Parents ask me about fencing blades all the time. Which blade does my kid need, which one should I buy, where do I buy it. To fencers and coaches the subject looks simple, so we often forget how confusing it is for someone new to the sport. Every catalog uses the same few words, FIE, maraging, stiff, BF, and nobody explains what they mean.

So in this post I will try to explain the basic terminology and what it actually means for you when you buy a blade.

Let’s start with the most common misunderstanding. A lot of parents tell me they want an FIE blade. Some go further and say they want a blade made by FIE. 

FIE stands for Fédération Internationale d’Escrime, the International Fencing Federation, which is the governing body of our sport. The FIE does not manufacture blades, or any other equipment for that matter. It writes the rules and the equipment standards, and it certifies the equipment that meets them. 

So “an FIE blade” means a blade made by an approved manufacturer that passed the FIE standard and carries the FIE marking.

With that out of the way, there are basically three types of blades.

The first is the regular blade, made from ordinary carbon steel. Regular blades are fine for practice and are allowed in domestic competitions in the USA. I am not sure if every country allows them in its local competitions, so if you fence outside the US, check. They are the cheapest of all blades, and for most if not all young fencers they are exactly what they need. I wrote a separate post on whether youth fencers need an FIE blade at all, and my answer was that in most cases they don’t.

The second type is a maraging blade that is not FIE certified. Maraging steel is a special alloy that came to fencing from aviation. The name comes from “martensite aging,” the heat treatment used to harden it. It contains a lot of nickel, around 18 percent, and almost no carbon. This gives it a rare combination: it resists bending out of shape, and at the same time it can take hit after hit without cracking.

For a fencer, what matters is what happens to the blade over time. Every blade develops tiny cracks from touches and beats, and eventually every blade breaks. In a maraging blade these cracks grow much more slowly. When the blade finally breaks, it usually breaks flat instead of snapping into a sharp, jagged spike.

The quality of these blades is almost the same as the next tier. In some cases they are blades going through the long FIE certification process. In other cases the manufacturer has not applied, and maybe never will, but the steel is still high quality. Like regular blades, they can be used in practice and domestic competitions. They cost more than regular blades and less than FIE ones.

The third type is the FIE certified blade. Only these blades are allowed in international competition at any level: World Cups, Grand Prix, Zonal and World Championships, and the Olympic Games. They are made of maraging steel by manufacturers the FIE has approved, and each one carries a marking that weapon control checks before the competition. Of course, they are the most expensive.

Then there are the manufacturers, and fencing being quite a niche sport, there aren’t many of them.

The most famous blade manufacturer, kind of the gold standard in fencing, is BF, a factory in France. BF stands for Blaise Frères, the Blaise Brothers. The company goes back to 1885, though back then it made farm tools. It switched to fencing blades in the 1960s, and it still keeps its process a secret, a sort of “fencing Coca-Cola.” Even today visitors are not allowed into parts of the factory.

BF makes blades for many vendors, who stamp them with their own names on top of the BF logo, which is why you see BF Allstar, BF Uhlmann, BF Absolute and so on. Same factory, same process, same everything, but a different label. According to BF itself, more than 90% of the world’s blades come from their factory.

But BF is not the only one. STM and UNIC in Ukraine, Leon Paul in the UK, Franchini in Italy (arguably the most expensive), Absolute in the US (with factories in China), Vnity and LM in Russia. These are the most prominent blade manufacturers, and a few more are trying to break into this market.

When you think about a blade, the first thing to look at is how long it lasts. Blades take a lot of abuse with every touch and every beat, so eventually every blade breaks. In my experience an FIE blade lives three to four times longer than a regular blade under the same use. So the price difference is smaller than it looks on the price tag, at least for a fencer who trains and competes a lot.

Then you need to look at how well the blade keeps its shape. In every competition, and in almost every bout (definitely in every 15-touch bout), you will see a fencer straightening their blade. Blades bend from touches. A good blade keeps its shape as much as possible and returns by itself to its original form after it bends. And when it doesn’t, straightening brings it back.

And then responsiveness. If you ever watched fencing in slow motion, you saw how much a blade waves during an action. Sometimes it looks like spaghetti, and the analogy is not far from the truth. A blade is a thin stick, about 90 centimeters long, moving at high speed, and like any such object it bends in motion. But in fencing precision is everything. A good blade responds reliably and predictably to what the fencer wants, so the point lands where the hand sent it.

Blades also differ in stiffness. I have only seen this distinction on maraging and FIE blades, never on regular ones. Manufacturers usually offer three stiffness profiles, and each one labels them a little differently, so read the tag or ask the vendor.

Stiff blades give immediate feedback and recover their shape quickly after a beat. Fencers who rely on precise point control prefer them, and most high-level epee competitors use this type. Keep in mind that within the same manufacturer, stiff blades are also the heaviest.

Medium blades are sold as the all-rounder, a balance between point stability and enough give to be forgiving on angled hits. But many high-level fencers, especially seniors, find these blades too soft. They bend in motion like real spaghetti, and most physically strong competitors don’t use them because the bending and waving are just too significant.

In theory, soft blades are made for fencers who throw flicks, where the blade whips around the opponent’s guard to score. But you don’t need a soft blade to flick, you need a right technique. In epee, at least, fencers don’t use them. I’m not sure I ever saw an S-stiffness epee blade at the vendor booths at a NAC, but maybe I just developed a blind spot for them. Where they make sense is for young fencers moving up to #5 blades, who are not strong enough yet for a stiffer and heavier blade.

And one last piece of advice. Whatever you choose, standardize your weapons. All the weapons in your bag should be as close to each other as possible. When one breaks in the middle of a bout and you grab the next one, your hand shouldn’t have to get used to a different weapon.

Image: Serge Timacheff