♪ ♪
- I'm lyle nordquist. I'm 31 years old.
I'm a part-time bladesmith,
full-time electrician.
I feel like I'm a gentle giant,
6'3", almost 300 pounds.
I feel like I can be intimidating.
But overall, I'm not really that mean of a person.
♪ ♪
- my name's paul crosby. I am 51 years old.
And I'm a part-time bladesmith.
I have a granddaughter at home.
She's one years old.
She is the apple of my eye.
And winning this for her is what I'd really like to do.
♪ ♪
- I'm ben butcher. I am 34 years old.
If I win that $10,000,
I'm gonna go soak
in some hot springs for, like, a week.
It's gonna be dope. [laughs]
♪ ♪
- I'm james welker. I'm 43 years old.
And I'm from tacoma, washington.
If I won the $10,000, well, I'd buy a tiger,
then I would get cable so that I can watch it with my tiger.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
You're about to take part in a forging competition
that will test every aspect of your blade-making capabilities.
There's gonna be three rounds in the competition.
At the end of each round, you're gonna present your work
to our panel of expert judges--
abs master smith j. Nielson,
historic-weapons re-creation specialist dave baker,
and edged-weapons specialist and kali martial artist
doug marcaida.
The four of you will be competing head-to-head
for the coveted title of "forged in fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
I hope you brought your a games
because you guys are gonna be competing
in what might be the biggest challenge we've had yet.
But we'll get to this in a minute.
On top of your guys' anvils,
you'll see you have stacks of 1095 and 15n20 steel.
You'll be using that steel to build damascus blades...
But not your signature style blades.
I want you guys to build this.
♪ ♪
this is a nine-foot dagger.
- This isn't enough steel. - Yeah.
- So, now, before you guys throw your hands up
and you walk away, let me be a little bit more specific.
We want you to build a 1/5 scale replica of this blade.
So break out your calculators,
break out those measuring tapes.
Every aspect of this knife needs to be scaled down
five times.
You need to have a through-tang dagger.
And we'll be measuring the blade length
from tip to shoulders
and measuring the width of the blade at the shoulders.
- Math? Oh, no.
- Now, in round two of the competition,
you guys will be adding handles to your blades,
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
At that point, we'll be testing for strength and durability
in an animal skull chop
and checking for sharpness in a sugarcane slice.
♪ ♪
you only have three hours to complete this challenge.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- whose overcompensated knife is that?
[laughter]
- the hard thing I think is we usually give them a parameter
within two inches-- not so in this.
- The most obvious step would be to figure out
how many inches it is and divide it by five.
- We're doing a damascus blade.
That's a lot of material,
and I got to get it up to temperature.
So I'm gonna get that stuff cleaned up,
get it in the forge,
and then when I've got that downtime, I'll go take
all the measurements off that big old knife.
- Well, one of james's tools-- he brought a long magnet
so he can clean multiple pieces at once.
- I haven't seen that before.
- I have never seen that in this forge before.
- Yeah. - It's very clever.
- This magnet I brought with me is my secret weapon.
I'm able to stack that metal together,
and it holds it in place,
and then we weld it together and get it in the fire.
Ben, you want to use my magnet?
It's faster.
- Cool.
James, awesome dude that he is, he's like,
"here, man, use this."
this is gonna save me so much time.
- Did james just share his magnet with ben?
- Yeah. - That is very cool.
- I'd rather win based on the quality of my blade
than because my competitor ran into a snag
and wasn't able to finish in time.
So I know, at the end of the day,
whether I'm actually the winner or if I just got lucky.
- Welding.
Now that I've got my billet together,
I take a moment, catch my breath...
[breathes deeply]
get my measurements.
I haven't done high-school math in, you know...
[blows raspberry] 20 years.
And I have to figure out what five-to-one ratio
of all of these things are.
I'm just like, "are you kidding me?"
- we've got the quintessential
"measure twice, cut once" scenario going on right now,
'cause if you don't get the right measurements
in the very beginning of this round, you're sol.
