Fencing.Net - Your Guide to Olympic Fencing

Assembling the Weapon

Once the glue has cured, the blade is ready to be mated to the hilt and point components to build the complete weapon. Remove the blade from the jig and inspect the groove to make sure that the wire is fully glued down. Any excess dried glue can be scraped away with a knife. Untape and unwrap the end of the wire from the tang. If you managed to glue part of the wire to the tang (among experienced armorers, there are those who admit to having done this at least a couple of times, and there are liars), gelled super-glue remover is ideal for freeing the wire.

Straighten the wire-end, and then slide the plastic insulation tubing on over it. Ideally, the blade groove has a wider, deeper indent just beyond the shoulder of the blade. This allows the tubing to pass through the guard, and provide some extra protection for the wire in case it gets pinched passing through the guard. Now slide the guard on over the tang and wire. There should be a notch in the opening of the guard, which is there to allow the wire to pass through without getting pinched and damaged. If the notch is too small (or not present at all), a round riffler file can be used to expand it. Once the guard is on, slide the socket on over the tang and wire, making sure that the wire does not get pinched between the socket and the inside of the guard.

The grip and pad go on last. Just as with the guard opening, there should be a notch on the upper front end of the grip to let the wire pass through without getting squashed. If that notch is too small, enlarge it with a round file. The pad fits between the socket and the grip. I prefer to enlarge the hole of the pad so that it can be slid up over the front of the grip. This allows you to readily check if the wire is not properly running through the notch when the grip is tightened. The pad can be slid down into place when the grip is on. When the grip is in place and the wire is safely in the notch, thread the pommel nut onto the tang and tighten down the grip, checking as you do so that the wire is not getting shifted and pinched. You may want to slide on a lock-washer before putting the nut on. If you need to use several washers because the nut doesn’t bottom-out firmly on the grip, you really should cut the tang shorter or cut threading further down the tang.