LP/Absolute/Artos new conductive strips in daily use?

[FoilyDeath]

I was wondering if anybody had any comments about the wear and tear of the new conductive/rubber strips absolute, LP, and Artos have been selling? At the Atlanta NAC a few people we're concerned about them skidding around, although it seemed that was easily remedied with good taping, and a few people expressed doubts about their long term use as strips to actually train on regularly.
has anybody used these on a regular basis for a decent period of time? Which company's? If they were damaged, how easy were repairs?

[Alex_Paul]

FWIW we have 5 or 6 now which we rent out to events in the UK. The oldest is probably 2 years old and is holding up well. They get used about half of the weekends in any given year.

That said there is something going on at the nac's that seems to mean they are getting more damage than the ones in the UK.

I don't know what is happening, maybe at the JO's every epeist decides it is time to go for foot hits!

Patching is easy if you manage to tear through it you slap an inner tube patch on the back. A small dab of conductive paint on the top surface does the trick for any minor damage.

Obviously foil and sabre cause a lot less damage to the surface.

They don't slip about to be honest and onlty need a small amount of tape.

If you need something portable and your floor is nice and flat they are a good bet.

[Rockstar44]

I was not at the JOs, but have been told that one of these strips was being tested there. Any comments, good or bad, from those who fenced on them would be greatly appreciated.

Any armorer's opinion is also welcome.

Thanks.

[brtech]

We keep hoping that they will work. We have calculated that if they last an entire season, we save more money in shipping and storage that we would buying new ones every year. If they last more than a season; even better.

So far, I don't think they will last. In one tournament, we get holes. Most of the holes that I have seen would not cause an epee hit to not register as a floor hit, but it seems that it would not last a season. The comments we got on the evaluation forms from a prior tournament (Atlanta) were not all that positive. I think that the thin rubber over concrete is not as comfortable as the metal strips. They do seem to "ripple" a little as you do the normal advance/retreat.

I'd think we would also have to measure resistance after a full year of use at USFA events.

Alex, has anyone tried an experiment of putting them down over "sport court" flooring? That may fix the comfort problem, but I don't know if it would move around too much. It could also cut down on puncture wounds. Or maybe not.


They are SO much easier to put down and take up.

Did I mention we REALLY want them to work?

[seven6ty]

Yes, please, please, PLEASE don't ever put these things down on bare cement, it's murder on your heels. I've never had heel conditions, but it was incredibly annoying at the one NAC I fenced on one for. I'd almost go so far as to call it a safety concern. If anyone is laying these down over cement, you should really put some kind of padding under it. (Note to the NAC people.)

As long as they have something else under them though, they seem like they'd be really nice.

[Nolano]

Lucky info for anyone going to the Portland NAC, if they're using these there.

I've been in one of the convention halls they're going to use. semi firm carpeting.

[Alex_Paul]

Brian, what do you mean by sport court flooring? Portable stuff?

In the UK they are used on regular basketball gym type floors which naturally have enough give.

They must not go on carpet; the surface they are on must be hard. It can be hard backed by soft to give a bit but if you put them on carpet they will get holes in them.

If you add more layers you add more weight, maybe you even double the weight and so the shipping cost saving will go down.

They will maintain conductivity for a whole season, the issue is the holes from epee. One solution would be to have metal strips for epee and only do foil and sabre on the lightweight ones.

[SJCFU#2]

Brian, what do you mean by sport court flooring? Portable stuff?

My guess would be that by "sport flooring" he is referring to the rubber flooring often sold as an alternative to hardwood.

Sport floors are often sold in the form of tiles in order to make it easier to assemble in an existing room. Unfortunately I'm not sure how portable they are. Many of the tiles use a series of tabs and slots along the sides to lock the individual tiles together and from from what I've seen it often requires judicious use of force to force the tabs all the way down into the slots (usually in the form of a rubber mallet). This might not be too much of a problem if everything were pulled up and moved once every few years but it could be another matter if it has to be done several times a year (then again, maybe convention centers could be required to provide the flooring as part of the contract).

[seak]

I think rubber mats that could be rolled out under the strip would also probably serve the required purpose of more give.

Basically in the USFA hosts national tournaments in convention centers, these tend to have concrete floors. If you just put the LP strip down on these floors it's painful to fence one, there isn't enough padding. With the raised metallic strips there is give built in.

[Alex_Paul]

Rubber mats are very heavy unfortunately; for example 3mm thick mat the size of a strip weighs around 100lbs.