- Okay.
♪ ♪
- did lyle use all of his steel?
- It doesn't look like it. - Yeah, I don't think so.
- They gave me a lot of steel
as more of a trip-up, I think.
They want you to spend more time cleaning and welding
and drawing out,
when you're gonna end up
cutting most of that steel away.
- Especially doing a dagger,
you always want to leave it a little bit thicker
because you can actually get a twist in there.
And it's really hard
to straighten out a twist in a dagger.
- I measure the blade.
I end up coming up with 2 1/2 inches wide
by 12.1 long.
So I'm confident
in the amount of steel that I'm putting together.
- The other thing I'm curious about with lyle, too,
is him having so much
less steel he's working with right now,
I'm wondering how his "calculations" came out.
- The blade's 75 inches. - 75 divided by 5, you got--
- 15-inch blade. - And shoulders at about 2 1/2.
♪ ♪
- there's a lot of parts to this dagger.
And there's a lot of math that could go wrong.
First thing I'm doing is drawing it out,
marking my measurements on the drawing
to make sure I get the proportions correct.
Math isn't my best suit, but I've got the measurements
I think I need, so I should be good.
I'm looking around,
everybody else is working on their billets.
I'm running behind. I have to catch up.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, you got two hours on the clock!
- I want something to stand apart,
so I'm gonna do a ladder pattern.
- James is going above and beyond.
He really wants to present something other than
what the rest are doing, just a damascus.
- I want them to be staggered one side to the other.
If I don't stagger them,
I end up lining them up on top of each other,
and after I squeeze them out, it'll be too thin.
If it's too thin, it could be a weak point, it could break.
♪ ♪
all right.
♪ ♪
- now that I have the metal welded,
what I'm doing is drawing it out
and kind of getting a rough shape that I want.
- I'm really concerned about lyle having enough steel.
- Lyle's a big dude. - He's a really big dude.
- I mean, he might just make that knife look small.
I don't know.
♪ ♪
- ben has got a big bar of steel.
Holy cow.
- This delightful piece of steel is way too long.
So I may as well just chop as much off of it as I can
to get it to roughly the length that I need it.
[bleep].
I think I maybe cut off a little too much.
[laughs]
I am praying that there's enough steel
to get it drawn out to length and width.
♪ ♪
- I keep looking at my watch. I'm not wearing a watch.
- That's the only watch we got to worry about, man.
- That thing hates me. I don't even want to look at it.
- [laughs]
- so I have my steel up to temperature.
And then I go for my weld.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
- Whoa. - Oh, my god.
- My weld broke. Split right in half.
- Being aggressive in that first pass,
you could actually wind up
shearing what you're trying to create.
- I'm scared this is gonna send me home.
I'm scared I have to start over.
The time is ticking away.
It's a make-or-break moment for me.
I have to get this weld to take.
- One hour remaining on the clock!
- I'm scared this is gonna send me home.
I'm scared I have to start over.
I have to get this weld to take.
So, to fix this, I need flux,
I need welding heat, and I need a lot of luck.
♪ ♪
I think I got it.
It's a solid weld.
And I'm just relieved
I can go back to making my blade.
- So flippin' hot. - Yeah.
- Oh!
I'm gassed.
I am running out of juice.
Very long.
I've already hammered in the point.
I realize I've got too much material.
- They need to start working that blade from the tip,
push back to where your shoulders are,
then take off whatever you don't need.
♪ ♪
- ben has a nice-looking billet right now.
- Yeah, yeah. - Starting to take shape.
- I got this steel drawn out.
And luckily, I had enough thickness there
to hopefully still meet parameters.
I prefer forge to finish,
because if you hand-hammer it as much as you can into shape
and then go to quench,
it kind of tends to avoid having as much warpage.
- So you think ben's getting frustrated or tired?
♪ ♪
- yeah.
- [exhales deeply]
- I have my weld solid.
And I'm realizing I have way too much steel
than I'm gonna need.
