Loose french grips

[MHS Fencer]

Okay, so I bought a couple of french grips, and they were nice and snug in California, but now the bell's rattling, before you tell me just to tighting the pommel, I bent the tang to accomodate my hand better. Now I need to adjust one, and the other one needs to be rewired. Is the only way to do this to first unbend the tang? Or is there an easier way?

-Ian

They're epees with BF Bluestar FIE blades or whatever they're called, so that's where most of the toughness is coming from I think.

[ 12-10-2001: Message edited by: MHS Fencer ]</p>

[damianip]

It depends on the bend. You may have seen from a previous post that I was wrestling with my SchermaSport French grips. I finally listened to everyone and just bent them after I assembled them and "unbent" them when I needed to disassemble them.

These grips are a lot tougher to bend than most French grips (actually, tougher than any French grip in my experience) but they survived. I wouldn't make a habit of repeatedly bending them without a good reason, but for the purposes of assembly and disassembly, they'll survive.

As far as looseness goes, my grips have a hole in the pommel and I use this to tighten them up with a "cheater" after assembly. Just make sure your wires are in the clear at the bell-pommel interface.

I still find that I have to crank on my pommel at least once a bout to make sure it's tight. That's probably due to the lack of a lockwassher in the SchermaSport design.

If your're referring to foils, you probably don't have manhandle them so much.

Paolo

[robert]

Have you tied placing a lock washer between the pommel and the handle? It will help tighten the weapon upon assembly, especially if you are a bit short of thread on the tang.

[MHS Fencer]

Ahh, wow, this thread still exists? Actually, that's exactly what I ended up doing, and I thought that it was just that I had messed up in bending the grip - now where were you two months ago!?

-Ian