Heat-treatment for fencing weapons

Among the equipment manufactured by the company are foils, epées, sabres and stage weapons, all of which incorporate a hand-guard. As the impact on the guard in the case of a lunge with the point of a weapon is extreme, the quality of the material is critical to providing the necessary protection.

Leon Paul manufactures its foil guards from an aerospace-grade aluminium alloy. The material is stamped into discs, which are then deep-drawn in a press before being pierced and notched to match the blade to which they are to be fitted.

The guards are heat-treated in two stages before polishing and finishing. The first stage anneals the material by heating at 515ºC for an hour and then quenching in water. The second stage involves age-hardening the guards at 160ºC for 8h and then cooling in air. A timer allows this process to be performed automatically overnight, freeing the oven for annealing during working hours. Carrying out heat-treatment in-house has shortened production cycles and reduced costs compared with using external sub-contractors.

The Carbolite HT6/220 model at Leon Paul has a maximum temperature of 600ºC, with temperature uniformity of ±5 ºC and temperature stability of ±0.5 ºC, which ensure the quality of the end-product. Over-temperature protection is included. The chamber, which has a stainless steel liner, measures 610 x 610 x 610mm and can accommodate several hundred guards at a time. The 515ºC annealing temperature is reached in an hour, allowing several batches to be processed in a day.