aw crap.....

[ESLyon]

Hey guys I need a crash course on how to re-glue a wire in an epee, I basically know how/what I need to do to get the wire back IN, it's getting the glue off without screwing the wire up and getting the wire to STAY in when I glue it. What kind of prep do I need?

I did not glue it in the first time, I bought it about two-three weeks ago and the wire popped out tonight at practice.

[thekoby]

I'm not entirely sure how to get the wire clean without possibly damaging it or stripping the cover off, you might have to ask one of the certified armorers on here about that.

As far as getting the wire to stay down when you reglue it, do you have access to a chain? If now you can use a standard window sill and bend the blade so it will fit. That will pull the wire tight against the blade so you can apply the glue. Only problem with using the window sill is that the glue will run down into your tip, causing an even bigger problem. See if your club as a chain with brass caps on it that you can use. If so, after you glue the wire down, hang the blade upside down so the glue will run away from the tip.

Also, use a VERY small hobby knife and scrape out any glue that may be still in the groove or on the blade. Be extremely careful not to cut or damage the wire. This will make a clean surface for the glue to stick to when you reapply it.

Just some advice that I give my students (and I actually had to explain this to someone tonight): Unless your club runs eletric practice every night, I would not use a working, wired weapon to practice with just for the reason you have now. If you've got a tournament coming up and you break the weapon, there's a big chance you're gonna be screwed out of find a replacement or getting your weapon fixed in time.

[telkanuru]

Or you could just learn to fix your own stuff and practice with what you use in competition.

(There are clubs that don't run electric practice every night? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?)

[Morale Officer]

(There are clubs that don't run electric practice every night? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?)

The club I use to belong to had one set up for electric, but we didn't use it every night. In fact, over the summer, we didn't use it at all.

[Mergs]

See signature line.

[SJCFU#2]

Hey guys I need a crash course on how to re-glue a wire in an epee, I basically know how/what I need to do to get the wire back IN, it's getting the glue off without screwing the wire up and getting the wire to STAY in when I glue it. What kind of prep do I need?

First off, keep in mind that the proper way to fix this would probably be a complete rewire - anything else is just a patch job which may or may not hold (a lot depends on what caused the original glue job to fail). However sometimes a patch is what is needed (at least in the short term).

I wouldn't recommend cleaning the wire with more than a Q-tip soaked in rubbing alcohol - anything more aggressive is likely to screw up the wire - but you should try to clean the groove as best you can. How well you can do this will largely depend on how much has popped out - if the entire length of the wire has come out then you may be able to get in there and clean the groove down to bare metal however in many cases you probable won't be able to do much more than scrape at the groove a little with an old tip screwdriver and wipe it down with a Q-tip dipped in rubbing alcohol.

Once you get the things cleaned as best you can you to bend the blade and hold it in that position. Bending the blade will put tension on the wire, pulling it down into the groove. Most armorers do this using a length of chain with a cap on each end, but you can also use a board with a stop at each end, a table (assuming it happens to be the proper height), a door frame or even a window sill.

Once you get the blade bent and the wire is sitting down in the groove apply a few drops of cyanoacrylate (not to much) and let it cure. It should be ready to use in a matter of minutes - if not then it probably needed a complete rewiring from the very beginning.

[TBean]

As someone else mentioned at best this a patch job and may not hold. Try to re-glue and see what happens. If that does not hold and you are not heading to tournament anytime soon a little bit of duct or electrical tape can be your friend. It will keep the wire in place until you are willing/ready to re-wire the weapon.

[ESLyon]

Just some advice that I give my students (and I actually had to explain this to someone tonight): Unless your club runs eletric practice every night, I would not use a working, wired weapon to practice with just for the reason you have now. If you've got a tournament coming up and you break the weapon, there's a big chance you're gonna be screwed out of find a replacement or getting your weapon fixed in time.

Yeah we were running a mock tournament, and we use electric strips almost every practice.

Also to answer someone else's inquiry, the wire has come out on almost the entire length of the blade. only the top few inches near the tip is still in, and my coach had done a quick patch job there last week after the wire started popping out.

