foil test weight gimmick

[Tomas N]

So how often has this happened to you? You're fencing foil. You're opponent is getting his weapon tested. It fails to lift the test weight. So he says, "uh just a sec," and holds the foible flate against a table, pulls on the tip, and whacks the tip against the table. He redoes the weight test and it just barely lifts the weight. Seems to me that this is illegal. How often is it allowed to slide by though?

Tomas

[noodle]

well it kind of depends on the director.

i've seen some that fail the weapon outright if it misses the first test. i've also seen some who allow that kind of thing, allow people to test by holding the weapon straight on a table, etc etc.

and the tip whacking thing is a valid fix to a possible problem, anyway.

[Katman]

Pretty often.

The whacking is done to fix a bending-outward spring. The problem is that a spring sometimes bends outwards and touches the barrel, resulting in a constant white light.

Unless, of course, I'm mistaken.

[Agent_V]

umm, he said foil, so if the spring touches the barrel one would be grounding out, not getting a constant white light.

I always allow 2 tries for the weight test as a referee, and I've never had a referee who failed it on the first try. The problem is usually that of a sticky tip, which prevents it from pushing the weight up. twacking the tip helps to move things around and unstick it.
remember that the spring has to lift the 500g weight. Due to the material characteristics of metal springs, the force that the spring can exert to return to equilibrium only decreases slightly (but doesn't increase) with each compression, so if it passed on the second or third try, that means that there must have been other (non-spring related) factors which prevented it from passing the first time.
For the rule-lawyers out there, you can notice that at m.11 (3), the rules themselves are not solid on this, because the first sentence fragment says that the tip must not depress with 500 grams of pressure, and the second fragment "clarifies" this by saying that this means that the spring must push up 500 grams, which is a completely different thing because of stickiness, static vs kinetic friction, and the like

ah well. that's why we have interpretation!

enjoy,
Alexander

Pretty often.

The whacking is done to fix a bending-outward spring. The problem is that a spring sometimes bends outwards and touches the barrel, resulting in a constant white light.

Unless, of course, I'm mistaken.

[Craig]

So how often has this happened to you? You're fencing foil. You're opponent is getting his weapon tested. It fails to lift the test weight. So he says, "uh just a sec," and holds the foible flate against a table, pulls on the tip, and whacks the tip against the table. He redoes the weight test and it just barely lifts the weight. Seems to me that this is illegal. How often is it allowed to slide by though?

Tomas

I do this all the time.

It's not illegal. If the referee allows >1 instance of the test to let you pass, then so be it.

Craig

[Tomas N]

ok, well I'll bow to superior fencing knowledge. My interpretation was that the whacking thing got the tip working for exactly one test case, and my opponents were trying to use the weakest spring possible. I also interpreted that you had to bring working weapons to the strip, not weapons that only pass inspection after a bit of work.

Tomas

[mrbiggs]

Technically, you ARE supposed to have it pass the first time, but usually the director lets it slide. Things happen to tips sometimes, and it really doesn't affect the bout that much.

[Grey]

I've heard from my friends that the tips were tested before competition and measured for exactly a little above 500g of force, say... roughly 510 g. Their weapon landed very well on light touches and the sensitivity of it requires the blade to be placed on the floor to test for weight rather than held up in the hand usually.

[Agent_V]

and then the director with the 512g weight fails all their foils...

[Grey]

oh well, you give some you take some lol.