Foil/Sabre Body Cord

For the longest time I was one of those people who thought that all body cords were alike and had roughly the same failure rate. After all, they are all just insulated metal wire with a few connector prongs. You could make one out of lamp cord, a few nails, and some tape in a pinch right? As a result of this attitude I have always purchased the cheapest of cords until a couple of months ago.





I got my first Uhlmann foil cord by accident. I had ordered some for a few of the other fencers in my club, and I wound up ordering one two many. I had every intention of sending it back when both of the brand new "bargain" cords I had just bought quite working.





The first thing I noticed was the heft. The Uhlmann cord is much thicker and of denser steel than that of most of the others out there. The hard plastic at either end has a feeling of substance to it, and the connectors are surrounded by smaller pieces of spring steel that bulge out to insures a good contact.





I do have a couple of small complaints that seems to be common to all the Uhlmann cords. The plastic sleeve that covers and protects the wires from abrasion of the stiff clam shell socket is very thin and low quality compared to the rest of the item. This sleeve wears through very quickly and almost all of the failures I have ever seen or heard of have been the result of the wires fraying at the head where the cord meets the socket.





I used the Uhlmann cords for over a year before I switched to Leon Paul cords and I still recommend the Uhlmann cords to my students that want a decent cord but are not sure how to take care of them and that don't want to spend very much. For their price they are probably the best 2 prong cords on the market.