♪ ♪
frickin' hammer.
- He's grinding it part of the way through
and trying to hammer it off
instead of just grinding it off.
- I need to get this done now.
I'm starting to run out of time.
♪ ♪
yay! Whoo!
- Paul's finally got that chunk cut off.
- And now if you look at his blade,
it's not wide enough.
- 30 minutes remaining!
- Now that I got my steel where I want it,
I start grinding in my bevels.
I leave it thick, because with a chop,
I want to keep it as thick as I possibly can.
But it's also a dagger.
So you need to have that diamond shape on both sides.
- There's a lot more grinding going on also with daggers.
I mean, you've got quad grinds going four different sides.
- The time is just eating away,
and I'm kind of getting nervous
because I've been at the grinder a long time.
- This is a really good time to quench,
then do your grinding.
♪ ♪
- I'm trying to get a nice even heat.
And I like to use a magnet.
- Once you hit non-magnetic
and just get a little bit past that,
you're usually okay for most steels.
- Perfect. - James just quenched.
- There we go.
- James, ben,
they look like they're pretty much spot on in profile.
- When I pull it out the quench,
I notice that the front of it
has this dark spot in it still.
So I then go back in.
Nope.
I pull it out again,
I see the back of it's cooled off too much.
- Commit to it. There you go. - Boom. All right.
- Leave it in there.
♪ ♪
- okay.
♪ ♪
- there's a quench.
- If it's not heated right,
it could crack or damage your blade.
As soon as I pull that blade out of the oil, it's straight.
I'm very happy with how it quenched.
- Lyle's blade, to me,
looks shorter than any other blade out there.
Paul's blade looks too thin in profile to me.
- The clock's ticking away.
I really need to get a hardened blade
to present to the judges.
♪ ♪
deep-fried steel.
♪ ♪
it's nice and straight.
Everything went good for once. [chuckles]
- bladesmiths, you got five minutes!
♪ ♪
- oh, man!
- Are you [bleep] kidding me?
My heart sinks. I'm done.
Steel, when it's hardened, becomes brittle.
And I probably put a little too much pressure on it
at that juncture, and it just let loose.
My only hope is that I can get a good weld on it.
- He's not giving up, because who knows?
One of the other guys might have a massive crack
down the center. - Yep.
- Or might be three inches too short.
♪ ♪
- five, four, three,
two, one.
Turn off your machines. This round is over.
♪ ♪
- I am exhausted.
About ten years ago, I ran a marathon.
And this is harder.
This is more taxing.
[exhales deeply]
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen, you guys had three hours
to work on a pretty enormous challenge.
You guys had to measure our giant dagger here,
scale it down to 1/5 size,
and present us with a damascus blade.
Let's hear what the judges have to say.
James, you ready? - Yes.
- All right, please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, james, right off, scale is what this was about.
We've got about 75 inches of blade there roughly,
1/5 of that is gonna be about 15 inches.
Let's see how you did.
♪ ♪
I'm looking at 14 7/8. Spot on.
And the base, roughly 2 1/2 inches.
And yeah, again, you're spot on, 2 1/2 inches.
So really well done for nailing the scale of this blade.
I love that long magnet you had.
And I also love the fact that you shared that
with the smith working next to you in a $10,000 challenge.
That's awfully commendable. - Thank you.
- All right, ben, you're up next.
Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, ben, let's take a measurement of your blade here.
And we are looking at around 14 1/2 inches.
Good job on that. Let's get the width.
Around 2 1/2. Spot on.
Not only that, you're very close to the design
that we have presented right there.
Overall, solid work, sir. - Thank you.
- All right, paul. You ready? - Yes, sir.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, let's take a closer look at this, paul.
♪ ♪
- you're about 16 1/4.
You're an inch over.
At the base, you're at 1 3/4.
The base was supposed to be 2 1/2.
And it's very thin down here.
I don't know if you have enough material
to stretch that out to the width.
