saber bellguard causing touches

[jjefferies]

Ran into a new (for me a non-saber fencer) problem. A set
of sabers would cause an eigertek scoring machine to
register a touch if a bellguard touched the opponent's
lame (or mask). Occurred for both fencers. Looked the
weapons over and could not identify any obvious problems
such as loose wires etc.

Any suggestions?

[erooMynohtnA]

Perhaps I'm ignorant here, but isn't that what happens for all sabers on all boxes?

[kalivor]

Give the fencer scoring a hit with their guard a yellow card (red if it's sufficiently violent to be a "blow"), and annul the point?

[Purple Fencer]

Originally Posted by jjefferies

Ran into a new (for me a non-saber fencer) problem. A set
of sabers would cause an eigertek scoring machine to
register a touch if a bellguard touched the opponent's
lame (or mask). Occurred for both fencers. Looked the
weapons over and could not identify any obvious problems
such as loose wires etc.

Any suggestions?

None....there's no problem here. The blades are physically in contact with the guard...as far a the box is concerned, they're the same, so the guard coming into contact with the other guy's mask or lame is the same as laying the blade on to the box.

That's why the reule about carding for scoring with the bellguard exists.

[HDG]

Why isn't all of the saber guard insulated? (non-saber fencer question)

[dekko]

Originally Posted by HDG

Why isn't all of the saber guard insulated? (non-saber fencer question)

Insolated just means painted on the bottom side and a rubber or plastic piece at the base near the pommell nut. Purple nailed it, since the guard and blade are in constant machanical contact if someone uses their guard to score a touch the light will come one and the card should come out.

[Fechter1]

Originally Posted by dekko

Insolated just means painted on the bottom side and a rubber or plastic piece at the base near the pommell nut. Purple nailed it, since the guard and blade are in constant machanical contact if someone uses their guard to score a touch the light will come one and the card should come out.

I think you misunderstood HDG's question: Why not just remove this electric connection, or cover the entire guard with non-conductive material?

Seems straight-forward enough, until you consider the whipover lockout timings, and the need for the machine to 'know' when (if) a parry was made...

But I don't know enough about the mechanical/electrical details of sabre fencing and scoring to know the finer points involved here...

[HDG]

Originally Posted by dekko

Insolated just means painted on the bottom side and a rubber or plastic piece at the base near the pommell nut.

Yes, but why not have that same sort of "plastic piece" enclose the whole guard?

[erooMynohtnA]

Originally Posted by HDG

Yes, but why not have that same sort of "plastic piece" enclose the whole guard?

It changes the feel of a parry, it's more expensive, it would make lockout impossible, and it's unnecessary.

How many touches do you see made with the guard? In fact, how many times are saber fencers even close enough for that to happen without a light already on?

[HDG]

Originally Posted by erooMynohtnA

It changes the feel of a parry, it's more expensive, it would make lockout impossible, and it's unnecessary.

How many touches do you see made with the guard? In fact, how many times are saber fencers even close enough for that to happen without a light already on?

Just curious.

[dekko]

Originally Posted by Fechter1

I think you misunderstood HDG's question: Why not just remove this electric connection, or cover the entire guard with non-conductive material?

Seems straight-forward enough, until you consider the whipover lockout timings, and the need for the machine to 'know' when (if) a parry was made...

But I don't know enough about the mechanical/electrical details of sabre fencing and scoring to know the finer points involved here...

I thought HDG was talking about how many catalogs says insolated sabre bellguard, hence his question. As to your question, there is no wire between the socket and blade/bellguard, it's all comes together right under the bellguard so, unless you want to bring wires into the mix, there really is no way to insolate the blade from the bellguard from the socket without wires. As for the grounding lockout for parries, it is there but it would not be a good idea to make a strategy out of having their blade, your bellguard/blade and your lame come together all at once. Yes it could prevent a light but the window is so tiny good luck making it work on a consistant basis.

[Purple Fencer]

The inside of teh guards is insulated so if your manchette touches the inside, it won't provide a conductive path is your opponent's blade hits th\e guard...same as insulating the pommel.