Rubber will have the same issue of holes appearing as carpet so isn't an option with these roll out strips without an intermediate hard layer.

Aluminium strips are good when they are well made but they are VERY expensive to ship and lay. My understanding is that US fencing spends a high percentage of the income from a NAC on the shipping. If their shiping costs were lower there would be more money for extra ref's etc etc... so you can see why they are looking at options.

[battleaxe]

We use a "sport floor" in our club. It consists of 12 inch square interlocking tiles that are 1/2 inch thick. They are laid over a 3 mm composition backing over a cement floor. Makes for a good fencing surface but they are far from easily portable. I had to pull up about 2500 sq feet when we moved to a new facility. It took three of us a couple of hours to break it down into 4x8 foot sections and another couple of hours to reassemble. The sections were quite heavy and bulky. Not a good choice for a portable floor but they are excellent for a fencing floor that you can take with you if you move ocassionally.

[brtech]

Yes, it's rubber, and comes in interlocking pieces. Usually they have it in approximately 3 foot square sections for laying out on a convention center floor.

Laying it down can usually be done by walking on the interlocks, but sometimes a mallet is used. They have a really neat manual "pusher" device for breaking it back up into pieces. It's kind of like a big "unzipper".

In some, but not all, convention centers, there is a vendor that can supply it instead of carpet. Richmond is an example, and in fact the deal with the convention center included sport court flooring. It's pretty nice on the refs, better I think then carpet over concrete (padded carpet is even better).

I don't think it works to buy and ship sport court, just like it doesn't work to buy and ship carpet. The pricing at the convention center is set just less than what it usually costs to do that. They know their market.

If if the strip worked on sport court, it MAY be possible to make availability it a requirement on the package. I heard talk of that already for other reasons.

[KD5MDK]

If the USFA spends a very high percentage of its revenue from NACs on ground shipping, they've hidden it from the budget. More stuff for the committees to work on...

[brtech]

Shipping is big, but it's not a large percentage. I've never seen a bill. but I think it's in the range of $10-20K per NAC. That seems about right to me: $5K per truck from Iowa to the NAC and back again. It's two trucks, although one of them is usually small. That's no where near a large percentage, but the total bill per year is a tidy sum.

Don't suggest trying to direct ship from NAC to NAC; horrible idea -- guaranteed to get everything lost or cost a LOT more. We've tried it.

[KD5MDK]

$10-18k is the figure I've seen. Out of a total expenditure in the $110-175k range it's certainly important, but hardly a majority.

[Alex_Paul]

$10-18k is the figure I've seen. Out of a total expenditure in the $110-175k range it's certainly important, but hardly a majority.

My mistake, I think I underestimated your budget per NAC. 10 - 18 per event is more than is spent on TOTAL costs for any event in the UK!

[FoilyDeath]

My mistake, I think I underestimated your budget per NAC. 10 - 18 per event is more than is spent on TOTAL costs for any event in the UK!

Yeah...even compared to our Senior Nationals, its a completely different scale. I went to Atlanta in Jan and it was kind of a shock.

[fencerbill]

Has anyone tried them on upside down carpet? The right kind of carpet backing will be almost the same as the sportcourt.

If the upside down carpet makes them last longer, it might be reasonable to keep it and ship it between events.

QUOTE=Alex_Paul;668156]Brian, what do you mean by sport court flooring? Portable stuff?

In the UK they are used on regular basketball gym type floors which naturally have enough give.

They must not go on carpet; the surface they are on must be hard. It can be hard backed by soft to give a bit but if you put them on carpet they will get holes in them.

If you add more layers you add more weight, maybe you even double the weight and so the shipping cost saving will go down.

They will maintain conductivity for a whole season, the issue is the holes from epee. One solution would be to have metal strips for epee and only do foil and sabre on the lightweight ones.[/QUOTE]

[brtech]

It never pays to ship carpet, but the back of convention carpet isn't rubber, or anything you would think would work for this purpose. You really do want thick rubber something, and sport court is the only thing I can think of that might be available at a reasonable price for the strip. We have to have local carpet or sport court for the ref area, and it's actually easier to cover the entire space then to have the holes we have now (although having said that, I think they charge by the yard anyway).

Shipping thick enough rubber isn't 2X the weight, it's 10 or 20X.

[KD5MDK]

I'm calculating total shipping costs for USFA gear at approx $100k for the season. (6 NACs, JOs, 2x for Nationals)

If we saved 3/4 of that by switching to roll-up pistes, we'd be able to buy 39 of them (assuming a 30% bulk discount) every year.