Gear and Equipment

The foil is the second fastest moving object in sport, behind the bullet. It is lighter and flexible, meant to bend when striking. The blade is made of a kind of steel, is rectangular, and about 40 inches long. The tip is covered by a dome-shaped rubber "button". The last third of the blade is the weakest part, called the "foible". The middle section is called the medium, and the strongest part, closest to the guard, is the "forte".

The bell guard is made of tin, aluminum, and other metals. It is smalled than the guards for epee and saber. It is always circular and fairly thin. There may be a small soft cushion inside the bell guard to reduce the impact of a fencer's hand against it.

The grip comes in many different styles that come from a variety of countries. The one shown here is a French grip, the most basic. They come in different colors and sizes.

Inside the handle of the foil is the "tang". It holds all of the parts of the handle together. The end is the "pommel", which acts as a cap and a counterweight for the handle. A perfectly balanced foil is said to weight the exact same on the blade side and the bell guard/handle side.

The fencing jacket is necessary for competitive fencing. It is almost always white. If fencing electronically, the jacket will have a vest containing sensors that will signal the scoreboard if a touch was made. The jacket itself is made of cotton or nylon, and it has specially made seams denotating the on-target and off-target areas. There should be very little baggage, so the foil doesn't passe and still catch the jacket. The form-fitting jacket should be slim on the waits area as well. The neck should be slightly higher to protect your throat from getting hit.

It is said that the jacket is white because of fencers in history. They used to put a chalky substance on their foils so that when they hit it would leave a mark. That's how they judged the points. This is unknown to be true or not.

Women's jackets have a pair of seams vertically on the stomach area. These seams allow you to tell the difference between men's and women's jackets.

The jackets are often designed to let off heat.

The chest protector is there to protect your chest from the potentially harmful stabbing done by the foil. Usually white, the chest protector is made of pretty thin plastic that is quite flexible. It has straps going over the shoulders and around the sides. The chest protector comes in different sizes.

The glove comes in a huge variety. It has many different sizes, colors, and comes in both lefty and righty. It is made of a heavy nylon or cotton, like the jacket. Gloves have a long forearm protector than prevents the blade form slipping up the arm accidentally. The glove is only worn on the sword hand. Although the hand is not on-target in foil fencing, it gets hit often and is suceptible to injury because of the small bones. Some gloves have grips to help with holding the foil.

The mask is the most essential protective gear the you have: it shields your eyes. The mask is made of wire mesh close enough together that the fencer can still see but the foil tip will not break it. The mesh is woven tightly to make it extremely strong. It also has a peaking point in the center, so the mesh falls at an angle horizontally. This is so when the foil tip hits, it slides and the energy doesn't center on one point. If the mask was flat it would have a much higher probability of breaking because all of the force is on one spot.

While the mesh can stand up to about 26 pounds of pressure, the bib is made to withstand over 79 pounds. FIE regulations say it needs to be even more than that. The bib is soft, however. The bib is attached to the mash with metal screws.

The back of the mask is completely open. It has no protection because it is made to slip over the head face first. There is a strap in the back and a headpiece to keep the mask in place. It should fit fairly tightly over your face and not shake when fencing. The inside is made of padding with nylon covers. The mask should not hurt your face or head.

This is a fencing scoreboard when fencing electronically. Fencers wear a vest that shows the on-target areas. The vest has tiny senors inside that send a signal to this scoreboard when it feels a hit. Each fencer's foil tip has an electronic button on the end. It is attatched to a spring, which allows the decompression of the metal tip. The spring is attatched to a wire that goes down the inside of the foil and to the scoreboard as well. When that tiny electronic button is compressed, the scoreboard makes a sound and a light shows up, tallying a point.

For this particular example, the numbers are the current fencers' scores. The "3:00" in the middle is the timer for the match. The lights show the off-target and on-target hits.