- Hey.
I'm gonna be nice to you. Come here, buddy.
Come here. Come here.
Chick-chick.
Come on, chicken.
- My name is Nick Johnson. I am 19 years old.
I go to college for a living right now.
I think everyone needs to have a creative outlet,
and for me, it's knife-making.
- My name is Steven Brady.
I'm from Wichita, Kansas.
I was really sick when I was a kid,
and I was up, like, all night
watching a, like, documentary on sword-making,
and I was like, "I want to do that."
- My name is Ben Snure. I'm 36.
I love the challenge of bladesmithing.
There's just so many different aspects to it.
There's always something new to learn.
- I'm Cade David Jenkins. I am 18.
My grandfather was a blacksmith,
and he gave me a lot of knowledge,
and I really want to show everyone
that we're good smiths,
and, you know, we got what it takes.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the farm.
There may be nothing better than fresh food
directly from the farm to the table.
But farming takes strength, grit, and determination,
some of the qualities that you'll need
to get through our challenges here in this competition.
What lies ahead of you are three timed rounds
of edged weapon-making competition
like none other ever seen in the world before.
In order for you to be a "Forged in Fire" champion
and take home $10,000,
you'll have to impress this crew of judges behind me.
Up first, two-time "Forged in Fire" champion Ben Abbott.
Next, historic weapons re-creation specialist
David Baker.
And last, edged weapons specialist Doug Marcaida.
Gentlemen, you got your work cut out for you,
because today you'll be using coal forges.
Forging on coal forges in direct sunlight
is gonna make it difficult for you
to judge the temperatures of your steel.
Additionally, the heat's gonna take a toll
on your bodies physically.
But that's not all that you're up against.
If you look around this farm, gentlemen,
all of the tools that you see...
are made for tilling the earth and harvesting crops.
Your job is to harvest the steel
that you need from those tools to make one of these.
A classic chef's knife.
- On a day-to-day basis,
I use very little scavenged material.
I like to use new known steel,
so I don't know what kind of knife it'll make.
- Your blade must be between 10 and 12 inches in length,
as measured from tip to plunge grind.
- I'm comfortable with making a chef's knife.
I'm not comfortable with a coal forge.
I understand it, I've seen it, but I've never done it,
so it's gonna be me converting mental knowledge
into real-time experience in a three-hour time slot.
- Gentlemen, you'll have just three hours
in which to complete all of this work.
If you make it to the second round,
you'll have an opportunity to attach handles
to your chef's knife so that we can test them
for strength and durability in a rolling pin chop
and for edge retention in a fish slice.
Failure to meet a single one of our parameters is grounds
for immediate dismissal from the forge
with no deliberation.
Do your best work.
Pay attention to the clock,
because when the time runs out in this round
and your chef's knives have been inspected,
one of you will have to surrender your blade
and leave the competition.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your three hours starts now.
Well, let's talk a little bit about farming tools.
We've got steel wagon wheels.
We've got all manner of tools around here.
How do you even start to narrow the selection?
- I generally go for anything that was designed
to cut something or to take high abrasion,
like digging in the dirt...
- Okay. - Or anything like that.
- Time starts, and I want my steel first.
I grab the brush ax.
The brush ax comes in a decent thickness,
and it's a flat billet.
It's an awesome starting point for me.
- That's smart.
Steve was like, "I'm going for...
the, essentially, kitchen knife on a stick."
- Anything that you're constructing,
you know, whether it's a house or a car,
your materials are where, you know, your foundation is.
It doesn't matter what form I get it to.
If it's not good steel, it's not worth anything.
- When I very first started forging,
nearly all of my metal was harvested
from old farm tools.
I see a bunch of chickens running around.
We're on a farm. I'm right at home.
I'm going for the pickax because it gives me
a nice rectangular piece of metal
to forge whatever shape I need from.
- I'm looking at Nick, and the piece of steel
that he's chosen seems pretty small to me.
