Epée bodywire (body cord)

Great body cords. They're thin, and it almost seems like there's nothing there. To be honest though, I love any body cord that will work for more than a month without repair. I have not managed to break the plastic thingy yet, and it's been through some mild abuse. If you hate your body cords and abuse them like a red headed step child, then don't get these. If you're a more "light handed" fencer, then definately get these.

For making this, and for giving it to me to test, abuse, and eventually destroy. I have actually managed to break the little plastic connectors in this cord, a total of five times. All of them came from overzealous fencers trying to bellpunch me, but this shouldn\\\'t have happened.



I like this cord, don\\\'t get me wrong, but that little plastic piece that keeps the pins offset and straightens out when put into the connector is too fragile. This is probably an American thing, but I torture the bejesus out of my equipment, and my epee gear gets it the worst.



The cord has not oxidised at all, there has been no sign of LPD, and the solid body pins have spoiled me to anything else. The price is right, but I\\\'m still iffy about the plastic being too breakable. Perhaps I\\\'ve gotten a bad batch?



It\\\'s good overall, but it\\\'s not the perfect cord for me, right now.

I am a huge fan of the Leon Paul body cords. Working as an Armourer I have seen many of the come through the inspection line looking horrible and old only to have them pass with no problems. When I ask how old they are I hear anything from 5-18 years!



The socket end on these cords are both their greatest strength and their only real weakness. The cords use and offset pin design so the pins themselves are very smooth ensuring that they will go in and come out of any socket or machine. The offset pin design means that they are always pushing away from each other so they stay put and insure a very good connection. The reason that this is a weakness is that if you don't take reasonable care of your gear (no hurling it against the wall and such) you can break the widget inside the plug that holds the pins offset. Of course this is easily replaced in and of itself, which leads me to another great feature of these cords.



They are very easy to fix in the field on the odd times they do break down. The socket head cover just pulls off and you have the three pins mounted to the wires with self piercing screws. Loosen the screws, pull the wire through and tighten it back down. That is all it takes. Very much simpler/easier than the Uhlmann/Allstar style socket plugs and even the Prieur style.



The final benefit of this wire is its very light weight and low profile. It is the lightest body cord I have ever come across with very supply fine strand pure copper wire. I truly never notice I have it in and it is very comfortable to wear. In my experience the wire is also much more durable than the heavier, less flexible wire used by Uhlmann, PBT etc. Also, the very low profile of the socket head inside the guard means there is more room for my big hands and less target sticking out for someone to hit.



I have used every major cord on the market and I chose to use the LP cords because for me they are simply the best. I strongly recommend them.

The cord itself is very light and thin yet very durable. I haven't needed to repair either of my cords yet. So in my experience I've had three different brand epee body cords and I have come to this conclusion:

LP>Prieur>BG



This cord is great because the off center pin keeps a really firm connection, and the plug itself isnt a big bulky plastic block. It gives my hand a little more room in the guard.

I like the rubber shealth - it has a smaller profile than the big honkin' plastic casings of most other bodywires. Also, as someone pointed out, the cord is very easy to repair if need be - simply pull down the rubber shealth, loosen the pointed screws, feed the wires through, rescrew, and snip off the excess. The plastic wire holder can be fragile though, so don't man-handle it.



Anyway, I haven't really needed to do much repairs on them since taking care to keep them separate from sweaty fencing kit.

Our fencing club uses a wide variety of bodywires.



The Leon Paul offset pin design consistently give the fencers using these wires at our clubs less intermittent connection problems than any other brand, and far less maintainance troubles than split-pin models.



Their only downside is that they tend to be slightly less durable than some other competitors; Rough Handling (IE: being repeatedly stepped on and placed under unusual stresses) have been known to break the small plastic part responsible for holding the pins in place. (so don't do that ;).

I think all bodywires are much of a muchness. The LP ones have never failed on me nor do they cause any difficulties by using an unusual size of connector.

LP's bodycord design is very easy to fix. You loosen the screw, pull the wire through, retighten, and cut off the extra wire. You don't have to strip the wire at all. The downside is the thin wire used breaks easily. Being 6'3", the LP bodycords quickly become too short for me to use.



My prefered solution: I use the PBT ends and make my own body cords.