Kit

Buying your own kit

Sooner or later you’ll want to think about buying your own kit. So—what should you buy, and where can you get it?

What to buy

The three most important things you’ll need are the three you hire as a new beginner: a mask, a jacket and a foil. After that, you should think about a glove, an under-plastron and a pair of breeches (all of which give added protection if you’re fencing competitively); and then perhaps a body wire, a lamé and an electric foil if you want to enter competitions.

Where to buy it

There are a number of retailers of fencing equipment in the country. Three have shops in the South East and all have websites. The addresses and websites for these are given at the end of this leaflet. All three offer beginners’ kits—a package of all the basic kit you’ll need at a reduction on the combined price of all the individual items. To save money you could think about buying second-hand—the auction website eBay is a good place to find unwanted fencing kit—but take care about the condition of what you’re buying. And the club’s committee members are always happy to give advice about what to buy and where to buy it.

What will it cost?

Sadly fencing kit isn’t particularly cheap. To give you and idea, at the moment  you can expect to pay around £35-40 for a basic mask, £35 for a jacket and £30 for a foil. All the manufacturers listed at the end of this leaflet have online price lists.

Kit for competitions


Here is a list of the kit you will require for competitive foil fencing. (If you want to know the differences for the other weapons, ask James.) While the club has a small amount of kit we can lend to members new to competing, we don’t have lots. Speak to one of the club's officers if there’s something you particularly need. For each item, we have added the cheapest available price from the range of retailers listed below, some of which have real-world stores you can visit. For juniors, who will grow out of kit, a cheaper brand is much more sensible, particularly for clothing.


Prices are correct as at spring 2011.


Some of the kit is required to be of a certain strength measured in the force it can resist in Newtons (N). Kit tested as meeting this standard has a label indicating that – generally with a ‘CE’ European testing standard logo – you’ll see one on your mask.


Mask with bib to 350N minimum– £35 from SwordPriceFighters. For foil competitions it needs to have a lame panel on part of the bib, you can buy a mask with this already on; if yours doesn’t have this you can buy the panel separately, it comes with fabric glue to glue it to the bib. £12.22 www.leonpaul.com. Different types of mask are required for epee and sabre competitions (epee – no lame panel; sabre – bib is completely covered by lame and mask has bare metal rather than insulated metal all over for foil and epee) so make sure you get one appropriate for foil if you want to enter a foil competition.


Mask to lame connection wire £3


Glove £8.95


Jacket – 350N min £40 child / £48 adult www.bladesbrand.com


Plastron – garment worn under jacket, covering upper part of sword arm and chest on sword arm side, for extra protection. 800N £25 (350N is permissible for U14s and under) 800n £45; 350N £25 adults, £18 juniors www.leonpaul.com


Breeches – 350N £33 adult; £25 junior www.thefencingshop.co.uk


Long socks (long enough to overlap with the breeches) (you don’t need special fencing socks, and they don’t have to be white, but fencing ones traditionally are. So, these can come from any sports shop) £4.95


Lame jacket £36


Body wire (best to get 2 of these, some competitions require you to have a spare one). There is a choice here, you can get them with a bayonet connector or a two-pin connector – whichever you get it needs to match the socket in your foils. Bayonet is the most common in the UK, 2-pin ones are more common in Europe and the US. £18.26 each for a Leon Paul bayonet one, but SwordPriceFighters do a 2-pin one for £5.


Electric foil (you will need to get the appropriate blade size for your age group – see above) (again, 2 weapons are required for most competitions – they do go wrong from time to time, so you need a spare for competitions) Remember to choose the option to select the right socket for your body wire. £24.95 for one with a 2-pin socket from SwordPriceFighters (they don’t offer bayonet ones at the moment), or from £37.75 from Leon Paul (either type of socket available). When you buy a blade or complete weapon you should specify whether you are right or left handed, as the blade is ‘set’ or angled differently to suit a right or left hander.


You might also want to get a bag for all this stuff - £32.43 from Leon Paul, SwordPriceFighters do one that’s more expensive – the one I’ve priced for is the budget end of the Leon Paul range. More economical is to use a golf flight/travel cover – the zippable bag that you’d put over a regular golf bag to travel with it. It’s large enough for fencing kit and because golf is a more popular sport the bags are cheaper – you can find flight bags online from around £10 up and in sports shops from £15-20. (The black bag I bring to fencing is a golf flight cover.)


- and it’s also useful to have an allen key (=allen wrench, =hex key) which tightens the nut which holds the foil blade to the handle – the nut can work loose with vigorous usage. £1




Retailers websites (in no particular order:


www.swordpricefighters.com


www.thefencingshop.co.uk


www.bladesbrand.com (Shop in Slough, shared with Allstar Fencing)


www.excalibursports.co.uk

www.pbt-uk.com (shop in Aldershot)


www.leonpaul.com (Shop in north west London)


www.duellist.com


www.allstar-fencing.co.uk (Shop in Slough, shared with Bladesbrand)

Some fencing equipment (clothing only, no weapons) is also stocked by the general sports retailer Decathlon: 

https://www.decathlon.co.uk/sports/martial-arts/fencing