Triplette Competition Arms (was My father, the fop! -Reply)

[jhdavis@ix.netcom.com (Harvey Davis )]

Triplette is a wonderful company with a wide range of products.
However, I would like to post a small warning to anyone who buys 
Triplette's new epee blade. It is a little wider at the base than a 
France-Lames blade but tapers down so that the end acts similarly to an
ordinary epee. The small warning comes in two parts.
    1. Check the edges. A couple of the blades were not ground down 
fully and have this real nifty edge on them (the sharp edges that I 
have seen have been about 10-18 inches up from the tang). You can fix 
such a blade by nocking the sharp edge off with a file or sandpaper or 
something. No big deal to fix, but at least one that I know of would 
cut thick twine.
    2. The other is a little more problematic. As I stated before, the 
blade is wider at the base and tapers down to ordinary epee size near 
the tip. At first I thought this would be the best blade around, since 
the main part of the blade would be intrinsically stronger without 
making the tip so stiff that you might as well have used re-bar 
instead. Nope, this puppy acted like a regular epee (and was maybe a 
bit softer). Unfortunately, I discovered why the blade was hitting a 
little softer. The blade was ground in such a way that the 
cross-section turned square too quickly and subsequently weakened that 
section of the blade. (apx 10-12 inches back from the tip of the 
blade). So, what ended up happenning was you had a blade that was 
stronger in all parts except one, which was weaker. You can probably 
guess what happened to the blades. Yep, they got some hellacious ends 
in them. Now, I wanted to be fair so I talked to other people who had 
bought these specific blades and examined the blades. Not all of the 
blades have this deformity. The ones that didn't have it were fine. 
However, the ones that did taper squarely did not survive for very long 
at all. (Now, I'll admit that I am very tough on blades and most of 
mine have a relatively short life expectancy, but some of the other 
people who bought these blades are extremely light touches and they had 
the same problem.)

    I talked to a Triplette representative and they are looking into 
it. The first problem is gonna be taken care of- no sweat. I do not 
know of the status of the second. 
    
    I still intend on buying most of my equipment from triplette as 
they are good people and have good equipment. All I'm saying is be 
careful. 

Sorry if it rambled a bit.

Gerlach Wiesengrund
Provost A'dE
jhdavis@netcom.com