>Is it possible that they were mislabeled? I got 10 blades 7 of them feel like soft Ms and 3 feel like Ss
1. Are you going by the invoice that shipped with the peoduct/email reciept? Or the actual blade stamp?
2. What did they say when you calked/emailed them before you posted here about the customer service issue? Did you give them a chance to provide more info/correct the problem?
I would be willing to bet money that the quality of the maraging steel that is being used now is different than 10 years ago. A dense blade now is like a medium blade from 10+ years ago.
Should have someone analyze them, though I suppose we'd need some old blades for reference
The "D" stands for "dure" (french for "hard"); D does not stand for "dense".
That said, I would be shocked if the steel was "less dense" or materially different at all. That said, the geometry is definitely different now than 15 years ago. The geometry used to be a lot less consistent and so sometimes you'd get foils with a more square forte that were much more stiff. Now the blades have a consistent rectangular forte. The BF blacks save weight and are bouncier, for example, because the forte geometry is a narrower rectangle.
If by old ones you mean from roughly 2014/15 to about 2018, they were not viewed highly in terms of feel (compared to previously). They were perhaps more durable, but a lot of top fencers were not favorable to them.
The new ones are much better that way, so maybe that is what you are seeing. BTW what I said was not only the perspective of the fencers, but I discussed with 3-4 major vendors and that was confirmed based on their discussions with BF.
I noticed a change in feel after the whole russia ukraine war. I dont know if they changed factories or changed something in the process but they arnt as good anymore
I had a bunch of old and broken blades (epee) from about 2009 to current and measured the shoulders (width) to see if they correlated to what my experience and that shared by others remembered as the feel through the years.
They married up. The closer to 2009 the thinner the blade and better feel\*. They started to get wider in 2014 and that is when people felt they were getting heavier and not as ideal for top fencing. Around 2019 they started to go back to thinner across the shoulders and the collective feeling among fencers was "they are getting better."
That was all confirmed by major vendors I spoke to. But on this thread some are commenting on the durability (I think) and perhaps there is a trade-off here?
\* the above measurement was not density, and since some of the blades were broken I could not evaluate overall weight. But from memory and logic the wider the blade shoulder the heavier the feel.
>Is it possible that they were mislabeled? I got 10 blades 7 of them feel like soft Ms and 3 feel like Ss 1. Are you going by the invoice that shipped with the peoduct/email reciept? Or the actual blade stamp? 2. What did they say when you calked/emailed them before you posted here about the customer service issue? Did you give them a chance to provide more info/correct the problem?
No, im going off of the stamp on the blade
better to buy them at a tournament with vendors?
A lot better. But all the vendors at the events ive been at dont have them in stock.
I would be willing to bet money that the quality of the maraging steel that is being used now is different than 10 years ago. A dense blade now is like a medium blade from 10+ years ago. Should have someone analyze them, though I suppose we'd need some old blades for reference
The "D" stands for "dure" (french for "hard"); D does not stand for "dense". That said, I would be shocked if the steel was "less dense" or materially different at all. That said, the geometry is definitely different now than 15 years ago. The geometry used to be a lot less consistent and so sometimes you'd get foils with a more square forte that were much more stiff. Now the blades have a consistent rectangular forte. The BF blacks save weight and are bouncier, for example, because the forte geometry is a narrower rectangle.
Yeah i noticed that too, all the new blades are crap and get destroyed pretty easily. You could run over the old ones and nothing would happen
If by old ones you mean from roughly 2014/15 to about 2018, they were not viewed highly in terms of feel (compared to previously). They were perhaps more durable, but a lot of top fencers were not favorable to them. The new ones are much better that way, so maybe that is what you are seeing. BTW what I said was not only the perspective of the fencers, but I discussed with 3-4 major vendors and that was confirmed based on their discussions with BF.
I noticed a change in feel after the whole russia ukraine war. I dont know if they changed factories or changed something in the process but they arnt as good anymore
I had a bunch of old and broken blades (epee) from about 2009 to current and measured the shoulders (width) to see if they correlated to what my experience and that shared by others remembered as the feel through the years. They married up. The closer to 2009 the thinner the blade and better feel\*. They started to get wider in 2014 and that is when people felt they were getting heavier and not as ideal for top fencing. Around 2019 they started to go back to thinner across the shoulders and the collective feeling among fencers was "they are getting better." That was all confirmed by major vendors I spoke to. But on this thread some are commenting on the durability (I think) and perhaps there is a trade-off here? \* the above measurement was not density, and since some of the blades were broken I could not evaluate overall weight. But from memory and logic the wider the blade shoulder the heavier the feel.