The outside is NOT insulated so a blade landing on it will properly ground out through the C line...just like the guards in foil and epee

[HDG]

Originally Posted by Purple Fencer

The outside is NOT insulated so a blade landing on it will properly ground out through the C line...just like the guards in foil and epee

That's all I wanted to know.

[mrbiggs]

Originally Posted by Purple Fencer

The outside is NOT insulated so a blade landing on it will properly ground out through the C line...just like the guards in foil and epee

Yeah, with an insulated guard, there could not be a whipover timing.

[KD5MDK]

It would also sound very different when you made a parry.

[jjefferies]

Thanks guys, it makes sense once someone explains it. Not having fenced saber I wasn't really clued into the electrics of saber and had never paid any real attention to cards being issued in saber. Reason I got involved in the question was that at the time I was the only semi-armourer around.

[Inquartata]

Feh. I am dubious about that "whipover lockout" altogether. I can't recall ever having a whipover locked out by a box. In fact it seems to go the other way: what look like not only good parries but exaggeratedly good parries don't manage to stop the light from going off. What I DO see is unparried blades hitting masks or lamés and NOT getting lights.

I suspect that the Emperor has no clothes on.

[Purple Fencer]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Feh. I am dubious about that "whipover lockout" altogether. I can't recall ever having a whipover locked out by a box. In fact it seems to go the other way: what look like not only good parries but exaggeratedly good parries don't manage to stop the light from going off. What I DO see is unparried blades hitting masks or lamés and NOT getting lights.

Y'know...I think I was the beneficiary of that kind of thing...first year Duel in the Desert was at the Tropicana.

I was in DE against a lady (can't recall the name) who was a B, while I was a lowly and unskilled E...but I still managed to get out a 15-14 win (only to have the defending champ hand me my head on a platter in the next bout!)

Looking at the bout later, someone suggested that her hits on me were so incidental -- with minimal contact time -- that the box thought they were whipovers and ignored them....in the meantime, MY shots stayed on her target for about an hour or so....so I always got the light, while she contended with thinking she'd hit, seeing only MY light on....testing and getting a good light...and the ref letting the touch stand.

[Inquartata]

Meh. "Sticky hands" sabre?

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by Inquartata

Feh. I am dubious about that "whipover lockout" altogether. I can't recall ever having a whipover locked out by a box. In fact it seems to go the other way: what look like not only good parries but exaggeratedly good parries don't manage to stop the light from going off. What I DO see is unparried blades hitting masks or lamés and NOT getting lights.

I suspect that the Emperor has no clothes on.

There is also a dependence on the length of the attacking blade beyond the parry. The longer this length, the longer time interval before the tip encounters valid target and the greater the likelihood that the lockout time will have ended.

With blades hitting masks, there will be a factor of whether the attack was like a flick or with little angular motion at the time of contact. If the attacker is emphasizing recovery of the blade to make a parry, the contact time can be too short to activate the light.

If you have problems this way, consider hitting on the shoulder instead of the mask. When encountering fabric the time with contact may be longer and therefore more likely to result in a light.

There can also be encounters, particularly with the hand or arm as target, where the blade encounters valid target at the same time, or infinitesimally earlier, that it arrives on guard or blade. The defender hears what he believes to be a parry sound so can't comprehend why his absolutely superb parry doesn't prevent a light against him.

Here, there is a little dependence on the referee. The referee has to believe that a proper parry can still result in a light against the parrying fencer. If the referee believes the light always means the parry was incorrect you are sunk. You have to fence differently. When I referee, if I see what I am convinced was a proper parry and the defending fencer does get a light from his riposte, I will call it "parry, riposte". After all, the defender does have a right to leave his parry to riposte, he is not obligated to prevent a light from an incorrect remise. But the defender does have to get a light on or it doesn't matter whether the original attacker scores because of a proper attack, poor parry or out of time remise.

The phrase that still baffles me is the one with both fencers attacking to the mask, incidental blade contact in the middle and neither light comes on.