[dramatic music]
- here in the forge, we've seen
some of the most talented bladesmiths battle it out
for the coveted title of "forged in fire" champio.
- Oh, yeah!
- But sometimes even the best fall short.
We're gonna have to ask you to please leave the forge.
- Over the course of four head-to-head competition,
we've seen eight smiths battle it out
for a second chance at victory.
But over the course of those intense duels,
only four smiths remain.
Now the winner of each duel will head back
into the arena for one last chance
at being crowned "forged in fire" champion.
The final battle of the second chance tournament
starts now.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- my name is sam smith.
I won the untested duel,
and I'm here for the second chance tournament.
Winning my duel was just the first step.
The "forged in fire" champion title is within grasp.
I'm feeling pretty excited.
♪ ♪
- I'm james mays,
and I'm the winner of the tough breaks duel.
When I get into the competitive mode,
there's not time for emotions.
I'm here to get the championship.
That's what I'm here for.
- My name is jennifer lyddane,
and I won the beat the clock duel.
The last time I was here,
I felt like this inner woman power just come out,
and I hope that my skill represents woman all over.
- My name's michael seronde.
I'm the winner of the runner-up duel.
My duel was impossibly hard.
Who knows what they're gonna throw at us now?
- I see you trying to guess what's under there.
- 10 grand is on the line.
I'm here to win.
♪ ♪
- sam, james, jennifer, michael,
the four of you have entered the final stage
of our second chance tournament.
Congratulations.
Each one of you came out on top of your respective duels
and earned yourself a spot here today.
Now we're gonna put you through three intense rounds
of forging competition that will culminate
with only one of you leaving here
with the title of "forged in fire" champion
and a check for $10,000.
The judges for today's competition are:
Abs master smith j. Neilson,
historic weapons re-creation specialist dave baker,
and edge weapons specialist and kali martial artist
doug marcaida.
♪ ♪
right off the bat, in round one, bladesmiths,
we're going big.
On your anvils, there is a cloth.
Go ahead and remove it for me.
[dramatic music]
what you have there is a two-inch ball bearing
made of 52100 high carbon steel.
In addition to that,
I want you to salvage some steel from these:
♪ ♪
these are excavator buckets,
and they are made of mild steel.
So I want you to salvage your material from these buckets,
use the high carbon steel in those ball bearings,
and fashion us some san mai choppers.
- I've never cut sections out of an excavator bucket.
I've only ever welded a crack or two.
That's gonna take some time.
- Your choppers will need to be between 12 and 14 inches.
They'll also need to be set up for a through tang.
Three of you will move forward into round two
of the competition, where you will add handles to your blades
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
We're gonna check for strength and durability
in a lumber and hard hat chop
and then check your edge retention
in a leather apron stab and slice.
You guys have all been here before.
You know what's on the line.
You've got three hours on the clock.
Your time starts now.
[upbeat music]
- and the tournament continues.
- This is gonna be a good one.
We've got four smiths who just won a duel.
They've got to all be very confident
in their skills right now,
but we didn't give them an easy challenge.
- I'm thinking, you know,
I'm just gonna cut the top off
and get a rectangle.
That'll be my bar.
I'll just cut it in half, clean it,
and I'm gonna sandwich that with my ball bearing.
- Those buckets have varying pieces of steel
welded together.
Jennifer went right for the edge.
That's almost a half-inch thick.
With a hand grinder,
she's gonna be right there for 30 minutes.
♪ ♪
- oh, my gosh, that is so thick.
♪ ♪
- the first thing I do is put that ball bearing
into the forge, so it can get blazing hot.
- Are there any specific characteristics
to the 52100 that these guys should be paying attention to?
- You tend to forge it at a higher temperature.
If you don't, you could put stress fractures in the steel.
That can come back and bite you later.
- The side walls of the buckt are very flat,
so that is where I'm gonna cut some steel.
