GX3 with my size 9 One80 that I was using the past 2-3 years. The difference is quite noticeable, visually and physically.

22709874_10154891171411722_344432082_n.jpg

22656568_10154891171546722_1241308607_n.jpg

22524019_10154891165991722_465929434_n.jpg

The sizing is the CHIEF reason why these cowlings are NOT for everyone. If I were closer to the low end of the sizing, that Vaughn would NOT have gone on my skate.

I would have bucked up for two more moulds for cowlings if I were in charge at Vaughn. Two more sizes would have taken care of the problem you’re showing, @RichMan.

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6 hours ago, RichMan said:

Exactly. The retailer must of known but neglected to inform me and so I went through a huge hassle for nothing and lost a 10% restocking fee and shipping fee back

The boot is a very good boot, but the cowling is where they lost it. In the interest of cost savings, they pooched a perfectly good opportunity to get into the skate market.

Even the Step player radius would not help you there. 

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I might be a skeptic, but I’m willing to bet the longer blade argument had a lot to do with requiring less molds. In my opinion, without first hand knowledge, the marketing explanation could be a by product of the production decision. 

They may have viewed it as a win / win at the time, but I think it was bad decision 

anyhow... I have it on pretty good authority that Vaughn had the idea of a no cowling skate and bailed on it. They they thought it would have been too radical at the time. 

I find that fascinating. If they launched the 2 Piece Skate first, would it have been a hit and been disruptive like VH has been? Or did it need to be launched by Bauer for credibility purposes?  

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On 12/11/2017 at 11:31 PM, RichMan said:

Exactly. The retailer must of known but neglected to inform me and so I went through a huge hassle for nothing and lost a 10% restocking fee and shipping fee back

You could have kept the boots and had them installed into your one80 cowlings.  From every picture I have seen, the Vaughn skates are a perfect fit in their corresponding size of Vertex cowlings.

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8 minutes ago, SaveByRichter35 said:

You could have kept the boots and had them installed into your one80 cowlings.  From every picture I have seen, the Vaughn skates are a perfect fit in their corresponding size of Vertex cowlings.

I LOVE Vaughn boots. But in the end, the VH fit me better.

Hey- I have not bumped my for sale threads for a few days!

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  • 1 month later...

To start, I've been using the same RBK 9k (when 9k was top of the line) skates since 2010 and recently added Step Steel Extreme blades to them. I also use Overdrive Blades because they save my groin and obviously provide other advantages. The attack angle improvement was significant with the addition of the new blades. 

How many of you have made the switch to a cowlingless goalie skate? If you have, did it make a noticeable difference?

Have any of you gone to a cowlingless skate and then back to a traditional goalie skate? 

Thanks! 

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5 minutes ago, insertnamehere said:

To start, I've been using the same RBK 9k (when 9k was top of the line) skates since 2010 and recently added Step Steel Extreme blades to them. I also use Overdrive Blades because they save my groin and obviously provide other advantages. The attack angle improvement was significant with the addition of the new blades. 

How many of you have made the switch to a cowlingless goalie skate? If you have, did it make a noticeable difference?

Have any of you gone to a cowlingless skate and then back to a traditional goalie skate? 

Thanks! 

I am the most infamous hater of the cowlingless goal skate! Look on this site and you will find my tirades. 

My incident may be a freak accident, but I could not put much weight on the ball of my foot for a couple of days. That scared the hell out of me and I got myself back into a cowling post-haste!!!

Cowling-free is not for me!!!!

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