- A chef's knife would be pretty thin in real life,
but this is a rolling pin chop.
Chopping into a rolling pin with a knife is only normal
if you are a very frustrated chef.
So when I start forging my knife out,
I need to maintain
a good thickness throughout the body of it
for it to stand up to those sorts of tests.
- First thing I do is get my fire going,
'cause without a fire, you can't forge.
My grandfather always told me,
when it comes to starting a fire,
the more time you take to start the fire,
the quicker it gets started,
which, it doesn't make sense in your head,
but when you do it, it does.
- Ben and Cade have yet to grab any steel.
Are they getting sidetracked right now?
- If they can get a nice, healthy fire going,
then run and get the steel and come back,
then they're not sidetracked.
- Okay.
- I'm all right with coal forges in general.
I've got a fair amount of experience running 'em,
but I never forge in direct sunlight.
That's a very difficult challenge.
- The problem is, in this kind of light,
it's really hard to see what temperature you're getting.
- You got to start watching your metal,
especially with that heat, that coal-forge heat.
That can easily burn it.
- How we looking, Ben? - Oh... it's coming.
- So I just recently bought a hammer from Ben
before this competition, and I am flabbergasted.
- Ben's known for his hammer work.
The Snure name is known throughout the smithing world
for their hammers.
- It is a hell of a coincidence,
and this is a guy that I look up to.
- It's neat to meet somebody and to be competing
with somebody who's using some of my work.
- I've got to get this forge going,
and I've never done it before, so I look at Ben.
You know, I'm basically monkey see, monkey do.
- Connected to the bottom of these forges,
there's a hose and a manual blower
that these guys have to crank constantly to maintain
a high volume of air flow on those flames,
'cause that's how the temperature gets up, right?
- Exactly. - I'm building coal up.
It's smoking, and I'm a little stressed out.
- I see a fireman's ax, a little hard--
you know, pretty good.
- Oh, my God, that is a big chunk of steel.
- Oh, man, Ben is in for a big, long day.
- You know what, we've had coal forges,
and anybody with thick metal struggled.
It takes forever to draw that out.
- My game plan is to resize this chunk of ax head
into a usable 1-inch square bar
and then forge it into a knife.
- One hour has already elapsed!
You have only two hours remaining!
- At home, I tend to do
most of my work with a propane forge.
I originally did work on a coal forge,
but I was burning metal a lot
'cause I wasn't paying close enough attention.
That is going to be a challenge for me,
making sure that my metal doesn't overheat.
- Coal runs a lot hotter. - Okay.
- It's a problem in and of itself
just to keep a coal forge lit and at the correct temperature,
and there's a lot of care in feeding,
whereas propane forge,
you light it and you forget about it.
- It's just slow-going work.
- Cade went with the cant hook. It's a logger's hook.
Got a 1/2-inch-by-inch shaft on that,
so he should be able to draw a lot of that out.
- Look at Cade swing that hammer.
My gosh.
- Watching him hammer,
it's like a very young, brand-new Big Blu.
- I started out as a blacksmith,
and so I'm very good at forging to finish.
I've been doing it for longer than most 18-year-olds,
I guess you could say, but I'm trying to prove
that I'm also a good bladesmith,
and just trying to do my best
and see how far I can get.
- I am having all kinds of grief holding this ax.
There's just no good way to get ahold of it.
I try 30 different ways
to try to get this into a decent shape.
damn it.
- From the number of coal forges
that we've seen, it seems like the guys
who try to go thicker struggle the most.
- Now how many of 'em kept on beating it
and not even moving the metal?
It's not moving. All that energy.
- I'm feeling for him.
- I'm flailing with this.
It's just too much material to get heated.
Boy, I'm thinking about just quitting on this.
If this doesn't work, I've got nothing.
- I try 30 different ways
to try to get this ax into a decent shape,
but I am having all kinds of grief holding this.
- I feel for Ben.
I think he's wasting a lot of time.
- I'm just gonna start over.