And then the other thing
is your tang snapping off right at the end.
You only had minutes.
You did what you can do, and I commend you for that.
But right now
it would be terrifying to swing into a skull.
- I agree.
- All right, lyle, you ready? - Yep.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- so, lyle, right off the bat,
I love what I see as far as the shape of this.
You're great on the width.
But the issue is you're only at 12 inches,
so you're, like, 3 inches shy
of an actual scaled-down version of that blade.
This just is not the scale that we were looking for.
♪ ♪
- all right, guys.
This competition was all about scale.
Two of our bladesmiths came extremely close to that.
So, ben, james, congratulations.
You guys will be moving forward into round two.
That leaves us with lyle and paul.
You guys both missed the mark
and didn't quite get that 1/5 scale-down,
which means one of you is gonna be heading home.
And the bladesmith leaving the forge is...
Paul.
- Paul, I commend you on your competitive spirit,
because when you had a catastrophic failure,
you pushed through,
you found a solution to present a blade to us.
Having said that, we question the structural integrity
where the tang meets the blade.
For those reasons, we're sending you home.
- I understand.
- All right, paul, you did great work out there.
But at this point, I'm gonna have to ask you
to please surrender your work and leave the forge.
- I understand why the judges made the decision they made.
- Good job, paul. Thanks.
- This competition is a lot more intense
than I thought it was going to be.
That tang effed me hard. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- all right, guys, congratulations.
You've made it through round one,
which means you're going into round two
where you're adding handles to your blades,
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
Now, let's talk materials.
On top of your workstations, you guys have a cloth.
Go ahead and remove that for me.
What you guys have in front of you
is a giant block of ash wood.
- Oh. - That is the material
you have to build your handles.
You also have access to the pantry for your guard
and pommel materials.
So take your time, make them as close
to our giant dagger as possible.
Now, after you guys put your pommels, your handles,
and your guards on to your blades,
we're gonna be testing for strength and durability
in a giant animal skull chop
and for sharpness in a sugarcane slice.
♪ ♪
good luck. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- the nice thing about ash
is it breaks along the grain pretty well.
♪ ♪
- first thing I'm noticing is lyle
went straight for the measuring tape
to measure the guard and the pommel.
He doesn't want to make that mistake twice.
- Now that I got measurements, I need to move on to my handle.
♪ ♪
I'm spending time trying to get it milled out,
getting a nice tight fit without splitting my wood.
- Can you tell me what lyle's working on?
- Yeah, lyle's cutting out his material for his handle.
- The wild bladesmith doing its mating call.
♪ ♪
- round two is all about keeping focused.
For the guard, I'm going brass instead of steel.
Going after a steel guard will likely take twice
as long to rout out.
♪ ♪
I'm not gonna win the beauty contest.
But maybe I can win the strength and sharpness contest.
- The first thing that I do
is I head to the pantry to gather my parts.
I want to find something that looks similar to this blade.
So, you know, everything looks like steel, so I grab steel.
♪ ♪
I'm trying to cut through it using an angle grinder,
and it's just not going anywhere.
Like, it's not going anywhere.
♪ ♪
- you've got an hour and 30 minutes remaining.
- At this point, I look over
and see james and lyle both have their guards made.
I stop. I stop what I'm doing.
That might be too much.
I find the two biggest pieces of brass that I can,
and I cut out the shapes that I need roughly.
Like butter, it's fine.
Should not have grabbed steel.
- All right, lyle's putting a thread on his tang.
- Once I get the pommel threaded on,
I realize that the tang's too long.
The last thing I want is my tang to break off in testing.
♪ ♪
after I cut it, put it all together,
and I had a nice tight fit.
I wish I could take more time to make things nicer,
but I just don't have the time to do that.
♪ ♪
- I got my guard drilled out and in pretty good shape.
Now it's time for the ash to turn into the handle.
- James is doing that burn-through
you guys are always talking about.
- Not always the most efficient,
but also, you're creating a channel
of charred wood in there
that can loosen up as it's being used.
