Review on A&R Sports BladeGards Ice Skate Guard - Universal Custom Fit by Darrin Parasson

I recently purchased a pair of skates with blades measuring just over 11.5 inches. It seemed quite long compared to other reviewers' posts about how long their blades are. I looked through Revain and couldn't find any skate guards that were supposed to be long enough until I found these. They're definitely long enough for my blades. They were actually too long, so I cut off just under 1 inch from each. sides so they can meet in the middle without overlapping. To figure out how much to cut I didn't really trust the template that came with it based on other reviews so I ended up just laying it down on my skate blades, one side at a time and by eye and noting roughly where they would overlap . I then used a hacksaw to cut, which took a lot of effort, and then sandpaper to smooth the edges of the cut. After connecting the two sides with metal springs, it took me a while to realize that I wasn't supposed to just slide the hinge onto the post somehow, I had to use a screwdriver to screw the post into the hinge. Once I figured it out, it became easy. I'm taking off a star because somehow on one side of a guard the groove for the blade was shallower compared to the other three pieces. You can see this in the picture where the right guard is slightly lower in the middle of the blade where it meets and isn't quite level with the left guard. I have no idea how that happens with something that I assume is mass-produced with a mold. But in any case, I had to use a very thin file that fit the groove to file it as far as possible to better fit the other three pieces. After that, I'm pretty happy with how the guards turned out. But it took some extra effort to hone that groove, which I shouldn't have done.