- That might be a good move, what Ben's doing.
Find another piece of steel.
Abandon the thick piece that he's got.
- I'm looking for just a flat piece of metal
that I can hammer on.
I see this sickle bar,
and it's like a beam of sunlight
just goes directly down upon it.
- What Ben has now seems like it's more appropriately sized
than that piece of ax he chose earlier.
- I drew out my piece.
I'm working on getting
the overall profile of the knife.
I've made chef's knives before--not very many--
but chef's knives are generally pretty simple,
standard construction.
- What do you think about that upswept tip?
- There shouldn't be much of an upswept tip
on a chef's knife.
- It's almost like he's making a butcher knife
and not a chef's knife.
- Right. - It's two different things.
- If it shoots up too much...
in order to cut with the tip, you have to have an angle
that's almost stabbing into the cutting board.
- I finally start getting the knife to its length.
Uh-oh.
I accidentally burn some of it off the spine.
- Oh, no. Oh, that's bad.
- I need to grind out all of the burnt-off steel
to make sure that it will not affect my blade in any way.
- I'm a little bit worried about the thickness
of Nick's piece of steel there.
- That's just not enough meat.
- I need to get this knife stretched out
after losing that amount of metal,
so I'm feeling pretty stressed,
but I'm trying to pull ahead, and I think
I can still manage it.
- When I forge a knife, I always forge
from the tip of the knife to the handle,
and that's a way that I can keep things proportional.
With a chef's knife, your knuckles
should never hit the cutting board,
so I like to cant my handles back.
And it looks a little silly
if you don't know what it's for,
but if you've ever used a handle that's like that,
it is awesome when your knuckles
are not hitting that cutting board.
- Thiririnutes, bladesmiths.
Ben dealt with some problems earlier
with that big chunk of steel-- he swapped it out
for a smaller piece of steel, and he's made
leaps and bounds of progress.
- Trying to stretch this out, and I see this
little spot where I've ground through.
Oh, man, this is bad.
- That's not good at that point.
- Not good at all.
- I think, "Well, while it's still hot,
"it's not gonna hurt anything now if I go put a little bead
of weld on there, and I'll fill that back in."
Wham, bam.
At this point,
I'm just trying to get this done
and make sure it's strong.
- I'm looking over here at Nick,
and he's got a very awkward-shaped blade.
He started with a small amount of steel,
but it looks like he might have got
the length we're looking for.
- I'm really low on time, so I start trying to heat
this piece of metal up for the quench.
I put the knife into the coal fire
without burying it too much so I can watch the colors.
- Guys, Nick just quenched.
- I see a little bit of a warp,
and I crank down on it
and let it set till it cools down.
- Fifteen minutes, bladesmiths!
- I start going to the quench.
I'm going edge down so that I can
kind of leave a softer spine.
I need this quench to go well.
If poop was gonna hit the fan at any point,
it'd probably be right here.
It looks straight.
Put a file on it.
It skates across. We're good.
- Five minutes, bladesmiths.
- I'm getting ready to heat-treat my knife,
and my fire is just a little circle in there.
When you want to do, like, a quench,
you need to get the whole blade, like, evenly heated.
My forge is not gonna allow me to do that right now.
- Oh, this is cool.
So it looks like Steven is making a trough,
concentrating his fire with the fire bricks
so that he can get a better even heat on his steel.
- I draw that knife back and forth over this white fire.
- Looks like Steven just quenched.
- I look at it. It's pretty straight.
I'm happy.
- Five! Four!
Three! Two!
One!
Bladesmiths, drop your tools!
This first round of competition is over.
- I am wiped out,
physically, mentally, emotionally.
I am drained.
That was far more difficult
than I'd ever anticipated.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the Forge.
Time has elapsed in our first round of competition,
and it's time for the judges
to take a closer look at your work.
Cade, you're up first.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- First off, your hammer skills are outrageous.
I was really impressed watching you work.
But when I take a chef's knife,
I don't want to see air under there.