♪ ♪
- it's just sizzlin',
and I realize this ash is super wet.
♪ ♪
it is not going to be a burn-through tang.
♪ ♪
I have to go back to the drill
and work the drill bit back and forth a little bit
to open up the hole inside the wood,
as it'll help secure the handle.
I am falling behind.
- Gentlemen, you've got 40 minutes remaining.
♪ ♪
- time is just running away from me here.
I don't actually have a handle yet.
♪ ♪
I got to get a move on it.
♪ ♪
mother[bleep].
It pops out the side.
[bleep]. - Oh, boy.
That doesn't sound good.
- Can I save this? No, I can't.
And I have to start another one.
So frustrated, I want to scream.
There's not enough [bleep] time.
♪ ♪
- this is, I think,
the second chunk of wood that ben's chopped off.
He's not making progress.
- This could be it.
I don't have enough time to make another handle.
And I'm just praying to the knife gods
that I don't pop this piece of handle material open.
[grunts]
- ben knows he's running out of time.
- I get my holes drilled finally.
This wave of relief just washes over me,
but I haven't got time to feel grateful.
I got to move.
♪ ♪
- so, at this point, I'm gonna put two pins in the handle
just for extra precaution.
That way, I know it's not gonna come apart.
I can crack the handle,
or the bit won't go all the way through,
and then I have a hole in my handle,
and I can't get a pin in it.
Holes go through it, and I'm just super excited
'cause now I can start sharpening my knife.
♪ ♪
- so I'm working on my pommel.
I'm trying to peen the end on.
Time's ticking away, and peening is taking too long.
- He's heating up that brass,
cooking the epoxy on the inside.
So there's a good chance
that'll come loose and start spinning.
- I finally get the peen to take pretty well,
but it's still a little loose,
which could be enough to send me home.
In two-hour time period, this is what we got to do.
- Only 15 minutes left in round two.
- I don't have time to thread the pommel.
I don't have time to thread the tang.
I don't have any time for that anymore.
Gas is on.
I decide that I'm gonna weld around the back of my tang.
You run the risk of heating up the tang so much
that you actually set the wood and/or epoxy on fire.
♪ ♪
and good enough is good enough, gentlemen.
I notice that there's a gap in my handle build.
A gap is a stress riser.
It could snap right at that junction.
[sighs]
man.
I don't have enough time.
It is what it is now.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Turn off your machines. Put down your tools.
This round is over.
- Considering how challenging round one and round two are,
I'm not 100% sure that I want to move on to round three.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to our strength test,
our giant skull chop.
And just to make you guys feel a little bit more relaxed,
these are some of the biggest skulls I ever chopped into.
- [chuckles]
- I'm gonna take your daggers,
stab and smash into these skulls repeatedly.
Lyle, you're up first.
You ready to go? - Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
my palms are sweating.
I can't afford any break or chip or roll.
♪ ♪
- [grunting loudly]
♪ ♪
- [sighs]
- all right, lyle, you survived.
Good job. Your edge held up great.
Your handle and guard, they're kind of cocked off to the side
and not quite in alignment, but nothing came loose.
Good job. - Thank you.
- Ben, it's always fun for the second guy, isn't it?
- [laughs] just do it, man.
♪ ♪
when they said a large animal skull,
I was not considering that the animal
would have giant horns, too.
I've got two 1/8-inch gaps
between my guard and my shoulders.
And those are stress risers.
It could cause my blade to snap.
♪ ♪
- [grunts loudly]
I still have a knife.
- Well, ben, you survived.
We do have a few issues.
We've got the gapping down here.
But it didn't affect anything, fortunately.
One thing that is an issue is you've got
some serious chipping right here on the one side.
But the blade's in one piece.
Good job. - Thank you.
- What are you thinking, james?
- This is what we're here for, right?
- This is what I'm here for. I know that.
[laughter]
♪ ♪
- it makes me nervous
because my pommel is holding on by thread.
