Leon paul wires have been single covering of cotten with no covering of varnish.
We obviously wire up thousands of blades a year a year with out a problem, so the reason for the problem is likely to be technique of unwinding the wire or application. There are good reasons for doing what we do, all wires with varnish have to have the insulating layer removed and you would be surprised at the number of fencers who bring weapons they have mounted with foreign blades to our stand at competitions which don't work because the varnish has not been removed. Removal of the varnsh needs matches/lighter or worse a file/knife blade which introduces fatigue fracture scratches into the wire surface, (it works for a month and then in mid fight falls off with out the fencer knowing.)
My best guess is the wire coating is being disturbed as the wite us being unwound ready for use, the cloth covering should be trapped at the wire plastic cup during production, it is possible that in a batch this has gone wrong. I will ask production to check present stock. In the mean time contact
sales@leonpaul.com and we will send you some replacements. Barry Paul
The wire hadn't been glued in yet so I removed the cup and wire (very carefully). Last inch of the wire just before the cup was bare. Checked the insulation on the rest of the wire. It is one layer of cotton like material, very fragile. There is no shellac/varnish insulation on the wire. And the cotton insulator will part if I pull on it with my fingernail. Which is apparently the problem. German wires have both shellac/varnish and a cotton covering, the french wires have a double layer of cotton wound in opposite directions but the Leon Paul insulation seems to consist of the single layer of very thin cotton material with nothing else. I've painted the last inch of the bare wires with fingernail polish and will try to install it that way. Are there any other suggestions as to how to possibly make use of these wires? And yes the entry into the blade has been smoothed.
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