That curvature lends it more to being a butchering knife.
Having said that, this is a really great profile.
I think you came up with a beautiful piece of steel here.
- Thank you. - All right. Ben, you're up.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Well, Ben, there's a couple things I see
right off the bat here.
In profile,
this is more like a carving knife
than it is a chef's knife.
It could be quite a bit taller.
There is one place here where I see that you welded.
What often ends up happening when you have some mild eel
on one side and not on the other
is that the-- when the blade hardens,
it bends, so you do have...
a kick to your blade right at that weld,
but for the amount of time you left yourself,
this is a really well done thing.
- Steven, please present your blade to the judges.
- So right off, I like this blade profile.
It's really nice. It's very clean.
I hate handles that go up like that,
so, if moving forward, I would love to see
this all refined to make it a more comfortable knife.
- All right, Nick, you're up.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Okay, Nick.
The problem: you have a very thin blade
that developed some cracks on the spine.
Also, we were looking for a chef's knife,
and where you're looking at this
particular comparison right here,
what you have here is a little bit different,
but you were able to draw out the blade
all the way through and turn in something.
Thank you.
- Thank you.
- Bladesmiths.
It's time for one of you to leave the Forge.
Nick.
Your blade didn't make the cut.
- Nick, the design you have is furthest
from what we're looking for.
That and the cracks that you have on your spine
are the reasons we're sending you home.
- I understand.
- Nick, please surrender your blade.
- I'm disappointed, but what I put out
was the best I could do under the circumstances,
and I'm not disappointed in myself over what I had.
Overall,
this is one of the greatest experiences of my life.
I've had a lot of fun, I've met a lot of good people,
and this is just gonna make me want to do it more.
- Bladesmiths, congratulations.
You've made it into the second round of this competition,
which means that we're just gonna continue
to torture you.
Now that your blade's been tempered,
it's time to make them fully functional chef's knives.
We're maintaining that farm-to-table theme here today
as we ask you to make handles
out of the cutting boards at your workstations.
Now, you'll have two hours in this round
in which to finish your handles and correct imperfections
from the first round.
At the end of this round, we'll be testing
your blade's strength and durability
in a rolling pin chop...
and the edge retention in a fish slice.
Good luck, bladesmiths.
Your two hours starts now.
Cade's heading over to the flat plat.
It looks like he's just gonna get
right into just profiling his blade.
- First thing I'm gonna do is make my blade look like
the kitchen knife it's supposed to be.
I got to get this sweep out.
Right now, when I put the blade on the table,
there's a little gap,
and I just need to keep grinding the tip away
until there's no more gap left there.
I want a straight spine.
- What Steven turned in definitely,
from the choil forward, looked like a chef's knife.
- Choil forward. - But from the handle back...
it was just a little tweaking with the handle.
- Yeah, the handle kicked up at an angle.
- Okay.
- The judges loved everything up till my bladework stopped.
They hated my handle.
So I trace out what I want my new handle to be,
and I start moving stuff.
I take material off the top, take a little off the bottom,
and I'm able to bring that handle down.
- First thing I got to do
is try to get the warp out of my blade.
I start by blue-backing my knife
and hopefully give it a little bit of flex.
- Did he just do that on a vice?
- You could do it in a vice-- I think Ben is just worried
about the heat running down to the edge.
- If you get your edge higher
than 500 degrees with the torch,
then you've lost all your temper,
and you've got a soft edge.
I got two pins on one side of the bend
and one right in the middle,
and I'm hoping I can tweak this just a bit.
I carefully start applying pressure.
I'm nervous I'm about to break this.
It's not perfect.
As much as I'm willing to risk on that.
- I need to drill holes for the pins of the handle,
and the first two go smooth as butter,
but that last one...
I can't make it through the blade.
- Sounds like Cade is wrestling
with the drill press a little bit.
Yeah.
- I think maybe it's just a hard spot,
so I just shift the blade a lile bit,
but it's not working either.