And if that pommel falls off, I know I'm going home.
♪ ♪
- [grunting loudly]
- [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- you made it, james. You survived.
- [laughs]
- your blade edge-- you didn't lose anything.
It still feels very sharp.
Only thing is your pommel is a little bit loose,
but it still feels secure.
Good job. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths, this is the sharpness test--
the sugarcane slice.
♪ ♪
now, in this particular test,
I will take your scaled-down daggers
and try to cut through these sugarcanes.
Now, unlike the strength test,
this is all about what your edges do to the sugarcane.
Lyle, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
- all right, lyle, let's talk about your weapon here.
Your edge is over here.
While this is an obtuse grind, it actually cut very cleanly.
Overall, sir, your weapon will cut.
- Thank you.
- Ben, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Absolutely.
♪ ♪
- all right, ben, let's talk about your blade here.
On one side of the blade,
it cuts cleanly on the sugarcanes.
But right here on the spot
that you actually have the jagged chips,
it actually ripped the sugarcane.
But overall, sir, it'll cut. - Thank you.
- All right, james, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Slice it up. - Sweet.
♪ ♪
all right, james, let's talk about your blade here.
This has a sweet feel in the balance
that you have created with this particular blade.
The only thing is the pommel still got a little bit loose,
but that was already there prior to this test.
It is sharp, and, most importantly, sir,
it will cut.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, you gave us some great work here,
but our judges have made a decision,
and the bladesmith leaving the forge...
♪ ♪
is ben.
- Ben, this came down to basically two things--
the damage on your blade,
which was the only blade that took damage,
and the fit up between your guard and pommel.
- I understand.
- Ben, I want to say thank you for coming out,
but, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to ask you
to leave the forge.
- Thanks, guys. - Well done, man.
- I'm disappointed 'cause, of course,
I wanted to see it through to the end, man.
I'm sure that the edge of the blade that got chipped
got hotter than the rest of it when it was quenched.
It was just more brittle.
When I get home,
I think I might still go to those hot springs.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
- all right, guys, congratulations.
It is now down to the two of you
to battle it out, figure out who's going home
with the title of "forged in fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
In round three, we're gonna be sending you guys back
to your home forges to work on this blade for four days.
The blade we're gonna have you guys build is this...
♪ ♪
the william wallace sword.
[laughter] big-un, right?
- Armed with this gigantic two-handed claymore,
william wallace was known for leading the scottish rebellion
against the english during the late 12th century.
Measuring in at a staggering 5'4" tall,
the blade weighed less than 6 pounds,
making it both lightweight and long enough
to deliver deadly blows against the enemy
on horseback or on foot.
Wallace led his troops to victory
with his namesake sword
during the famous battle of stirling bridge.
Memorialized as a scottish hero,
wallace can be seen wielding his iconic sword
in the 1995 blockbuster "braveheart."
- this is the largest sword
we've ever asked any bladesmiths to make.
- One look at that beautiful sword, and I think,
"nope." [laughs]
- you've got to make your blades within these parameters.
The blade length needs to be between 51 and 53 inches
with a blade width no less than 2 inches.
You guys need to have a guard with upswept quillons,
longe, and two side rings.
Need to include a two-handed handle
and top it off with a pommel.
The best of luck to both of you guys.
We'll see you back in the forge in four days.
♪ ♪
- here we are, round three, championship round.
Let's draw this bad boy out.
And a big challenge, making a big sword.
My plan is to get it designed, get it drawn to length,
and go to bed knowing whether or not
I've got the makings of a legendary great sword.
This sword's almost as tall as I am.
I've made a few swords,
but never have I made anything of this caliber.
That's a 32-inch blade.
I need 20 more inches.
I think I'm gonna add extra material on the outside
and play it safe, make sure I've got enough material
for this thing to get to length.
It's gonna go something like this.
Let's weld all that together.
Gonna guarantee that I've got enough material
to make this giant sword.
Easy to cut off extra material in the end.
