New saber guard ideas

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

So a saber guard is essentially a piece of metal meant to protect the wires of the saber. Now what if the saber guard was made out of a high impact, durable plastic... say kydex. It would be lighter than metal guards, be able to take as much abuse as metal, not rust, absorbs shock better than steel, and no grounding problems. I've looked into it, and the sca uses it for high impact armor, which means it is capable of taking the wrath of multiple full strength blows by rattan wood. Tell me, does this seem at all feasible, if the fie made some rule changes.

[CvilleFencer]

I think that you will find that for the thickness required you would not have much in the way of a weight savings over aluminum guards, and they would become "chewed up" rather more quickly than metal guards. Also metal guards can be very easily stamped using very low tech materials at Chinese and East European factories while exotic plastics requires rather more sophisticated machinery to treat and make (curing, mixing, injection molding, trimming, etc.) which would be somewhat proprietary to that type of product. As such the development costs and end result would be much higher than a metal guard for pretty much no real world gain. After all any halfway competent machinist/metalworker can crank out metal guards for fencing in his garage.

In short, sure you could do it, but I doubt anyone would since it would be much more costly, there is no real mass demand for it, it would be a pain to get it through the FIE red tape, etc. Nice idea though... If you have the garage space and some skill with tools you could make some up yourself by buying the material in blocks, using a band saw, dremmel and router to get the rough shape and finishing it with files and rubbing blocks. Might make a fun project for you. If it is cool enough you might even build some demand for it!

P.S. Most ot the SCA type armor I have seen made of this type of material is 2 or 3 times thicker than the same thing in steel would be. There may be some out there I have not seen however since I am not much involed in the SCA.

[DHCJr]

Also, why would a fencer want to give an advantage to their opponent. You WANT the guard to conduct. First it give a better contact, then just having the guard connector only conducting through the blade. Try this, without a handle so you can see, move the guard connector around and I am sure you can have it NOT touch the tang, thus your weapon would not work.

Second, you lose out in Offence, so you can no longer get away, if the referee is not observent of getting a touch with the guard, while your opponent can.

Third, you lose out in Defense, since there is no timing block-out from hitting the guard and then the lame. Check Appendix B, Section C Sabre, part b Sensitivity and regularity, Item 5.

I'm sure if you wanted to set up your Sabre like that, I am sure your opponent, if they know will be more than happy to encourage the referee to allow you to use that guard.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Your right, bad idea. Wasnt thinking much about it (I'm not a saberist) but it just popped into my head. Things that pop into my head dont always work. Though you could make the guard more rigid and less thick if you fluted the plastic. It really isnt that hard to make, you can do it with a pair of tin snips, a sheet of kydex, and a heat gun.

[whtouche]

If the guard is intended to protect the 'wires of the sabre' that's new to me.
Sabres require no wires(in the blade at least).
And as DHCJr said, a non-conductive guard would be a bad idea. Currently if someone hits your guard and the blade whips over into your target, there is a chance depending on the timing that the hit will be blocked out by the box. Non-conductive guard means no whipover protection.

Honestly tho, if the conductivity and logistical issues weren't...issues, I wouldnt mind having a significantly lighter sabre guard. I used an LP superlight for a while, but it was just really thin aluminum and got banged up badly.

[Artisan]

uh...yeah... I kinda thought the guard was to protect the hand...

On the issue of tough guards... I have several of the new Vniti one piece epee guards, and none have yet to take a dent, and they weigh about the same as the crappy BG ones with the rivets that pop loose. If Vnity makes a sabre guard it will be popular.

[D+F+P=Hadouken!]

Yeah, so overall it is a bad idea. Though it would be neat if I was able to make a conductive plastic... fluted plastic with a thin sheet metal jacket. It would not have as much metal as a regular guard, but it would conduct.

[Inquartata]

I know a guy who made an epee guard out of some sort of nonmetal substance...carbon fibre, maybe? It looked very good and was quite light, but I have no idea how it's stood up to use, if indeed he has even used it...

[whtouche]

I know a guy who made an epee guard out of some sort of nonmetal substance...carbon fibre, maybe? It looked very good and was quite light, but I have no idea how it's stood up to use, if indeed he has even used it...

Unless it was conductive, wouldn't that run into the same problems as the proposed sabre guard?
I doubt he would have enjoyed people scoring touches on his guard..

[Artisan]

A carbon fiber lamination can be conductive - but will likely have a high impedance, certainly more than the 5 ohms that the circuit will tolerate. Besides, if the guard is too light, the epee will balance less favorably.

[Purple Fencer]

A carbon fiber lamination can be conductive - but will likely have a high impedance, certainly more than the 5 ohms that the circuit will tolerate. Besides, if the guard is too light, the epee will balance less favorably.

Yeah....but then it'd be a stealth guard!!

[oiuyt]

Recently mentioned on the fencingforum forums (as part of a market research poll LP is conducting to find if people would buy them):

Coloured sabre guards

-B :)

[oiuyt]

Just as an additional note, someone from LP responded to questions to clarify that the pictured guard prototypes have a non-conductive coating. They are also experimenting with a couple of conductive finishes which come only in black.

-B :)