Damn it.
- I don't think he got through that tang with that drill.
- Now I've just created two stress risers.
There's a possibility that that knife can break right there.
- Drilling these holes should be something
way too much time for this.
- I think he's gonna have to soften that up.
Yeah. There he goes.
- I'm going to heat up the tang
and then try to redrill the holes.
A soft tang is good anyways 'cause it absorbs the shock
and takes pressure off the handle scales.
- There you go. - There you go.
- Bladesmiths, one hour!
You have one hour remaining to finish your work.
- I have to make my handle
out of this hardwood maple cutting board.
- All right, so Steven's got a few little slabs
of that cutting board to work with.
- I epoxy my scales, and then, you know,
I'm trying to drive those pins through,
and I've bent in my pins.
- Get it, boy.
- And I'm having to pull a pin out, cut another pin,
and I'm trying really hard to get this done
before this epoxy is set up.
Yeah, them pins are all the way backed out that back side.
- What you got?
- Nothing big, just didn't want to make a mess.
- Oh, a little Ben Ben boo-boo?
- Come over here on the other side of me.
- Hell, yeah, man!
- I got to do!
- There's swing dancing in the Forge now, baby.
- Is that all right? - Yep, thank you.
You don't need big old massive scales for a kitchen knife.
And one side of that cutting board is already flat,
so I decide that's the side
I'm gonna use to glue to my knife.
I've got 35 minutes.
I need to contour my handle,
finish grind, and put an edge on it.
- I'm feeling a little behind because I just wasted
a ton of time on trying to get this hole drilled.
It's time to kick it into overdrive.
I've got my handle scales roughed out,
and I am just going at it.
Chefs use their knives all day long,
and if it's not comfortable nobody's gonna want it.
- My handle feels pretty comfortable,
so I need to put an edge on my blade.
- What kind of an angle are we looking at to be on that edge?
- When I make a chef's knife,
I give it a really narrow, sort of appleseed edge.
- I shape this handle.
It goes fairly quick, and then it's time to sharpen,
and so I go to it.
- One minute!
Steven is shaving his leg.
- I'm not eating the food at his house.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, stop what you're doing.
This second round of competition is over. Good job.
- Whoo!
- I'm feeling better than I went into this round.
I had so much to do that I really didn't think
I was gonna be able to accomplish it.
At this point, we're just gonna have to see what happens
and hope for the best.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test.
To test the strength and durability of your edge,
as well as the overall construction
of your chef's knives, I'm gonna be going ham
on these rolling pins.
Remember, this test is all about
what those pins do to your knives
and not what your knives do to the pins.
Steven, you're up first.
- I'm ready. - All right.
- My blade geometry is pretty acute,
and I'm worried about that knife
just keeping a good edge on it.
But I'm relieved I'm going first
'cause that's less time I have to sit there
with my anxiety just spewing inside me.
- Well, Steven, your blade, it held up beautifully.
There's no glinting.
There's no wiggle. There's no nothing.
The handle is still kicked up a little bit, but, you know,
that's not anything too much to worry about.
Good-looking knife, well done.
- Thank you.
- Ben, are you ready?
All right.
- I'm pretty nervous about my blade being soft,
that as soon as they
whack into that rolling pin,
it's just gonna bend 90 or do something crazy,
and then it's immediate dismissal.
- I am extremely anxious about this.
I'm pretty sure my heart's about to explode.
- Well, Ben, your edge held up beautifully.
There's no glinting, no rolling, no nothing.
I wish you could've gotten a little taller on here,
just to make more of a chef's knife appearance.
The blade is still as straight as it was coming into this,
not dead straight--
still got a little bit of an action to it,
but all in all, well done.
- Thank you.
- All right, Cade. Are you ready?
- Yes, sir. - All right. Let's do it.
- I am very, very nervous. Palms are a little bit sweaty.
The rolling pin's really gonna put some stress on my knife,
and there's a possibility it could break.