It's really hard to make steel grow.
Takes a lot of extra work, love, care.
You have to bury it in the ground,
water io at least twice a day.
And then, you know, by next spring,
if it hasn't turned to rust,
it might have grown an inch and a half,
but we don't have that kind of time.
♪ ♪
- so it's day one.
I'm back in bloomsburg, pennsylvania, my home forge.
I got to make a william wallace sword.
It's a beast of a sword.
Today I would like to get the blade drawn out
to rough parameters, hopefully.
I can't screw this up. I only have one piece of this.
♪ ♪
so now that I've got my rough shape formed in,
I get the angle grinder.
That way, I can look for delams and cracks.
Looks good. I don't see any cracks.
And that's a wrap for day one.
♪ ♪
- it's the beginning of day two,
and I'm feeling great.
The key to victory
with a weapon this size is performance,
and it's all about that heat treat.
That is the most critical part.
Yeah. Ooh, that looks great.
I like it. I like it. I like it.
Just a little fire. Just a little fire.
Whoo!
It seems to have taken great.
I am ecstatic!
That went wonderfully.
♪ ♪
- it's day three.
I have to get this quench done.
♪ ♪
I'm worried about something going wrong with this
because it takes way too much time to make this,
and I don't have enough time to do another one.
Get in there.
Come on, you [bleep].
♪ ♪
I got a little bit of a warp in it, but it's not bad.
I'm pretty happy with it.
♪ ♪
- it's day four of captivity.
And I feel like I have nearly met the needs of my captors.
[laughing] they'll let me back out in the real world soon.
♪ ♪
so today is all about final fit and assembly.
Oh, I just realized
my bent side ring...
Is supposed to bend the other direction.
♪ ♪
I can just get it back in the forge, heat it up,
and turn it around the other direction.
Let's see.
Oh, man, I'm feeling great.
This sword is enormous, and it is light.
I just spent a week building it,
so I want to wield this thing.
There's not a lot of reasons
to walk around town with a chainmail shirt
unless you have a william wallace sword.
Then, of course, you should have a chainmail shirt on.
♪ ♪
that was pretty nice. That cut really well.
♪ ♪
- it's day four. This is it.
This is the final, you know? I got to get it done today.
It's time to start putting all the pieces
of this sword together.
I slipped the guard down on my sword,
and the challenge
is just making sure everything fits tight
and there's no wiggling, there's no moving,
'cause if they hit it off something
and if something loosens up, I could go home.
I'm really happy with the way it looks.
Big sword for a big guy.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome back to the forge.
You guys had four days
to work on your giant william wallace swords,
and we cannot wait to hear about them.
James, how did it go for you?
♪ ♪
- it went according to plan.
80crv--I sandwiched a little 1095 and 15n20 on the sides
to make sure I had enough material to get through it.
Deerskin-wrap handle, and the guard is forged
out of a single piece of 1/4-inch plate steel.
- Great work. Lyle, how about you?
♪ ♪
- it went better than I thought it would go.
80crv2 with a oak handle with a leather wrap,
a brass pommel, and a steel guard.
- Well, they both look great, but there's only one way
to figure out which one of you is gonna be leaving here
as the champion of "forged in fire."
we've got a strength, a sharpness test,
and up first, the keal test.
Doug.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
To find out what kind of lethal damage
your iconic william wallace swords will do,
I will take your sword and deliver lethal blows
on this wild-boar carcass.
James, you're up first.
You ready for this? - Yes, I am.
- All right, let's do it.
- Those hogs can take out a weapon pretty easily.
It could wrap around the side of the hog
instead of cutting into the hog.
And all that momentum could go into bending the blade
rather than slicing into the pig.
And that makes me very nervous.
- [chuckling] that is massive.
♪ ♪
- oh-oh.
♪ ♪
- all right, james, let's talk about your blade here.
Pocket knife, it is not.
But this long blade actually has a nice weight to it.
It's wieldable with two hands.
