Electric Equipment Repair

The Armoury - The technology that makes electric fencing possible is not that complicated. Anyone can understand it, and with a little help, learn to track down problems.

The Box - There are some people who have some understanding of the inner workings of the scoring box. Any questions regarding such should be directed to them. With regard to their care: treat them like any other piece of sensitive electronic equipment.

Foils - The most common problem in all of fencing is improperly wired foils. Here is one method of wiring foils. Different people may wire their weapons differently.

The Eleven-step program of wiring foils.

1. Clean out the groove. Using acetone is probably the easiest and fastest way to do this but keep in mind that acetone often leaves residue behind in the groove. If you use acetone remember to scrape the groove out with a little screwdriver afterwards.
2. Smooth out your new wire. New wires are rolled up and have lots of small kinks, it's these kinks that pop up when you try to fence. Carefully run the wire between your fingers repeatedly until your wire is no longer kinky.
3. Now thread the wire through the barrel. Not all the way, keep about two inches between the contact and the barrel to work with.
4. Put some glue on the threads and on the first inch of the groove. The threads will come loose if you don't glue them and then your weapon will go off when you beat the blade.
5. Now thread the wire into the groove at the top of the blade. Just about an inch or so. The glue that you put here will hold it down but to further protect your wire from the barrel. Place your crescent wrench or vise-grips over the wire. You will be using these to hold the blade while you tighten the barrel.
6. Tighten the barrel! Periodically check the wire, slide it up and down a bit, if it moves pretty easily it is okay. If not, it has been somehow crushed and requires starting over. Tightening the barrel is the place where most problems occur. The barrel should be tightened extremely well. This point cannot be stressed enough.
7. Now that the barrel is tight, use a contact tool to push the contact down into the barrel. A screwdriver will suffice, but a contact tool is a worthy investment. Gently pull the wire and push with the tool at the same time. Do not pull the contact into place with the wire. It will break. Pull the excess wire along so that it doesn't bunch up under the contact. Contact tools have a little line that tells you when your contact is down far enough. Some blade tips are tapered, this means that it is possible to screw the barrel down too far while using an old barrel.
8. Now stuff the wire back into the glue at the first inch of the blade. This glue keeps the stress off the contact which will break off given any reason to do so. If you want, a single drop of crazy glue will do. Now carefully pull the wire straight, and attach it to the tang (that's the part of the blades with the threads on it.) You can attach your wire to the tang with tape or with some kind of clip i.e. clothespins, alligator or lamé clips. Any of these must be covered with soft tape or something that will protect the wire from the sharp threads and corners of the tang.
9. Now that the wire is attached to the tang at one end and glued in at the other, one must glue down the wire. This task is a lot less time consuming than might be thought. Place your finger along the side of the glue tube. Now place your finger along side of the blade and start squeezing. As the glue comes out, move the finger down the blade. If too much glue comes out, speed up the descent down the blade. When you get to the bottom run fingers down both sides of the blade, gathering up any excess glue and depositing it where it's needed.
10. Make sure the wire is in the groove and then bend the blade. As you bend it, watch carefully to make sure the wire drops down into the groove.
11. In a minute or two look over the wire to see if it is popping up anywhere. If so, carefully push the wire back down with a screwdriver. The glue will be semi-dry so it should stay.