Say goodbye to France Lames?

[D'Artagnan1673]

After reading all the stuff on Italian epees, I decided I would try to purchase one.

I called American Fencing yesterday to inquire about ordering an Italina epee. I was told that they had a few blades in stock. I asked when they would get more. I was told that France Lames, the Italian blade manufacterer, is unable to fufill its orders any more. I was told that perhaps it may be a year before any shipments from France Lames will arrive.

Triplette also told my school districts drama club something simular when they went to order stage rapiers for Romeo and Juliet. Bless TCA, I love them, but I always take anything they say about FL with a grain of salt since they bash FL with such a passion. Still, with American Fencing saying the same thing, it pretty much validates the incident.

Has anyone else heard anything about France Lames going down?

[135711]

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]</p>

[Gav]

I may be missing something but France-Lames is French not Italian. They have their own website so why not ask them direct?

[D'Artagnan1673]

That's a question I'd rather not ask a company. "oh, by the way, I hear that you are unable to fulfill your orders, is that true?"

[Catal]

Yeah, France Lames is French, D'artagnan. Negrini, is Italian.

[Pierfrancesco]

the France in France Lames kind of gives it away

[D'Artagnan1673]

Of course I know that Negrini is Italian and France Lames is French! PBT is Hungarian, Prieur is French, Uhlmann is German, so is Allstar, Santelli is American. What does the nationality of a company have to do with France Lames situation?

[ 04-18-2002: Message edited by: D'Artagnan1673 ]</p>

[D'Artagnan1673]

Catal, sorry, I just got your tongue in cheek humor.

Gav,

France Lames, a French company, is the only producer of Italian blades. The name Italian mainly refers to the tange and grip style of the weapon.

[Pierfrancesco]

[quote]Originally posted by D'Artagnan1673:
<strong>France Lames, a French company, is the only producer of Italian blades. The name Italian mainly refers to the tange and grip style of the weapon.</strong><hr></blockquote>

I think we can chalk that one down to grammatical ambiguity D'art

[Gav]

Ah! I understand! I re-read the post - definitely ambiguous grammar. No harm done.

[D'Artagnan1673]

[quote] "I called American Fencing yesterday to inquire about ordering an Italian epee.".... " I was told that France Lames, the Italian blade manufacterer, is unable to fufill its orders any more." <hr></blockquote>

Ok, I can see how you got confused. My description of France Lames could be taken two ways. As making Italian blades, or being an Italian blade manufacterer. I am no English major, but wouldn't the reference to the latter have told the reader that I was refering to Italian blades? Its not a big deal, I just want to figure out my mistake so I never do that again.

[Craig]

135711 - You're way off topic here.

Cheers,
Craig

[Purple Fencer]

Don Clinton (Level 1 armorer) was in SwordPlay today, and while I was picking his brains for about 4 hours on armory information, I asked about good ol' FL. According to Don, the doors have been padlocked due to shady business practices.

He may be able to get me a pipeline for Vniti blades, either through him or Dan DeChaine. I'll let ya know when I get 'em...if I do.

[neevel]

When I asked Mike Czarnik, who's the Midwest tournament vendor for American Fencers Supply and presumably would've gotten his information from Matt Porter at AFS, what he said was that FL is not out of business, but has stopped production of blades to address the quality control issues that have become so prominent.

-Dave

[Purple Fencer]

What QC issues? You can't have a quality control problem when you don't have any QC to begin with!

[135711]

.

[ 05-22-2002: Message edited by: 135711 ]</p>

[edew]

Don Clinton got the information from the same source I got it: Dan DeChaine. Dan told me that they do indeed have those yellow tape thingee around the F-L building in France. Bartholemou (sp?) who runs F-L is nowhere to be seen. F-L was supposed to be at Antalya selling, like everyone else, but was conspicuously absent, supposedly.

It's nothing to do with the QC of the products. Nothing is being sold, nothing is allowed to be taken away or removed from the premises. It's a closed shop, so to speak.

[Purple Fencer]

[quote]Originally posted by edew:
<strong>Don Clinton got the information from the same source I got it: Dan DeChaine. Dan told me that they do indeed have those yellow tape thingee around the F-L building in France. Bartholemou (sp?) who runs F-L is nowhere to be seen. F-L was supposed to be at Antalya selling, like everyone else, but was conspicuously absent, supposedly.

It's nothing to do with the QC of the products. Nothing is being sold, nothing is allowed to be taken away or removed from the premises. It's a closed shop, so to speak.</strong><hr></blockquote>

The way Don actually told me, Preiur used to get a lot of blades from FL, then return all the crappy ones...in effece service as FL's quality control arm. Saul at The Fencing Post told me he suspects FL was dumping the poorly made blades on the US market. That WOULD explain the FL blades (regular carbon steel, not the FIEs) that have grooves that sorta meander down the blade, are too close to the edge, or aren't cut deep enough...particularly at the tip. I've gotton into the habit of taking my Dremel to every foil blade I wire, just to make sure -- and particularly if it's a French wire.

Irritating! Seems I need to find another source for blades (aside from the BF Uhlmanns I can get from Saul)