- Well, Cade, your edge held up great.
Your knife is still dead straight.
Your handle is really comfortable.
I like that it's got some flat sides.
I know exactly where the edge is.
I don't have to think about it.
So well done. - Thank you.
- All right, bladesmiths, now it's time to find out
just how sharp the edges of your chef's knives are.
This is the sharpness test-- the fish slice.
I'm looking for a nice clean cut on these fishes.
Steven, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Let's do it. - Let's do this.
Oh, safety gear first.
- Get on over here.
- All right, Steven. That's a nice-looking blade.
The edge you have here
is ground perfectly for this kind of test.
The cut cut all the way cleanly through.
Overall, sir, it'll cut. - Thank you.
- All right, Ben, it's your turn--you ready?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
All right, Ben, let's talk about your chef knife here.
When you're cutting with this,
you can cut all the way through.
The edge is very sharp.
It'll cut. - Thank you.
- And then there was one. Are you ready, Cade?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
All right, Cade, the edge sliced easily through the fish.
Your handle construction is comfortable.
Overall, sir...
it will cut.
- Thank you.
- You guys went through
a coal-forging round in bright sunlight,
and you were still able to churn out beautiful blades
that performed so well in our tests
that none of them took any damage.
This is a difficult decision for us to make,
but, gentlemen, only two of you can move forward
into this final round of competition.
The bladesmith leaving the Forge is...
Ben.
Your blade didn't make the cut.
- Ben, you made a knife that tested out
just as well as your competitors' knives did,
so this came down to the profile of that knife
not being what we were looking for in a chef's knife
and that slight warp.
- Understood.
- Ben, please surrender your blade.
- I turned in a blade
that was a good performing, sharp knife,
but it's not the knife they asked for.
I possibly could have thinned it out more
and gotten more belly,
but I wanted my blade to hold up to the tests
that they were gonna put it through.
I may not be the "Forged in Fire" champion,
but you can still order a hammer from me.
- Steven, Cade, congratulations.
You guys have made it into the third
and final round of this competition.
Let me say this-- you fellas can forge, man.
You guys really brought your A game.
But you're gonna have to step it up,
because now we're sending you back to your home forges
to re-create this iconic weapon from history...
The rooster-head French pioneer sword.
The rooster-head pioneer sword was a key utility tool
for French military engineers
known as sappers during the 19th century.
The weapon was a jack-of-all-trades,
featuring a sawback essential for clearing brush
and building fascines
and a sharp-clipped point, lethal in hand-to-hand combat.
Most notable is the weapon's pommel,
featuring a decorative Gallic rooster,
the unofficial symbol of France,
representing vigilance, hope, and triumph.
This iconic weapon can be seen in the video game
"Mount & Blade: Warband - Napoleonic Wars."
Make sure that your weapons
fall within the following parameters.
The length of the blade must be between 20 and 22 inches.
You must have a hatchet tip,
a yelman between 5 and 6 inches,
a 9-inch functional sawback, an upswept guard,
and, of course, a cock-a-doodle-doo
rooster-head pommel.
- I have to do a pretty intricate sword
with a lot of details in it,
and I have to have a pommel that's a rooster head,
and I'm sitting here rolling the tape.
"How am I going to get this done?"
- You'll have just 4 days at your home forges
in which to complete this challenge.
At the end of those 4 days, you'll return and present
your pioneer swords to our panel of expert judges.
And after they've smashed them, bashed them, slashed with them,
they'll declare one of you guys the "Forged in Fire" champion,
who walks out of here with a check for $10,000.
Gentlemen, good luck. We'll see you in 4 days.
- So it is the beginning of day one.
My goal for today is to get that bar stretched out
and get some of this pioneer sword shape into it.
I got to, you know,
make the right steps to make a yelman
and have that raised hump on the top.
I need to set my area where my saw is gonna be at.
I need to get at least a hatchet tip in there.
So I got my yelman pronounced.
Now I just am gonna thin this out some
and just really focus on keeping it even.
