Help with blade wiring problem

[SenorEquis]

I have been battling a problem with a foil blade for over a year now, and today I had the inspiration to ask the community if anyone had any advice or wisdom to pass along.

I have a Leon Paul blade that came to me with a flaw: the groove for the wire is too shallow right along where the natural bend happens. This causes the wire to pop out with relative ease. I have tried using more glue (I use duco), or putting it into there just perfect, but it pops out every time. This last time, it came out two days after wiring! My teammate suggested that I get a Dremel and grind it out, but I don't know if that would be helpful, even if there is a head small enough to go into a foil groove.

So, if any of you have some experience or some magical trick to share, please do! Thanks for your time!

[DHCJr]

A wire poping out is not usually caused by a shallow grove. If the wire is above the plane of the top of the blade, then I would say you need a deeper groove. What causes a wire to pop out can usually be caused by the lack of cleaning. If you had said you used instant glue, which does have little flexibility, the shallow groove would be more of a problem. Duco is fairly flexible. If you want a more flexible glue, you could try Cementit or Archery fleching cement.

Try cleaning making sure especially at the shallow point that the blade is perfectly clean.

[KD5MDK]

There certainly are heads small enough to fit in a groove. The standard cleaning method in my club is in fact to use a dremel.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally Posted by KD5MDK

There certainly are heads small enough to fit in a groove. The standard cleaning method in my club is in fact to use a dremel.

Just be VERY careful what wheel you use. The emery board and reinfirced fibreglass cutting wheels are good....but they'll cut right through the metal. You can get away with using them IF you're very careful...particularly since the fibreglass one won't really fit in the groove.

You could go with what I use to grind a wire out...a diamond cutting wheel....cuts REALLY slow on metal.

Just remember that you MUST get all the crud out of the groove...you want bare, shiny metal...any dirt or crud in the groove will impede the bonding process.

[remise]

SenorEquis -

The very same thing happened to me, except the foil was not a Leon Paul. Listen to what everyone said here on this post as they are correct. The groove in your foil must be spotlessly clean, and I did use a dremel with a diamond wheel to "tear" out any material left behind. The wheel slowly made a deeper groove, and in my case, widened the groove so that the wire fit in. I have had no other problems with that blade ever since.

[soundinspace]

You know what has happened? A curse has been placed on your blade. And the only way to remove this curse is to always let girls win. NO MATTER how mad they get. And most importantly, don't flick against them. And let them flesch a lot against you.