Now everyone can race with 'Clap' ice skates - Plastics, Polymers ...

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Now everyone can race with ‘Clap’
ice skates
Italian design company Stylus and Dutch skate specialist Zandstra Sports have teamed up to introduce a
‘clap’-style racing ice skate for the general public to enjoy because of its low price. Until now clap skates
were worn only by the world’s top racing skaters, for example in Olympic competitions.
The new Zandstra Ving clap racing skate is ideal for consumers because it is designed to be comfortable,
flexible, easy to maintain – and highly affordable. These important benefits were made possible by the
substitution of a complex metal frame with an injection-moulded frame made entirely of DuPont Zytel ®
Super Tough (ST) nylon resin, selected for its excellent mechanical strength and impact resistance at low
temperatures.
By Franco Marabelli, DuPont Engineering Polymers, Italy
‘Klap schaats’ (in Dutch) or ‘clap skates’ as
they have become known, were first
invented in The Netherlands in the mid-
1990s. They famously bought the Dutch
racing team to victory after victory in the
Nagano (Japan) Winter Olympics in 1996,
where the Netherlands ‘clap skate racers’
broke all existing records. By the time of the
next Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City
(2000), most of the world’s national racing
teams were wearing clap skates. The design
had become a new top-of-the-range racing
skate standard.
The main difference between clap skates
and the standard ice skates you could buy in
the stores until now is that clap skates have
a rotating frame fixed by a pivot; your foot
can therefore bear down significantly
increased pressure, resulting in much more
force and speed from each skating legstroke.
The name ‘klap schaat’ originally
came about because of the clicking sound
coming from the skate as the user’s foot
presses down on the pivot.
However, as Peter Edauw, a partner in
Italian design company Stylus, based in
Asolo, a village on the outskirts of the
Italian skate manufacturing industrial
centre of Montebelluna, north
of Venice, explained: "The
traditional klaap
shaats were
super high
tech skates,
milled pieceby-piece
out
of aluminium by artisans. This was reflected
in the price: until now a pair of clap skates have
cost approximately 1,500 ¤ compared to
standard racing skates, which cost about
150-200 ¤.’’ The Ving clap skate cost 199 ¤.
Now racing enthusiasts everywhere can buy
their own clap skates, thanks to the
introduction of the ‘Ving Klap Skate’ from
Zandstra Sports, which is based in Joure,
The Netherlands. Due to its frame (or ‘foot
and heel plate’) of Zytel ® ST, Zandstra’s new
skate needs less maintenance, has fewer
parts (that could fall out into the ice or get
damaged by wear and tear) and is therefore
significantly more reliable and easier to use
for the average consumer than the clap
skates worn by Olympic champions.
More comfort – better price
CEO Walter Zandstra says: "We wanted a
‘recreational’ version of the clap racing skate
that we could sell to the mass market. We
asked Stylus to totally redesign the clap
skates used in the Olympics to be
more comfortable
(Olympic clap skates are
2 cm higher than
standard recreational
skates and wearers
become tired
quicker).
The foot and heel
plate of Zytel ® ST in
the new Ving Klap
Skate makes clap skates
affordable
for the
general
public for
the first
time at 199 ¤ .
Since clap skating requires a new set of
technical skills we also wanted for users the
freedom to use the Ving Klap Skate either as
a normal skate or as a clap skate – this is
made possible by an easy-to-use screw that
closes or releases the ‘clap’ pivot. Existing
clap skates are only compatible with professional-style
leather ski boots whereas the
Ving Klap Skate can be fitted to ‘semi-soft’
boots that are more comfortable and popular.
"Affordable"
"A very important innovation was that we
had to come up with a cheaper method of
producing the clap skate, to make it
affordable for the vast majority of European
and North American consumers.
Substituting a frame of injection-moulded
Zytel ® ST instead of metal was a major
contributor to cost efficiency and enabled us
to offer the Ving Klap Skate at a retail price of
199 ¤ (including VAT)." Launched at ISPO in
February 2003, Zandstra’s Clap Skate was
available in stores throughout Europe from
autumn 2003.
"No hassle – no risk" with Zytel ® ST
According to Stylus’s Edauw, Zytel ® was
selected primarily because Zandstra and
Stylus had both used the material
extensively in the past for winter sports
applications. Edauw said: "Zandstra only
wanted Zytel ® ST because this high quality
thermoplastic, which can also be costefficiently
injection-moulded, says "No hassle
– no risk" to winter sports manufacturers
such as ourselves. It displays excellent
resistance to impact and mechanical stress
at very low temperatures and because it is
an engineering polymer is also displays
flexibility. We believe it is the material that

Designer Peter Edauw of Stylus
describes Zytel ® ST as a "no hassle –
no risk" material for winter sports
equipment manufacturers because
of its impact resistance at very
low temperatures.
displays the best value for money for winter
sports applications."
Walter Zandstra confirmed: "We have been
using Zytel ® ST for all our skates for almost
20 years now. In the mid 1980s we tested a
lot of materials and particular lots of nylons,
essentially looking for the best low
temperature mechanical strength and
impact resistance. Zytel ® ST from DuPont
came out tops. We have found it to be
absolutely reliable. Skaters can hit ice lumps
or fall hard to potentially damage the frame –
and the ‘clap-pivot’ action causes a major
additional stress to the frame too - but there
is no cracking with DuPont’s Super Tough
66 nylon. The low temperature impact
strength is unbeatable. That is why it is also
used for the frame of all the ice hockey
skates manufactured in the Montebelluna
region of Italy."
The frame is injection-moulded in one piece
from Zytel ® ST. The ice skate blade supplied
by the Swedish specialist Sandfic and a tube
of aluminium 7000 supplied by Alcoa is then
bolted to the frame in such a way that the
chassis can pivot. The frame is the interface
between the shoe and the steel blade. The
capsule with the metal spring that activates
the pivot, so you can decide whether ‘to clap
or not to clap’, is designed so that the spring
is ‘hidden’. Edauw commented: "This
design is cleaner and more convenient to
general users than the previous metal
design. Because it is enclosed, the spring is
also protected from the ice-cold environment
and from elements such as dust and grit."
Test marketed worldwide
Stylus worked with DuPont’s Italian specialists
from the prototyping stage through
detailed design and moulding trials with
moulder Technostyle, also of Montebelluna.
Zandstra test marketed the first Ving Klap
Skates in Canada, Austria and Norway as
well as The Netherlands for three years prior
to the product’s official October 2003 launch.
There were no quality problems with any of
the Ving Skates used in the marketing trials
worldwide. Technostyle also produced the
tools and moulds for the Ving Klap Skate.
The patent number is printed at moulding
and the Ving trademark is tampon-printed by
Technostyle afterwards.
Confidence through long experience
with Zytel ® ST
Stylus worked with DuPont Italiana to incorporate
Zytel ® ST into the design of the wellknown
Hypno skate and on previous designs
for Zandstra including a learning skate for
children – Easy Glide – that had traditionally
been made of wood for the past several
hundred years in The Netherlands. Such
wooden learning skates can be seen in classic
ice skating scenes in the paintings of the
Great Dutch Masters. As these pictures
attest, racing skating has always been popular
in The Netherlands and today the country
remains the largest market for racing skates.
Stylus SpA,
via Forestuzzo 44,
31011 Asolo, Italy
Tel: +39 0423 950 794
e-mail: peter.edauw@stylus.it
www.stylusdesign.com
Zandstra Sports,
PO Box 150,
8500 AD Joure, The Netherlands
Tel: +31 51 341 5858
e.mail: zandstra@zandstrasport.nl
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