Ending the day, my s is proportioned out.
I have more than enough steel.
I think I'm trucking right along.
Hell, yeah!
- We're here in Loranger, Louisiana,
and I'm ready to get going.
We're gonna try to whack this piece of metal out
and get it into profile.
I start off at the tip,
because it's probably the most demanding,
and I work my way back from there.
Traditionally, these blades have
a slight saber-type bend in them,
so I heat it up, and I whack it over the end of the anvil.
I'm very tired, but I got the forging of my blade done.
While I'm waiting for it to cool off,
I'm just gonna go work on my rooster-head pommel.
I found this chicken head. I thought it would be perfect.
So I can make the mold to cast with bronze.
I wasn't able to heat-treat,
but what I didn't get done on the blade,
I got done on my molds,
so still feel like I'm on track.
- So it's the morning of day two,
and I've got a lot of work to do today.
I have to cut my saw teeth into the back.
Now I'm ready for the heat treat.
This is proving a little bit more difficult
than I thought it would be to get an even heat.
This blade isn't all the way hard.
. Can't turn in a blade that's half-hard.
I am screwed.
- This blade isn't all the way hard.
If I don't leave today with a hardened blade,
I am screwed.
So here we go again.
I'm gonna set here and requench this
and restraighten this until it's hard.
There's some flames. That's what we want to see.
I file-test it. It's skating like glass.
That's a hard blade.
- I'm starting off the day grinding my fullers.
I don't know how that's gonna go.
One danger of having a double-sided fuller
is you can grind straight through your blade,
and so I just kind of go down the blade and check
and make sure I'm not doing that.
I got to sharpen the sawback, too.
I don't know what they're gonna test this thing on.
Hopefully it'll hog away some stuff.
Now that I'm done with that, it is time to heat-treat.
It's hard.
- Today I'm gonna try to conquer casting.
This is my absolute first time doing any casting,
so, hopefully, I can get it figured out.
I want to cast three pieces.
There's the guard piece, handle,
and then there's the rooster-headed pommel.
My first casting is just a piece of bronze
that's gonna be the guard with the upswept quillions.
All right. That's way more than enough for a guard.
I have the guard cast, which I'm pretty happy about.
I have the handle cast.
Then I got this rooster. I can see an eye.
I can see the detailed feathers on this side.
Frickin' sweet.
This is a lot denser and heavier than I thought,
which I'm happy about
because my blade is super forward heavy,
and I want that balance point
to just get farther back on the blade.
Going into day four, I have the three pieces of my handle,
so my day tomorrow
is just gonna be tedious finish work.
- It's the morning of day four,
and today it's just putting it all together.
I casted my rooster head and my guard.
And if I may say, this is one bomb chicken head.
Look at that bad boy.
Cock-a-doodle-doo!
Handle comes next.
That's about it. Everything's looking pretty good.
I got a sword.
- Steven, Cade, welcome back.
You guys have had four days at your home forges
to work on your rooster-head French pioneer sword.
Steven, how'd it go? - It went pretty well.
I hand-forged the blade out of 5160.
I cast the guard,
the handle, and the rooster head out of bronze.
- Good on you. Cade, how did it go for you?
Tell the judges about your blade.
- My blade's made out of 5160.
My guard and pommel are casted out of bronze,
and then I have a walnut handle.
- All right, all right, gentlemen.
Your weapons will be put through
a series of three tests.
There will be a sharpness test, a strength test,
and up first, the kill test.
- All right, bladesmiths, your blades look lovely,
but are they deadly?
I'm gonna take your weapons
and deliver some lethal cuts and slashes
on this goat carcass.
It's time to find out if they're ready for a cockfight,
or they're gonna play chicken.
Steven, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Let's do it.
My main concern is that, you know,
is Doug strong enough to really swing this beast around?
I mean, it's a heavy sword.
With the mass I have and the amount of inertia
that's gonna be going into this and how sharp it is,
I'm hoping that I can get this goat in two.
