Lame advice, please.

[Got_Fenced_In]

I've had my lame for around three and a half or four years. It's a Polish lame, good quality, pretty gold color. I'd been using it at my club every week, no problems, no dead spots, nothing. But then last weekend, I pack up and head to a tournament, and the armorer tells me it's totally and completely dead. And this really, really sucked, because their one and only equipment lady that day had either really, really miniscule womens' lames that even I couldn't squeeze my skinny butt into or really, really large boys' lames that add a ton of target. Needless to say, I ended up with I large lame, that will someday be passed onto my brother. But that isn't the point. My question is, could it be that it's just dirty? It hasn't been cleaned in quite a while. Would that cause it to register as dead? I know that sometimes lames can go downhill really fast, but I didn't think it would happen over the course of three days without being used at all.

Help, please.

[SJCFU#2]

Perhaps it's only mostly dead.

Mostly dead means that it still might conduct enough electricity for the machine to register a touch but fails inspection because the resistance between any two points exceeds the maximum permitted under m.28 (5 ohms). You can have a "mostly dead" lame that's fine for practice but no longer legal for competition - in fact, many people have a relatively new lame that is used only for tournaments and a second, older one that use for practice (which probably was their competition lame until it failed inspection, at which point they bought the new one and relegated the old one to practice).

If it's all dead then there's nothing left to do but see if there are any parts that can be salvaged for patching material.

edit: If it's not too far gone then you may be able to rejuvenate it with a good bath in an ammonia solution. Try spraying it down with Windex, rinsing it clean with water, letting it dry, then test it and see if there is any sign of improvement. In the long run however you are probably going to need a new lame (and many people would consider three to four years use to be pretty good).

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by Got_Fenced_In

I've had my lame for around three and a half or four years. It's a Polish lame, good quality, pretty gold color. I'd been using it at my club every week, no problems, no dead spots, nothing. But then last weekend, I pack up and head to a tournament, and the armorer tells me it's totally and completely dead. And this really, really sucked, because their one and only equipment lady that day had either really, really miniscule womens' lames that even I couldn't squeeze my skinny butt into or really, really large boys' lames that add a ton of target. Needless to say, I ended up with I large lame, that will someday be passed onto my brother. But that isn't the point. My question is, could it be that it's just dirty? It hasn't been cleaned in quite a while. Would that cause it to register as dead? I know that sometimes lames can go downhill really fast, but I didn't think it would happen over the course of three days without being used at all.

Help, please.

The FIE specifications say two things.

Scoring machines must work properly with hundreds of ohms of resistance in the circuit of the floor cords, reels, body cords, weapons and (in Foil and Sabre) Lames.

Lames must have no more than 5 ohms resistance between any two points on the Lame. Body cord leads must have no more than 1 ohm of resistance from end to end.

This combination of requirements allows for lots of little stray amounts of resistance in the many components before scoring is affected.

But they say that the fencer can't contribute more than a small fraction of this resistance.

I have no doubt that your Lame worked fine in practice and at your local competitions. But you were probably supplying more than your allowed share of the resistance in the entire scoring circut.

There is another factor here. A large majority of armorers use meters with 5 ohms of resistance at about the center of the meter on the R X 1 scale they should be using. When he told you that your Lame was "Dead" his meter was probably reading close to the high resistance end of the scale. We armorers like to overdramatize that sort of thing.

It is possible that some of your Lame was truly "Dead" and would have tested as infinite resistance on any scale on any meter. But it is more likely that if he had been truly interested in how much resistance there was, he could have changed scales and told you that it had, say 36 ohms or 182 ohms of resistance. It fails the strict FIE/USFA limit of 5 ohms but it is still less than the hundreds of ohms that would have prevented the scoring machine from registering a touch.

But he doesn't care. It is more than 5 ohms and "Dead" as far as he is concerned.

There is a convenient way to find out if your Lame is "good enough" for practice and local tournaments if you have a scoring machine which signals when your Foil (or Sabre) guard is in contact with your Lame. Just keep the guard in contact with the Lame and move it around. The signal should remain lit. (You may need someone else's help to do the back unless you also do gymnastics.)

If it's any consolation, the question is not whether you will have to buy another Lame but rather when you will have to buy it. Poor luck on your part in this case.

[I_luv_saber]

Agreed... sadly you'll probably have to go with the new one (or get another) for comps, and use this "dead" one for practice (it's likely still OK for that).

Lame advice, please

You're looking for the Thread of Atrocious Advice...

(I'm so sorry..... )

[fencerbill]

Originally Posted by SJCFU#2

edit: If it's not too far gone then you may be able to rejuvenate it with a good bath in an ammonia solution. Try spraying it down with Windex, rinsing it clean with water, letting it dry, then test it and see if there is any sign of improvement. In the long run however you are probably going to need a new lame (and many people would consider three to four years use to be pretty good).

The Windex solution (that is also a pun) is really relevant to the good old days when the conductivity of Lames was due to silver threads. They would develop surface corrosion that was improved by the ammonia in Windex, etc.

Windex and ammonia does NOTHING for stainless Lames. They stop working because of breaks in the stainless threads. Windex will not rejoin those broken threads.

I don't know enough to advise you whether Windex will help with the "new" types of Lame materials or Lames which depend on nickel for conductivity.

But, hey, why not wash them in Windex or something similar, it might make you feel better to try something? Just don't have any expectations it will improve stainless Lames.

[Got_Fenced_In]

Thank you all. Unfortunately, I know just enough about armory to get by with fixing foils and bodycords, but not near enough about lames.

[KD5MDK]

4 years is a decently long time for a lame to last.

[Got_Fenced_In]

I know. It's had pretty heavy(ish) use, too.

[Zilverzmurfen]

It sounds like Santa will have to come earlier to your house this year.