One of them—the one that hasn't broken yet—still has the original LP wire and barrel it came with (yes, I bought it wired because lazy). It never seemed as robust as the older ones I've had.
Yesterday at open fencing I got a touch that made a small bend. I straightened it by hand and crack!—it broke in my hands. Better than breaking on another person anyway.
The one that broke has been my main epee for well over a year. That might not seem like a long time, but I beat on the thing about three times a week, and thanks to my less-than-perfect technique it has had more than its share of overly hard hits. I think a year and a half life is fairly normal for a FIE blade that takes as much abuse as this one got. I rewired it two or three times, changing it to a German barrel and tip. Recently the wire was starting to come off a bit. I glued it back in, but poorly, and thought I should probably rewire it again soon. I almost rewired it last week. I'm glad it didn't break right after a rewire.
After it broke I had to decide what to replace it with. I've been thinking of trying a different kind of FIE blade, especially since the newest LP blade I got doesn't seem as good as the older ones. And LP has been fiddling with their blades, I think, since the FIE made them pull their SR-71 and other folded steel blades. I've heard good things about BF and StM, but have never tried either. I figured when one of my LPs broke I might try one of those.
Joel told me about a fencing supply place called Fencing Star that is going out of business and selling everything at 30% off. He said their stock was dwindling and there might not be a huge selection. So I checked and sure enough, everything is 30% off. The only FIE epee blades they had were StM. They are about half the price of a LP FIE blade, which was too good to pass up. Unless maybe there are different kinds of StM FIE blades and this exact one isn't great. Well, we'll see. It will be here in a couple days.
If nothing else it should help me decide what to do when my other LP blade breaks, sooner or later.