Thanks for all the input so far, I was scared this would take a lot of meticulous scraping or soaking to get all the old glue off, seems I just need to clean the groove of the blade, bend it, and re-glue. Now time to visit Wally World and get some super glue....

Would it be ok to use a q-tip dipped in WD-40 to clean out the groove of rust, then come back with rubbing alcohol to get the WD-40 out?

[SJCFU#2]

Would it be ok to use a q-tip dipped in WD-40 to clean out the groove of rust, then come back with rubbing alcohol to get the WD-40 out?

No WD-40!!!! The last thing you want to do is add something that will leave an oily residue that you will need to remove prior to gluing.

Since most of the wire has already come loose it should be easy to clean the groove mechanically with a wire brush or razor, then wipe it down with a Q-tip soaked in acetone to clean out any remaining residue. You could probably even use an acetone bath provided you take care to keep the wire and the tip out of the acetone.

Once you are sure that the groove is really, really clean then it's just like any other rewiring, except you can skip over the parts about screwing on the barrel, feeding the wires through the barrel and setting the tip.

[telkanuru]

The club I use to belong to had one set up for electric, but we didn't use it every night. In fact, over the summer, we didn't use it at all.

*boggle*

[thekoby]

Or you could just learn to fix your own stuff and practice with what you use in competition.

(There are clubs that don't run electric practice every night? Whiskey Tango Foxtrot, over?)

My club doesn't run electric every night just because we don't have that much equipment and the only two armorers in the club are extremly busy (I have my two jobs and the other is an architecture grad student).

[ESLyon]

Well I'm happy to say that my repair job worked... until I fenced a guy in our club who is especially agressive and likes to beat the crap out of you and your blade (he actually broke a blade tonight). There is a small 3-inch section where the wire has popped out, another patch job is in order....

[Nolano]

when the wire has come mostly out like that, the best thing to do is to take the weapon apart, put it in a bending jig, and pull the wire taut. it sounds like the wire's stretched and not wanting to go back in the groove.

[brtech]

If you have repaired it once, and you think you made a decent repair, and it popped out again, I would rewire it. It's not worth the hassle. Probably, you can't get good enough surfaces: either the groove isn't clean enough, or more likely, you can't get the new glue to grab the wire (because the insulation isn't absorbing the glue; you are glueing to glue on the wire and not the insulation.

A new wire and a shiny clean groove, tensioned properly, with the right amount of a good blade glue (I use CA=superglue) will hold up for a long time.

[ESLyon]

If you have repaired it once, and you think you made a decent repair, and it popped out again, I would rewire it. It's not worth the hassle. Probably, you can't get good enough surfaces: either the groove isn't clean enough, or more likely, you can't get the new glue to grab the wire (because the insulation isn't absorbing the glue; you are glueing to glue on the wire and not the insulation.

A new wire and a shiny clean groove, tensioned properly, with the right amount of a good blade glue (I use CA=superglue) will hold up for a long time.

Yes I am ordering some equipment from BG soon and plan on getting a new wire. In the meantime, MORE GLUE! I'll also scrape out the groove as best I can, which will be kinda hard since it's only about 3 inches that's exposed.

[MyrddinsPrecint]

The first plan is to put the wire in such that it won't come out. When it came to the cheaper blades my college club used, the wires I glued stayed PUT. End of story. When it comes to my Vnitis.......

You can either blame Telk, or blame the bendyness of the Vnitis. I choose both.

In any case, the trick to not having the problem you have right now is to carefully look at your blades regularly. Tip screws, barrel tighness, wire popping out. At practice, you want to check at least a couple times over the course of the night. In competition, you ideally want to check these things before you present the blade to the ref. I'm profoundly lazy, and usually only remember to check before I go onto a strip reffed by a list of really competent refs (who have their glasses on) and a few friends who will always try to tell me I'm missing a tip screw, no matter what.

If the wire is popping out, but is so minor you can barely tell, the glue job you're doing in the meantime will work well, comparitively. Once you have to clue a couple inches..... things often don't go as well.