Grabbing on to your handle here, I get a good grip.
Your edge is razor sharp.
It easily punctures and has a nice draw cut to it.
Now, cutting the carcass, as you can see,
it cut it in half.
And, more importantly, sir, it will keal.
- Thank you, sir.
- All right, lyle, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do it.
♪ ♪
- my stomach is just in knots.
I'm nervous about my quench.
And, you know, I'm just--
I didn't know if I did it right, but I'm gonna find out.
I'm ready for it to be over.
♪ ♪
- all right, lyle, let's talk
about your william wallace sword here.
It's a lighter sword. It's about 1/2 pound lighter.
Your edge is sharp.
Now, it cut very deep on this pig carcass.
Didn't cut it in half, but it did cut.
Overall, sir, your sword, it will keal.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen, it's time for the strength test,
our battering-ram chop.
Now, why would you attack a battering ram with a sword?
I don't know, but we're gonna do it anyway.
Now, remember, this test is not about what your swords do
to that battering ram but how well they hold up.
James, you're up first. You ready?
- Dave, I hate this plan. [laughter]
any confidence I had after coming out of the keal test
hits the floor when I see that log.
That's a sword breaker,
because that log is not gonna give at all.
Worst-case scenario, it could warp the blade,
or it could just plain snap the blade.
[exhales deeply]
- [grunting loudly]
♪ ♪
- [exhales deeply]
- all right, james,
blade is still true as it was when we started.
It's comfortable and strong.
And, man, it held up well. Good job.
- Yeah, I really like hearing you talk about it.
That's great. - [laughs]
all right, lyle, your turn. Ready?
- I guess. - I guess.
♪ ♪
[grunting loudly]
♪ ♪
all right, lyle, first off,
remarkable job making a weapon this big, this light,
and hold up that well.
That's impressive.
But the issue is...
We've got some loosening going on.
Other than that, you did a great job.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths, this is the sharpness test--
the foam pillar slice.
Now, unlike the strength test,
this is all about how sharp your weapons are
and what they do to these foam pillars
that are wrapped in leather.
James, you're up first. You ready?
- Yeah, man. Let's go. - Let's do it.
♪ ♪
all right, james,
the edge of your sword is like cutting through butter.
It's a nice clean cut, cuts all the way through.
Overall, sir, your weapon,
it will cut.
- Thank you.
- All right, lyle, your turn, sir.
You ready? - Yes, sir.
- Let's do this.
♪ ♪
all right, lyle, let's talk about your sword here.
First up, the guard is still a little bit loose
from the strength test, but when it comes to the cuts,
it is a sharp edge that you have here.
It did cut the leather. It just didn't cut through.
It's a lighter blade, thinner edge over here.
But it does cut. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen,
you guys both brought us back giant william wallace swords
that exceeded our expectation.
They're the largest swords ever built in this competition.
So we want to commend you guys both for that.
But there can only be one champion in this competition.
And today's "forged in fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
james. Congratulations.
- Thank you. - Lyle, unfortunately,
you just didn't make the cut today.
And dave baker is gonna tell you why.
- Lyle, you made us an amazing sword that performed very well.
But that guard loosened up in the strength test,
and it just didn't cut as well in the sharpness test.
And that's why we're letting you go.
- I understand.
- Lyle, thank you for all your hard work.
You produced a phenomenal weapon.
But, unfortunately, I'm gonna have to ask you
to please step off the floor. - Thank you.
I'm a little upset that I lost.
But at the same time, I mean, I got nothing to be sad about.
To be here at the finals and my sword actually made it through,
I mean, I can't be more happy about it.
♪ ♪
- james, congratulations.
You are the "forged in fire" champion.
You'll be leaving here with a check for $10,000.
How does it feel? - Pretty great.
Yeah, baby! I am "forged in fire" champion.
- Great work.
- Feels a little surreal,
like, maybe this isn't real.
Might find out tomorrow
that this didn't really happen. [chuckles]
♪ ♪