[metal clattering]
- michael went to the thin wall,
cut his plate right out of that.
♪ ♪
- I would really rather use
the cutting edge of the bucket.
That's a lot thicker, but you'd be eating up blades
and ruining grinders all day cutting it off.
So I go straight to the actual side of the bucket itself
because it's thinner material.
I can get it out quicker.
- As everyone rushes to the buckets,
I'm getting the ball bearing
in the forge as fast as possible.
My strategy here is:
Get my ball bearing into a rectangular bar,
and then cut in the bucket.
What part do I wanna use?
I measure out the area of steel I need.
Lo and behold, there's a support piece
welded onto the back.
So I'm going through like an inch and a quarter worth
of steel.
So my solution?
Cut right below it.
- There we go.
Very nice.
♪ ♪
- there we go. - There it is.
- Finall--all right, jennifer's finally throug.
- [bleep]
I still have not put that ball bearing in the forge.
- She should have put that ball bearing in the forge.
Let it heat up while she was cutting her mild steel.
- The ball bearing
is gonna take a while to heat up.
This is gonna set me back 30 minutes easy, if not more.
- Bladesmiths, one hour down.
Two hours remaining in this challenge.
- I get my ball bearing drawn out.
There is actually a lot of steel here,
more than I need.
So I cut off one end, so it's nice and flat.
San mai is essentially a three-layer sandwich.
I'm comfortable with the stacking technique,
so that's the way I'm gonna go.
And now we wait.
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna use the taco technique
because you only have to deal with one piece of steel.
I can just drop my 52100 straight into it
and go to work.
- There's a difficulty in using that method.
You've got to clean all this area
at the bottom of the taco,
or you get inclusions, cold shots.
The set-up is everything with this technique.
- It's time to go to the press,
and make a good solid weld across the billet.
♪ ♪
- sam's gonna go for the taco, too.
- Yep. - Holy cow.
- That bucket really slowed me up,
and I have to use a quicker process.
So what I'm going to do is fold it like a taco
and set my 52100 right in there.
With the possibility of havig more inclusions
doing the taco version of a san mai,
I have to make sure that it welds solid.
♪ ♪
- come on, damn it.
So I've got my billet drawn out,
and I notice there's a blister in my steel.
[bleep].
[dramatic music]
- that didn't look good to me.
- I've got to either fix this or start over.
- Somewhere in there, there's an inclusion or something
that's keeping it from welding.
- Hopefully, there's enough blade left
to meet my parameters.
- Bladesmiths, you have 30 minutes remaining
in this round.
Oh, michael's very efficient with his time.
He's already got his tang, his shoulders...
- I am ready to heat-treat this sucker.
[upbeat music]
♪ ♪
there's a little warp. Not the end of the world.
I have time left on the clock, and then...
Oh, no.
I see a giant separation.
Oh, no.
- Michael's eyeballing that steel.
There's an issue.
- Two of the layers are coming apart.
That sucks.
Typically, if there's delaminations,
you can see 'em when you grind.
I didn't see any problems with my weld.
- Uh-oh, I think he's got a crack
all the way through the core.
- Oh, lord.
- I have 30 minutes left.
I can't make another knife.
I don't really know what to do.
[bleep].
- I throw it back into the forge
and try to reweld that split.
That is my only chance of going forward.
♪ ♪
- I think I fixed my delam.
It's time to get it into the quench.
- Bingo. All right.
- Sure as [bleep], there's a warp in my blade.
[bleep].
Glad I've got extra steel
because I'm gonna have a lot of grinding to do
to get this warp out.
And then--
[bleep].
As I'm grinding, I notice that there's a delam in my spine.
I've got to weld it up and get it going.
- James is back at the welder.
- It's not optimal to ever weld on your blade,
but I don't have any choice
because I risk a chance of a catastrophic failure
if there's a gap in the top of my spine.
[dramatic music]
[upbeat music]
- this is a pretty intense round.
