I plan to get a new non-electric foil this Christmas for my Fencing class at school. I've only been fencing for a few months and have only used Absolute blades on French grips and 1 BF blade that seem to have disappeared in the weapon cart. This will be my first foil and I wanted to know what more experienced fencers thought of these blades. I also plan to buy electric in the future if I make it onto the varsity team but that won’t be for quite a while.
I used to use Etoiles before I swapped to FIE blades, and I recommend them heartily...I hate StM blades in general.
I don't know how many dry weapons you guys have at your club, but my club's advice to me when I was first starting was to buy electric equipment. If you are competing one day you will want to have several weapons, so starting now would give you a good head start. I'd rather continue using club dry weapons and save for electric (it's the way of the future!). That being said, we moved to electric pretty fast after doing the beginner's class, maybe you guys do not.
I have a paul france electric foil that I bought early on and it is still going strong 1.5 years later. Don't know how they compare to the etoile.
They're both fine blades. If want a light blade, buy an etoile. If you want a heavy blade, buy an StM. It's that simple.
>:U
as was said above, the most obvious difference is heavy vs light.
The etoille, however, will probably last you at least twice as long as an StM. One huge HUGE warning on the etoilles though, they turn to noodles. When I first started fencing foil, I broke 2 or 3 StMs while my etoille stayed strong (i fenced on all weapons with pretty much equal frequency). I no longer use the LP because it is so bendy that if I don't extend perfectly straight with minimal blade contact, the point won't land well.
Thanks for the input and it seems that the etoille's are better, at least from your reviews.
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