What are Prieur good at?

[Black Knight]

I think they are good at postage. It's cheap

[fencerbill]

I think they are good at postage. It's cheap

No other manufacturer makes a better mask cage.

[yeoldearmourer]

That the truth Bill I have 3 from the 70's that still passed 12k

[Beowulfman6]

They are not good at body cords- this is the only prieur stuff that I have used.

[CvilleFencer]

If you have a soft hand and like a light, fast blade with medium to flexible, the PS/Chevalier blades are nice. As mentioned, they are also noted for their masks. While the mesh is very strong, the never fit my head right and the bibs are very stiff, but they are a nice mask, although I think the LP's are better. Their (foil/saber) cords, sockets and points IMHO, suck. Some old school types love them however, for reasons I don't quite get... I have heard good things about their FIE uniforms, but I have never had one myself. They have been around a long time and generally have a good reputation.

[SJCFU#2]

Their (foil/saber) cords, sockets and points IMHO, suck. Some old school types love them however, for reasons I don't quite get...

Perhaps because Prieur body cords are easy to repair and they used to be better made (I have twenty year old Prieur cords that may be too short for me to fence with but still are used for testing). These days about the only decent thing about the new body cords might be the cable - the pins are among the worst I've ever seen.

Edit: About the only advantages to their points however were low cost and recessed tip screws on the foil points.

[brtech]

Yeah, our high school club has a bunch of older Prieur cords and they are reliable, and much easier to repair than any other cord. The new one suck because they changed the pin design and the new pin is not reliable. They are just as easy to repair.

[pacer]

If you are tall and thin, their lame' s fit like a second skin. My son's lame' fits as if it was tailored for him.

[_fence(1)]

I like their masks. Where can I buy one?

[Robert Smith]

If you have a soft hand and like a light, fast blade with medium to flexible, the PS/Chevalier blades are nice.

If you don't, however... I'm not very kind to blades, but recently acquired a Prieur Chevalier blade as a replacement for an StM maraging blade that snapped behind the barrel. I haven't used the Prieur much, but it seems to take bends very easily, which is more than I can say for its willingness to take points and hex nuts.

Fabrication in general seems pretty shoddy; there's a purple coloration that I'd guess was applied as a surface coat after the tip and tang were milled, as the only way I could get a barrel to mount was to screw on an old cracked one first, and screwing down the hex nut took a LOT of work; screw down, back off, repeat.

Additionally, the blade itself has pretty sharp edges; I've gone over them with emery cloth, for fear of shredding someone's lame; but if what I understand - little - about the opportunistic propensities of crack propagation is correct, I wouldn't expect this blade to see out the summer. Unless I leave it in the bag, of course. In which case it can't see out at all...

[Cerian]

The prieur blades I have are much too flexible to be much good... I only use them for practice because in a bout I'll lose touches with it. They are light though, which is nice.

[Purple Fencer]

I hate their foil sockets with a white-hot passion...the worst design I've ever come across.

The damn things curves inward toward the grip, which makes working on it without taking the weapon apart a major pain in the ass.

The nuts are only 7mm...which I find puts greater strain on the wire (because it;s more difficult to get sufficient spaghetti tubing under the nut for strain relief)...I break MANY more wires while attaching them to a Prieur then on a LP bayonet or Uhlmann 2 pin.

The upper socket barely sticks iup enough to get a wrench on...and usually not even that....would it KILL you guys to ad 2 freakin millimeters to the height of the damnned thing?

The retaining clip rarely if ever fits properly over it's OWN cord on it's OWn clip....how stupid is THAT??

If they would fix just ONE thing....it woud be a great help. Simply making the nuts 8mm wide and the socket taller would GREATLY improve the assembly....that'll never happen, tho.

The reason I hear for them being so popular is that you can use a Prieur cord 9wth the plastic clip) or an Uhlmann type (with teh built in clip) on the same socket.

[brtech]

Couple of things to comment about in this post:

The nuts are only 7mm...which I find puts greater strain on the wire (because it;s more difficult to get sufficient spaghetti tubing under the nut for strain relief)...I break MANY more wires while attaching them to a Prieur then on a LP bayonet or Uhlmann 2 pin.

I'm not sure where you learned to try to get the spaghetti under the nut, but I think that is wrong. What you accomplish when you do that is to put uneven pressure on the wire, and specifically, allow it to move.

I see a lot of questionable practice in putting bare copper wire under a screw, washer and nut. Do it the way electricians are trained. The proper way is to put slightly less than one complete turn of bare copper wire under the washer, with the insulated part on the counterclockwise side and the end of the wire on the clockwise side (insulated on left, end on right when looking down from top to bottom).

DO NOT put more than one turn.
Do not put any form of insulation under the washer/nut.
Unless you are really good at it, put it under the washer, not directly under the nut (when there is a washer; the Prier's usually just have two nuts).

What you want is, as much as possible, a uniform height piece of bare copper, to allow the washer to exert uniform pressure on the wire. You want the wire wrapped in the same direction the nut turns.

When you put insulation under a corner, or you overlap the wire on top of itself with more than one turn, you create a high spot. the opposite side gets crushed, and the rest of the surface has little or no pressure on it.

If you get uniform pressure, you have a better joint electrically and mechanically.

Also, if you put the wire around the screw multiple times, it tends to be crushed against the screw threads. As the washer or not tightens, it tends to force the copper to flow into the threads, which makes lots of skinny pieces, and that tends to break much more easily.

When you put the wire under the nut, the nut tends to move the wire from where you put it. With skill, you can learn to not have this be a problem, but it's much easier to tighten if the wire is next to the washer, if there is one (which doesn't move much relative to the nut.

If you wrap the wire around in the same direction as the nut turns, it tends to stay in place. If you wrap it the opposite way, when you turn the nut, it tends to come out of place.

