Home made fencing strips

[big daddy]

My fencing team has fenced on cement for the past two years. We like to construct some strips , rather some platforms to fence on. does anyone have any suggestions on how we could do this. We're thinking about screwing some 4' by 6' 1/2 plywood on top of a base of 2" by 6" studs. That's the best we've come up with so far. I would love some other ideas.

[Schiavona]

I've seen this done before. Some clubs, if they can, make a whole floor like this. The only caveat is to put stryofoam insulation between the studs, otherwise your strip or floor will be one big drum! Screw the plywood to the studs so it's easier to replace when it gets worn. Have fun!

[rcmatthews]

You'll want to go with 4x8 plywood as that is standard. My club is currently constructing a floor using 2 layers of quarter inch plywood. the main thing is to make sure that it is properly screwed down so that the wood does not warp.

[SJCFU#2]

Almost anything is better than concrete.

There are rubber mats marketed specifically for covering athletic facility floors, such as weight rooms. However since a fencing strip would probably require cover more than 300 square-feet a plywood deck such as you've proposed would probably be less expensive. Hopefully you won't have to pick it up every night and stack all the pieces in a corner - plywood sheets and wood frames tend to be heavy.

If the platform is simply going to sit on the floor, rather than being raised on posts, then you can use 2x4's rather than 2x6's, and keep the cost down.

You may need to provide additional stiffeners under the plywood sheets to keep them from sagging too much when someone is standing over the middle of a sheet (or even better, two people are infighting). IIRC the standard for floors used to be 16-inch spacing, but it may have increased to 24 inches. For this purpose you may be able to get by with as much as 48 inches.

Don't forget to allow some additional length for run-off at each end, lest someone end up falling as soon as their back foot crossed the end of the strip.

Unless you know someone who can supply you with pre-cut 6-1/2x4 ft sheets of plywood you can save yourself a lot of sawing by simply making the platform 8 ft wide rather than 6-1/2 ft. This will also reduce the risk of falling off the side of the platform when fencing near the edge of the strip.

[Larrison]

I don't know this is any use, but one of the local sallees here has sort of step by step instructions of them building a fencing floor in their facility when they put it in. It's a pretty good floor, built of plywood (and a grid of slats, under the floor), built on a concrete floor

http://www.southcoastfencing.com/pho...struction.html

I'm not a fan of raised individual strips, since folks (such as I...) tend to fall off the sides or ends of them in practice which tends to encourage things like turned ankles and worse (broken wrists from a tumble, cracked heads against the surrounding concrete floor, etc..). I would encourage if you are doing raised strips to get them a lot of overrun room on the sides, and raise them as little as possible above the surrounding floor area.

[acaba]

You might want to contact the Charlotte Fencing Academy http://www.charlottefencing.com/ The Coach Brian Toomey recently (~2 years ago) installed a wonderful floor. The floor at SouthCoast looks good, but I think the Charlotte floor might be better. If you stomp on the Southcoast floor directly over one of the 2x4s, you will only have the wood to cushion the blow. The CFA floor is totally suspended, so everywhere you stomp, the floor has some 'give'. Not sure how to describe it here, but drop Brian a note and he will tell you how much his floor cost, and where to find plans for it.

Aaron Caba

P.S.: tell him Hi from me.

[oiuyt]

There was a good article about flooring in the Swordmaster, the newsletter of the USFCA, a few years ago.

http://www.usfca.org/usfca/swordmaster/winter2001.pdf

See page 4.

-B :)

[Larrison]

[...] The floor at SouthCoast looks good, but I think the Charlotte floor might be better. If you stomp on the Southcoast floor directly over one of the 2x4s, you will only have the wood to cushion the blow. The CFA floor is totally suspended, so everywhere you stomp, the floor has some 'give'. [ ... ]

I *think* the Southcast floor is also a floating floor. If you look at some of the pictures (such as http://www.southcoastfencing.com/ima.../IMGP0060w.JPG), you'll see the 2x4's(?) that make up the latticework under the plywood surface appear to have multiple square black pads under them, above the concrete floor. Drop them a line and see what they used.. From the web site this is the second floor they've put in (they also apparently built a floor in their previous, smaller site) so they might have some tips on what worked and what didn't work.

[cobaltblade]

Our floor was actually designed by a friend of dekko's who had a lot more experience with these things (I'm computer-friendly/Definitely not Black&Decker-friendly). I also have the good fortune of having a lot of skilled students.

The big difference I see between our floor and the SouthCoast floor(at least from the picture) is how the base was layed out. We actually used a layered base, mixing 1X4's and 2X4's on top of each other. There are spots where you'll hit straight wood, but not many. I believe AFC uses the same pattern.

We used AB plywood, not as pretty as birch, but same effect. And A LOT cheaper.

Total cost for putting in the floor was ~$3k...

Total cost for fixing my achilles tendon from years of fencing on concrete: $2k+still rising. And that's just me...

[rsy]

18 mos ago our club installed a fencing floor over concrete in a new facility. We used a product called Mateflex which are 1'x1' locking plastic tiles over a 3mm rubber padding. The padding was simply rolled out and the tiles were laid down and locked together. To install 2000 sf took about 4hrs from start to finish. It looks great, has shown no signs of wear in the last 18mos, apart from cleaning it is maintenance free, it has enough give to protect knees and ankles without any boom or bounce, and because it has colors, the strips don't have to be painted, they are laid out in the tile. I am sure it is more expensive than building your own wood floor, but that is because the labor is free. Factor that in as a cost and this stuff may come out ahead.

-r

[acaba]

Rsy,

That reminds me of the floor at the Fencing Accademy of Philladelphia. They use a floor called 'Sport Court', looks like the same thing as your Mateflex. I did hard footwork on that floor for years and never had any pain. The floor had good traction (except when wet), and was easy on the joints.

Aaron

[Sword Mistress]

owie!!!

concrete = shin splints!!!!

serious question:
how much are you guys investing on getting this flooring done?

[KD5MDK]

Have you considered laying down metal mesh for some of the strips? If you host local tournaments it could come in real handy, not to mention the general benefits to foil and epee.