Hopefully I can pull through.
- Sam quenched at a really high temperature.
- So if there are other problems with the blade,
that's gonna make it higher the chances
of a break happening.
- Yes.
- I pull my blade out of the quench, and I'm golden.
Now I've got to get rid of some of this excess material.
- I don't wanna quench yet.
I'm feeling quite behind.
I need to quench.
- All right, there goes jennifer in the oil.
- Not bad, a little on the hot side.
- Oh, my gosh.
I have a warp
that is like spaghetti.
I'm going to have to re-quench.
I'm scared to death that it's going to crack on me.
I don't know what it might do.
Please don't warp.
The warp's still there,
not quite as bad.
I lay it on the anvil, and I put a sledgehammer on it,
and I just sit on it.
Please, lord, help me.
[grunts]
- you got five minutes left.
Michael is back in the forge, guys.
- I quench it again.
The crack's still there,
all the way through the middle section of the knife.
I have to do something drastic.
- Oh, come on. - What the hell?
Michael's cutting his blade in half.
- Whoa.
- I cut it in half.
The only option I have is to see if I have enough material
to draw out to the length parameter.
- He's going for a hail mary.
He cut off six inches of blade.
That's not the road I would've driven down, but--
- it ain't a road.
That's a cliff he just drove off of.
- [bleep].
I am trying to draw this out with a hammer that's too big,
steel that's too small, and not enough time.
[bleep] damn it.
- This is one of the most insane things
I've ever seen on the forge floor.
[dramatic music]
- five, four, three,
two, one.
Bladesmiths, turn off your machines.
Take your blades out of the oil.
This round's over, guys.
- This is not really a knife.
I don't know if it's gonna meet parameters.
Maybe they'll see that I put everything I had into it.
Who knows?
It's in the judges' hands.
[dramatic music]
- bladesmiths, we are well on our way into the final.
You guys all did a great job.
But michael,
fell apart in the final hour, man.
You fought very hard to be here,
but unfortunately, your blade is only 8 3/4 inches,
missing our 12- to 14-inch requirement
by more than three inches.
So unfortunately for that reason,
I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your work,
and leave the forge.
- Fair enough.
- Thank you, michael. - Thanks, guys.
I got chucked out.
I had an awesome knife for 2 1/2 hours,
and then cut it in half.
Probably the worst plan ever.
I knew it was a long shot,
and, you know, I just wanted to turn something in.
I would absolutely do this again,
but I don't know
if there's a three-time returning loser option.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, congratulations.
That means the three of you are moving forward
into the next round
of our second chance tournament finals.
But there are still issues with your blades
that need addressing.
Let's hear what the judges have to say about them.
Sam, you ready? - Yes, sir.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, sam.
First up, your grinds are very clean.
Straight lines all the way through.
Now, your design that you have here has a sheep's foot.
Now, sheep's foot designs are usually made
for cutting weapons,
but our tests will call for stabbing as well as cutting.
And you just need to make sure
that this sheep's foot is able to stab.
Overall, sir, good job.
- Thank you.
- James, you ready? - Yeah, let's do it.
- Let's see what you got.
- So, james, right off,
generally I think your steel looks good.
Biggest issue: That blister right there.
And I can hear when I tap it how shallow it is.
The metal that's on the face of that is paper thin.
Could it get hung up on a cut? Yes, it could.
So it would be a good thing to address it,
but good design.
Nicely done.
- How you feeling, jennifer? - Nervous.
- Let's hear what they have to say about it.
♪ ♪
- all right, jennifer, good job on your work.
The profile's nice, what we're asking for.
You do have a warp here
going in one direction, and the tang does the same.
So you got a little bit of a serpentine issue.
The one thing that does concern me is this seam right here
that I can get my nail quite a ways down into.
But overall, good job. - Thank you.
- All right, bladesmiths, congratulations.
The three of you are moving forward into round two.
