New epee

Yay, the epee I ordered arrived today. So now I have three. Well, three once I put a new blade on one of them. My other two are the cheapest electric epees from Absolute Fencing, and so far I've always replaced their blades with the cheapest wired blades from Absolute. So that kind of epee and blade is more or less all I have experience with. I mean, I had a different but equally cheap epee back in Denver, but that was a long time ago. And I've sometimes used one of the SAS club epees when I had to, and Marla's spare epees when she lent them to me and mine failed at a tournament. But I don't have more than passing experience with anything but these cheap Absolute epees. And they have been fine, but over time I've becoming increasingly annoying with the blades. They seem to always get a bit of an S-curve like bend that I can't straighten, and I suspect makes them more susceptible to breaking. They also seem to bend near the tip a lot, and I've now had two break right at the tip.

So, I'm interested to see how this Blue Gauntlet epee turns out. It is also a cheap epee, about the same price as the Absolute ones, although I spent a couple more dollars for a transparent pad. The blade seems quite a bit less stiff than the Absolute ones. A few test thrusts and flicks against a pillow felt nice. Will have to wait a few days to try it out for real—and put some scratches on its oh-so-shiny bell guard.

Also ordered one of Blue Gauntlet's cheapest body cords. To my surprise it looks more like the $30 Uhlmann cords than the $12 Absolute ones. So now I have three and a half working body cords and three epees (albeit one currently with a broken blade).