My technique is to strip somewhat more than one turn, put it under the washer and wrap it until I have somewhat less than a full turn. That means i have some bare wire sticking out. I can hold the weapon such that I can use my fingers to hold the wire in place while I tighten with my other hand. When it's tight, I break the free end of the wire off at the washer edge.

If you have the spaghetti properly pushed down so that it sticks through the bell guard and is "tight" when you strip the wire (right down to the free end of the spaghetti), it will not expose more of the wire in use. I pull the wire hard enough that when the stripping action finishes, the wire insulation actually ends up slightly inside the spaghetti, because the spaghetti compressed a little when I stripped the wire. When I tighten the nut, it tends to put the spaghetti right up to the washer.

The reason I hear for them being so popular is that you can use a Prieur cord 9wth the plastic clip) or an Uhlmann type (with teh built in clip) on the same socket.

I find that the German pins don't fit the Prier socket as well as the Prier pins do. I advise fencers who use Prier sockets with German body cords that the combination, like most sets of mismatched parts, may look like it works, but it's not reliable. Like tips, pick one system and stick to it.

[KD5MDK]

^ This is the difference between knowing how armouring works in theory and being an expert.

[Purple Fencer]

I'm not sure where you learned to try to get the spaghetti under the nut'

From Donald Clinton....Dan DeChaine agreed as well.

DO NOT put more than one turn.

I don't...I put somewhere around 3/4 of a turn...wrapped i nthe direction of tightening the nut.

Do not put any form of insulation under the washer/nut.
Unless you are really good at it, put it under the washer, not directly under the nut (when there is a washer; the Prier's usually just have two nuts).

If Prieur would PUT a washer in I'd do that...I DO go under the washer on Uhlmann foil sockets and Prieur epee sockets. in fact, on the Uhlmann sockets I put the wire on the nut on teh underside, not the top. This allows me to put a wrench on the nut and tighten by turning the screw...the wires does not get pulled around this way.

(I had someone once tell me that it was illegal...that the hole in the bracket was there for teh wire to come through and had to be used. I had to point out the rule re connections in side the guard)

The spaghetti i use is sold by Ye Olde Armourer...it crushes underneath the washer rather nicely. Going under the nut also ensures that 1) the rule of the spaghetti going all the way to the socket is met and 2) no exposed wire can touch the socket and short the circuit.

Also, if you put the wire around the screw multiple times, it tends to be crushed against the screw threads.

I've had wires break before the nut even really starts to tighten on a Prieur...not so on the Uhlmann...on a single wrap...and the wire's not being crushed yet.

When you put the wire under the nut, the nut tends to move the wire from where you put it. With skill, you can learn to not have this be a problem, but it's much easier to tighten if the wire is next to the washer, if there is one (which doesn't move much relative to the nut.

The adapter for the B line of a German foil socket and the epee receiving socket eliminates that entirely...and uses less wire to make the connection. Some people here have seen the design (Mergs DID the engineering drawings for me). although I'm out of the first run if prototypes, we're trying to get a production run made. The extra effort needed to make sure the wire doesn't get pulled around is eliminated...and of the 50 or so units out, I have yet to break a wire while installing it...and have heard no reports of problems in use.

I find that the German pins don't fit the Prier socket as well as the Prier pins do. I advise fencers who use Prier sockets with German body cords that the combination, like most sets of mismatched parts, may look like it works, but it's not reliable. Like tips, pick one system and stick to it.

It's not so much that the pins don't match as the clip is a little too long, so there's some play. I DD have a design for a clip that would fit on a German socket and hold a Prieur cord securely in place.

Of course, if Prieur had done it's job properly in the first place, this wouldn't be an issue.

I reiterate my contention that the Priur foil sockets sucks ass.

[fencerbill]

The upper socket barely sticks iup enough to get a wrench on...and usually not even that....would it KILL you guys to ad 2 freakin millimeters to the height of the damnned thing?

Use a socket or spin tite. Usually you want the upper parts of both pins to be the same height so the pins of the plug bottom the same.

I agree that you don't want the spaghetti under the nut.

Discussed single wraps versus multiple wraps with Ted Li once. Where they cross, they are liable to break. But you don't know where the wire will break, after the single wrap or before it, when the wire will very easily fall off.

Another question, mostly for Uhlmann type 2-pins. Do you take the spaghetti covered wire up through the hole near pins or down through. Up means the wire is wrapped above the bracket. Down means it is wrapped below the bracket.

I prefer down. For me, bringing it up means the wire is more susceptible to being hit and broken. Although it may mean it is more available to work on. Is it an honest difference of opinion or does wrapping it on top mean the armorer is lazy?

[brtech]

I'd draw a picture, but I'm really challenged in the art department.

If you have a round washer and you put the spaghetti on one side, and uniform bare wire almost all the way around the rest, and then press down with a nut, what happens? Unless the spaghetti crushes to zero thickness, the washer tilts so that the side under the spaghetti is high, and the opposite side is low. The washer won't touch any other part of the wire. If you squish it down enough to deform the wire at the low spot, you start making better contact with the wire near the low spot, but in practice, most of the wire is not contacting the washer. Typically it rests on whats underneath it, and you do have the wire trapped in two places, but it does tend to move a bit. If you used my technique, the washer (or nut) presses uniformly on the entire turn of wire.

As with most things, if you do a really good job with your technique, I doubt there would be a real problem, but the probability is there. My way has a better chance to have some bare wire if you don't do it just right, but your connection is going to be better on average. Take your pick of problems I guess.

I do prefer the wire on the top of the Uhlmann style. I put it under the washer if I have the time and patience. I think putting on the bottom is perfectly legal.

[Purple Fencer]

As Dan says...there is no right or wrong way....just whatever works