In this second round of competition,
you guys are going to fix any issues you have
with your blades and add handles to them,
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
On your workstation, there's a cloth.
Go ahead and reveal those materials for me.
[dramatic music]
what you each have there is a pound and a half
of brass hardware.
We're gonna ask you to melt that down in the foundry
and cast both a functional guard and pommel.
Now, bladesmiths,
you guys only have two hours to complete these tasks.
When the time is elapsed,
we're gonna go straight over to the testing arena.
We're gonna test for strength and durability
in a lumber and hard hat cho.
Then we're gonna check for edge retention
in a leather apron stab and slice.
Keep your eyes on the clock.
Your time starts now.
[upbeat music]
casting brass.
- [laughs]
- so how long does brass typically take
to heat up and melt down?
- This stuff's gonna be liquid within ten minutes.
- Yes, come to me, my pretties.
I have used a foundry setup in the past
but never to melt brass for a weapon.
I'm going to split my brass into two piles.
The smaller the mass, the faster it will heat up,
so I take them and put them in the crucible first.
- They could put all that brass in there, melt it,
pour half of it, put it back in the foundry, let it si.
- If they don't have enough,
they're gonna have to completely redo it.
- Yep. - It's all wasted time.
♪ ♪
- the first round, my tang had a warp.
I expected to use the torch to straighten it out,
but I have the foundry sitting here.
I can just stick it in there and go.
- That's a great, easy, simple fix.
- Clamp it in the vice, and it comes out straight.
♪ ♪
- never done this.
- Is it molten inside?
- Right now it looks clumpy. - Yeah, not good yet.
- That's great that sam's giving her a hand on that.
- But he's got to keep in mind, too,
that the first time he was here, he ended up going hom,
because he was helping out another smith and took up time.
- Can you hold that vice down for me?
- Yeah, I'll help you. Do it.
- Look at that. You see?
There's comradery right there.
He's--sam's helping out colton. - There you go, kid!
- He needed someone with enough mass
to keep that thing from spinning around
and around and around.
Finally, the brass has melted fully.
The first pour I make is great.
The second pour I do, not enough brass.
Come on.
- Dave, you called it. He didn't have enough.
- Luckily, that can be melting and getting ready
while I'm working on the blade.
[dramatic music]
- bladesmiths, you have one hour and 30 minutes left
in this round.
♪ ♪
- I want to go with a multi-stacked handle
and make a compression fitting.
- Oh, he's doing a burn through.
[laughs] he's a madman.
- There are smiths who'll try the burn through method,
and it just takes forever.
- I burned my handle material in,
because I feel like I'm gonna have a better chance
of keeping a good tight handle, and I'm not relying on epoxy.
Now it's time to clean it up,
and stack it all up,
and make a nice brick of handle material.
[upbeat music]
- I still need to address this delamination.
So I reprofile, and I put a little curve.
And when I do that, I put an end to the delamination.
Please be ready.
I pour my first cast for my guard.
Just a little bit more.
- Where is the brass?
- I don't have enough brass.
- [groans]
- I look over on her table,
and there's a lot of brass sitting there.
- She should've grabbed a fistful.
- Makes me crazy.
- The first time that I came to compete,
my blade wasn't even tested
because of turning in this blocked up handle.
♪ ♪
this could be what sends me home again.
♪ ♪
work for me, work for me.
[dramatic music]
- my brass is melted now.
I'm gonna give it another pour and see what happens.
There it is, nice full mold, ready to go.
One more hurrah.
Now I can work on my handle.
I'm going to drill a hole through my block of wood
because it's a fast method.
Time's running out.
I have a legitimate fear
I will have an incomplete blade.
- All right, bladesmiths,
you guys have 30 minutes until this round is over.
- I have to get my pommel to be tight
so that it pushes all my material
up against my finger guard.
So I split and reheat my tang.
Try to roll it down so that it bends both sides
opposite directions and holds pressure against the pommel.
