Helpful Hints for Fencing
I'm going to use this page to offer advice and tips on various aspects of fencing, be it reading material, maintenance
General Equipment Maintenance 101
First off, the most important thing you can do to keep your equipment in great shape is to understand you have two types of equipment--the metallic stuff and the fabric stuff. Sounds silly, but get this in your head now. Why, because the two types of equipment don't like each other and thus, the two shall never occupy the same bag, box, whatever.
The reason is simple; the metal parts are susceptible to rust, and rust is the enemy. It is what will destroy your equipment faster than anything. The fastest way to make the metal parts rust is to pack them with wet clothing, so don't do that. Rust doesn't just ruin the metal parts either, it will stain the fabric, and where rust has stained the fabric, the little bits act like sandpaper and shred the individual strands of thread. Eventually, these areas will weaken, allowing a blade to break through that section of fabric--very bad.
So how can you avoid all this nastiness? Simple. Keep the metal parts in a bag or box separate from the fabric parts. If you've seen my rig, I keep all my blades in a big, plastic golf case. That's going a little overboard. All you really need is either a fencing bag, or as some students have discovered, a baseball bat bag. As for the fabric stuff, I use a backpack; just the right size for all my fabric-y things.
Finally, there's the problem with the mask. It has a metal face guard, but the sides and bib are fabric--what to do? Ideally, after every practice, you should swab out the inside with a towel and pack it in with your blades. The absolute worst thing you can do is roll up your jacket and stuff it inside the mask, so don't do it!
Taking Care of Weapons
Taking care of your weapon is fairly easy to do, but most folks (including me) get lazy in doing so. Try to get in the good habit of routinely checking and maintaining your weapons, and if you do, they'll last for years.
Step One: Routinely check for rust. Like I said before, rust is the enemy, so be ever vigilant in making sure it doesn't take hold of your weapons. Before every practice, just take a few seconds to look over the blade to see if any rust is forming. Now, one quick note here; there's rust, and then there's what I call "age." Rust is reddish-brown, rough to the touch, flakes off, and kind of splotchy. This is the bad stuff. If you see this anywhere, get some fine grit sandpaper and sand it off; I typically use 400 grit or higher. The discoloration I call a patina or "age" is nothing serious. All blades are going to get this over time unless you're diligent in keeping them clean. It looks grey, feels satiny smooth to the touch, and covers the blade in a uniform fashion. You can get rid of this with lots of polishing, but I think it's time better spent elsewhere.
Step Two: Routinely oil your weapons. Routine is maybe once every couple of months. If the metal feels slick and oily, it's fine. If it feels dry, yeah, probably time to oil it. I recommend using a gun oil, but a 3-in-1 oil (used for sewing machines) works good too. I do NOT recommend WD-40. WD-40 was developed by the military to clean gunky oil and grease off of parts. We don't want that here; we WANT the oil to stay! Oil coats metal, leaving a protective barrier to keep out moisture. WD-40 on the other hand evaporates, leaving nothing behind to protect the metal.
Step Three: Keep an eye out for weird kinks, bends, nicks, etc. I've shown you how a properly trained foil looks. If not, well, it should have one bend in it, called a "C-curve," that bends the blade down to the floor. You want that. By having this C-curve, you have a blade that properly bends in the correct position every time you touch someone, and decrease the chance of it snapping when you do touch someone. On the other hand, there's the "S-curve;" this happens when you have a blade that has been misused and has been bent both up and down when scoring touches. S-curves are bad; the reason why is because right at the point where the blade bends back upon itself, the metal is starting to reach a straining point--the point where the metal just can't flex back into former position anymore. If not corrected, the blade will soon snap.
In addition to bends in the blade, there are what I call kinks. These are really bad. A kink is when a blade has been bent so severely that it literally folds over and will not return to it original curvature. The reason why this is bad is because the metal has been over-stressed to where it had been strained--kind of like straining a muscle. Once that happens, the metal loses all its springiness and will eventually snap at this strained area. I personally retire any blade that develops a serious kink--it's an accident just waiting to happen if you don't. Kinks usually happen in older blades, and in blades are are abused; ie: the foilist is hitting too hard with the tip, or is not properly bending the weapon.
Finally, we have nicks. Nicks in the blade is where an edge of one blade has cut into another. Typically, a blade will develop tiny little nicks over its edges and these are nothing to really worry about. What you need to keep an eye on are the big nicks placed in the blade by hard contact. These need attention. Simply sand them out with a midgrade sandpaper. The reason why these need attention is if you leave the nick in the blade, it will start to weaken in that area, and will eventually break. Sanding out the nick prevents this from happening.
Taking Care of Armour
Sounds strange to call the jacket and leather glove "armour" but that's the plain truth; these articles of clothing are there for your bodily protection and as such, should be taken care of. Taking care of them is fairly easy though; easier than taking care of the weapons.
First, rust is the enemy, therefore your armour should not be kept in contact with any metal items. As said before, the little bits of rust staining the armour will act as sandpaper on the fabric and will erode the material. Since it is there to prevent you from getting stabbed, weakened material is not good. However, another abrasive that gets in the fabric is salt--salt from the sweat of your body. So, washing your armour on a regular basis would sound like a good idea.
However, we have another problem--washing your armour slowly weakens the fabric too! Even worse, if not washed properly, you'll slowly shrink your jacket if it's made of cotton. So what to do? I recommend if you fence twice a week to wash your jacket maybe once a month. Less fencing? Wash even more infrequently. There's an old joke of when do you know when it's time to wash your jacket; when it stands up by itself, when the director asks if someone has died, or "Never!" There's some truth in that. When you do wash the jacket, wash it in only cold water, and use a mild soap. As for drying, always just hang it out ot air dry--drying it in a dryer will make it shrink faster than anything!
Now then, when do you wash that nasty glove? Heh. Gloves are fairly cheap, they're made of leather (at least the good cheap ones are) and just soak up the sweat like you wouldn't believe. You could try to treat it with leather soap, or Neet's Foot Oil, but to tell you the truth, ignore it. When it gets so bad that the leather cracks and breaks, throw it away and buy a new one. You could buy an expensive glove that is washable, but honestly, you could either buy a $10 glove every two or three years, or you can buy a $50 glove that you'll have to replace in ten years. Either way, you'll be out $50 every ten years.
Well, that's all for now!
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last revised: 10/2005