- All right, Steven, let's talk about your sword here.
It's beautiful-looking, but it's a heavy sword,
but that lends itself to deliver very deep cuts
with every swing
More importantly, it will KEAL.
All right, Cade, your turn, sir--you ready?
- Yes, sir.
Probably the biggest problem is gonna be that backbone.
If my sword hits that backbone,
it can really mess up the edge of the blade and whatnot.
- All right, Cade, let's talk about your sword here.
Your handle construction fits perfectly in my hand.
Now, your edge is pristine,
no glints, no rollings whatsoever,
and, most importantly, it'll KEAL.
- All right, gentlemen, welcome to the strength test--
the log chop.
Now, to test the strength
and overall durability of your blades,
I'll be chopping on this log.
All right, Steven, you're up first.
Are you ready for this? - Let's do it.
There's a big, you know, half-round log here,
and I'm sitting here questioning my heat treat.
- So I'm not super confident in my heat treat, I had to quench twice,
and this log chop
is gonna be the test that might snap my blade.
- All right, first off, Steven, nice job on the castings.
They're nicely done.
Your handle, it's about an inch too long.
It allows my hand to travel around a lot.
Your blade took no damage whatsoever.
Good job. - Thanks.
- All right, Cade, you're up next--you ready?
- Yes, sir.
- All right, Cade,
your blade, it's in good condition--
no rolls, no chips, still sharp as it was when I started.
Good job.
- All right, bladesmiths,
this is the sharpness test-- the scarecrow saw and slice.
To test the sawbacks on your weapon,
I'll be sawing through the wooden dowels.
Then I'll test the edge by cutting the watermelon
and the sugarcane bundle.
Steven, you're up first. You ready?
- Let's do it.
- All right, Steven, let's talk about your sawback here.
Once it gets started, it starts to saw.
It works. It's a functional sawback in there.
You're able to dig into the dowel.
Your edge is sharp.
No issues cutting on the watermelon,
and the weight alone
is gonna just chop that whole thing off.
Overall, sir, it'll cut.
- Thank you.
- All right, Cade, your turn. You ready?
- Yes, sir.
- All right, Cade, the sawback--
these teeth are sharp.
Even at the start, it already digs in.
A couple of slices in there,
it's already digging right through the wooden dowel.
Your edge, no issues whatsoever.
It cuts through the watermelon
and cuts the rest of the sugarcane bundles.
Overall, sir, it will cut.
- Thank you.
Me and Steve are neck and neck at this point,
so I'm definitely nervous,
but there's nothing I can do now.
It's really up to the judges-- whatever they think is better.
- All right, bladesmiths, the weapons tests are complete,
and the judges literally had to weigh the details.
The new "Forged in Fire" champion is...
Cade, congratulations.
You are the "Forged in Fire" champion.
Steven, your blade is two pounds heavier
than Cade's blade, making it less wieldy.
Additionally, your handle is a little bit out of proportion
with the blade, and it's for that reason
that you cannot be the "Forged in Fire" champion.
Come on forward, my friend.
- Even though I feel somewhat defeated right now,
I'm still proud of what I've done,
and I'm proud of what I turned in.
- It's a beast, man. Well done. - Thank you.
- You're a great competitor. - Thank you.
- Steven, those castings were great.
- I'm not gonna say I'm gonna go home
and start making swords,
but I did really enjoy the whole process,
and it also taught me what I could do
in a short amount of time.
Not that it's my best work,
but I'm proud of myself for not giving up there.
- Cade, congratulations.
You are the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and that is a title that comes with a check for $10,000.
How do you feel right now? - Cock-a-doodle-doo?
- Good job, my friend.
You made a fine rooster-headed French pioneer sword.
Come on forward and shake our hands.
- I am super psyched right now.
I am so proud of myself,
and I thank God that I had this opportunity.
I got to keep working hard
and keep on trying to climb that ladder, you know?
Ten grand is college funds.