Help! German Tip Trouble

[Puppet Master]

After going to about 3 tournaments, my German tips started screwing up. When I hit solid and stay with a bend no lights go off. When I kind of bounce off the target it goes off every time. I've checked it with the ohmeter and its definently the tip. I did it with solid straight hits without bending the blade. These are my first German tips since switching from French. I cleaned and changed out multiple tips and springs. Also, when I first put the tips in w/o the screws the flange of the collar seems to catch on the screw holes of the barrel, but once it gets past to the middle of the collar ther'e no binding, is this normal?? Some tips are worse than others but they all not go off with solid hits.

What could this be?
Thanks for any help in advance.

[attila]

Hi Puppetman

I had a similar experience with a NEW german tip not long ago. If you look at a brand new point: there is the tip, the insulator ( the little rubber thing between the tip and the part that goes into the barrel), and the post that goess intothe barrel. If the metal ring tha sits between the the insulator and the top of the barrel braks away and you then cut through the insulator with a few hard hits , the weapon will ground out because the tip and the barrel will touch. Thats why a bounced hit will register but a hard held on touch will not. This is a possibility. Check it out. If it is the case get a new tip......

[neevel]

I've not seen this sort of problem particular to German tips (maybe Tim has), but one other possibility is that when you wired the blades you broke the insulation on the wire so that when the blade flexes the insulation pulls open and causes a short. On hits where you don't get a lot of flex, the insulation doesn't pull back and so you don't get grounding (this isn't specific to any model of point). The insulation also could have been damaged in use if the wire wasn't fully down in the groove (check along the wire for any visible breaks), or if it's popped up just a bit in one spot. The insulation on German wires has a layer of varnish over it, so it doesn't wick up glue like Prieur or Sport 7 wires do-- this means that you may have to use a bit more glue (especially if you use a thin CA) to keep it from popping up in spots and getting damaged. When I encounter a weapon that exhibits this behaviour, damaged wire insulation is usually the cause.

The insertion effort for the tip into the barrel is normal. Where did you get your points (i.e., are they Uhlmann/Allstar, PBT, or some other make)?

-Dave

[edew]

Is the barrel well insulated with tip tape? Maybe you're grounding out when bending the blade, and when you release, just the tip touches and voila! the light goes off. Another possibility is that the spring is bent and when compressed, it doesn't squish down straight and accidentally touches the inside of the barrel. Highly unlikely, though.

[Puppet Master]

Thanks for the help, however attila I've already changed out multiple tips and they all do the same thing. Dave, I've tested it doing it softly where there isn't any bending of the blade, but at the same time hitting it square against the floor as opposed to angled. This happpens against the floor too edew. When I hit square with no bend it doesn't go off most of the time, when angled it goes off most the time. I don't see any wire popping up or any insulation thats come off. This doesn't rule it out completely i guess, but i'm almost convinced now its in the point somewhere. I got these from Triplette, and the wire and cup are blue so I suppose its all Uhlmann. One odd note is that on a barrel from the same batch, but not the two I'm dealing with now, one of the screw holes wasn't threaded right and it was impossible to screw a screw into it. Maybe this is a bad batch of barrels? What really strikes me is that both started do this at the same time, after some use. Something must have worn out, or maybe the springs are getting bent as edew said. I hate having to rewire them without knowing what went wrong with these. --pup

[edew]

Ok, then. Take a dremel or small cylindrical file and file out the insides of the barrel. Then clean the barrel out thoroughly (the worst thing to have is metal particles inside the barrel). Try it then.