Entire wire
Back of cup
Front of cup
June 2, 2006 edition
Jump to épée table of contentsIf a point or a piece of a point is connected to an épée or to a foil, then it is a point or a piece of a point for an épée or a foil respectively. Before remarking that this is intuitively obvious, nobody outlawed the possibility of that it could be otherwise! However, there simply are no point parts which can be interchanged between épées and foils. (Mostly, this is because épées and foils have different rules of fencing which must be satisfied, and partially, this is because the engineering demands on pieces of épée and foil point parts are enough different that there just can't be a piece which is well-designed for use with both.)
If you have a point or a piece of a point, and it's not connected to a blade, then you need to figure out which weapon it is for. (You could compare with pictures for parts for both weapons until you find a match, but that will double your work compared to knowing in advance for what weapon the part is made.)
| Épée | Foil | |
|---|---|---|
| barrel threading | Blades are threaded 4.0x0.7 (threads 4.0 mm across and 0.7 mm spacing between threads). It is impossible to put an épée barrel onto a foil blade; it will fall off. | Foil blades are threaded 3.5x0.6 (threads 3.5 mm across and 0.6 mm spacing between threads). It is possible with effort to begin to attach some foil barrels to some épée blades, but it is hard work and probably will strip the threads on the blade and/or barrel or split the barrel! |
| barrel width | Barrels are required to be 7.7 mm wide. | Barrels are narrower than 7.7 mm. (The rules do not specify a particular maximum width! They require that the barrel be no narrower than 0.3 mm narrower than the tip, but apparently they can be arbitrarily wide. In practice, it is counterproductive for it to be manufactured wide, so one finds them no wider than the widest of points, i.e., no wider than 7.0 mm.) |
| wires | Wires have two wires and two contacts at the end. | Wires have one wire and one contact at the end. |
| springs | Typical points have two springs, a wide and stiff pressure spring and a narrow, short, and delicate contact spring. | Typical points have a medium-width medium-stiffness spring. |
| tip part count | Tips involve a single moving piece with an inner end (typically the delicate contact spring) which creates an electrical contact. | Tips involve a moving piece (which includes the very front) linked to (by passing through and then widening) a stationary piece (usually an annulus but possibly the piece which threads to the front of the barrel of a screwless design) which are in electrical contact with each other until the tip is depressed. Note that some foil tips allow disassembly of the moving piece by unscrewing the bulk of it from the backmost part (on the inner side of the stationary annulus), for a total of three pieces, but unless you try to take your tip apart it appears to be and works like only two linked pieces. |
| tip width | Tips are required to be between 7.95 and 8.05 mm wide. | Tips are required to be between 5.5 mm and 7 mm wide. |
| screw holes in tips | Tips (except for screwless designs) usually have threaded holes in the sides of the tip to receive the screws. | Tips have the moving body of the tip with no screwholes, and (except for screwless designs) the stationary part of the tip has threaded holes to receive screws or has a recessed channel going completely around it to receive the ends of screws. |
| screws | Not required to be designed with screws, and some designs are screwless. | Not required to be designed with screws, and some designs are screwless. |
| screw width | Wider than foil screws (because they are built to slide backward and forward through grooves carved through the barrel). | Narrower than épée screws (because they stay put and only connect tiny things to each other). |
| screw heads | Screws almost always are cylindrical without heads and are screwed into the point until the threaded hole ends. | Many types of screws have heads and are screwed into the barrel until the head stops the screw (those without heads depend on the end of the screw butting into something stationary instead). |
(Insulating layer in tip is white.)
(This photograph also shows the separate collar and the disassembled plastic end block and metal contact pins.)
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(Insulating layer in tip is white.)
(Insulating layer in tip is terra cotta-colored.)
(Insulating layer in tip is terra cotta-colored.)
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(Insulating layer in tip is indeterminate color.)
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Entire wire |
Back of cup |
Front of cup |
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(Insulating layer in tip is white.)
(Insulating layer in tip is white.)
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Entire wire |
Back of cup |
Front of cup |
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(Insulating layer in tip is black.)
(Insulating layer in tip is black.)
(Insulating body of tip is white. Front and middle of back of tip are steely; most of back is brassy; body is white plastic, and annulus is brassy.)
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Entire wire |
Back of cup |
Front of cup |
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All these scans were of the parts of a single assembled point, which is presumed to have been composed of pieces from one manufacturer, probably HPC, but it has yet to be ruled out that some or all were Prieur points of some vintage.
(Insulating body of tip is white. Front and middle of back of tip are steely; most of back is brassy; body is white plastic, and annulus is brassy.)
(Insulating body of tip is reddish-orange. Front and middle of back of tip are steely; most of back is brassy; body is reddish-orange plastic, and annulus is brassy.)
This tip is believed to be Prieur, with the identification questionable because the plastic is reddish-orange while a current Prieur illustration shows white plastic.
(Insulating layer in tip is white but cannot be seen from the side. Front and back of tip are silvery; body is steely, and annulus is brassy.)
This point failed by cracking of the barrel into two pieces. Note that one piece, the larger one on the left, is still intact but separated from the portion of the barrel, on the right, still threaded onto the end of the foil. Careful examination of the piece on the right shows a hairline crack parallel to the length of the blade which runs all the way from the base of the barrel to the seat inside the barrel for the insulated cup at the end of the wire, then curves in a quarter circle until it runs around the circumfrence of the barrel. Hidden on the back, this crack did not progress exactly around the barrel, but drifted toward the blade end until it reached the seat for the insulated cup, then followed that around until the crack met itself at a right angle. This failure evidently was caused by overtightening the barrel onto the blade, causing the barrel to expand and the crack paralleling the blade to start. It is not clear whether the barrel was tightened excessively when mounted or the barrel was manufactured with a weakness. The failure was observed when the weapon had been used for a while, suggesting that the break completed during use, because of forces exerted on the barrel either through use or from collisions with an attacker's blade. It is not clear whether the crack began when the failute was observed, or had begun earlier, perhaps long beforehand.
Return to foil table of contentsText Copyright © 2003-2006 Matthew T. Delevoryas
Images, except those with attributions, Copyright © 2003-2004 Matthew T. Delevoryas