- James is doing exactly what I was hoping he wouldn't.
- Yeah. - Not only does he not hae
epoxy attaching his tang to his handle material,
now he's cooking the epoxy
out of the back of the handle as well.
- The torch melts my leather.
[bleep].
This messed my entire handle up.
It's never gonna be tight.
I don't have enough time to tear it apart and fix it.
Hopefully it holds together,
and they'll put it though testing.
- You have 15 minutes until the clock stops.
♪ ♪
- I finally get the rest of my brass cooked up,
and as soon as that is cooled down,
I can put my handle together.
- Two burn throughs in one day, boys.
- I burn my tang into my block of wood,
and I just start grinding the crap out of this handle.
I want a finished blade.
That's what I came here to do.
[dramatic music]
- I'm running out of time,
and now I'm heating the tang and peening it over.
- Look how big that flame on the rosebud tip is.
All you need is a teeny tiny flame.
- His handle's on fire.
- Oh, my god.
- I hope my knife holds up to the judges' tests.
I'm gonna say a little extra prayer for that handle.
- Five, four,
three, two, one.
This round is over.
Turn off your machines. Put down your tools.
Great work, smiths.
- I'm not happy at all with my blade.
My handle's loose.
My edge is okay, but it's nowhere near
the quality edge I want to put on a blade
to go into a competition.
[dramatic music]
- bladesmiths, welcome to our strength test.
I like to call this the construction to destruction.
I'm gonna take each of your blades,
and beat them into these 2x4s and hard hats.
Now, what your knives do to these materials
is secondary to what the materials do to your knives.
Jennifer, you're gonna go first.
- I've been waiting a long time for this, yes.
- Well, let's get it over with then.
- [grunts] I don't want to go first.
[dramatic music]
I know where that delam was
is likely the weakest part of my blade.
I am not keeping it together.
♪ ♪
- doing okay, jennifer?
- I'm good. - Okay.
You still got a wave to the blade.
The handle, it's short. It's very small.
Okay, once I put a glove on here, it was even smaller.
You got a little bit of dulling,
but most of your edge is still there.
So good job. - Thank you.
- Sam, you're up next. You ready?
- Absolutely. - All right, let's go.
♪ ♪
- I'm feeling fairly confident about my knife,
but that handle's not where I want it to be.
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
- all right, sam.
Starting off, your pommel was already loose.
You could hear that jingling.
Now the whole handle's loose.
Everything's moving.
Your edge--
there was a seam right above the edge on both sides,
and that's gone now.
But other than that, it's still straight.
Still has most of an edge.
So you survived. Good job.
- Thank you.
- James, you ready to go? - Let's see what you got.
- Let's do it.
- Hard hats are no joke. They are hard.
My handle's loose enough,
so if it's gonna break, it's gonna break on that hard hat.
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
- all right, james, you survived.
Um, the handle...
[rattling]
[laughs] it's kinda like a maraca
or something like that now.
But the way you folded over those tangs,
it's not gonna go anywhere.
Your blister started collapsing,
but it didn't tear apart on the blade.
And your edge is still sharp.
Nice job. - Thank you.
- All right, bladesmiths,
congratulations for passing the strength test.
But are they still sharp?
This is the sharpness test,
the leather apron stab and slice.
Now, unlike the strength test,
this is all about what your weapons do to the aprons.
Jennifer, you're up first. Ready?
- Yes. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
all right, jennifer, let's talk about your blade here.
The tip right here, the edge is not sharp at al.
You have a point here that, with force,
will penetrate the leather apron.
There are areas of your blade that are dull.
The sharp part, it will cut. - Thank you.
- All right, sam, your turn, sir.
You ready? - Yes, sir.
- Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
all right, sam, let's talk about your blade here.
First up, the handle is still loose.
But your tip actually is sharp at the point
and it penetrates the apron.
When I'm dragging through, it's very interesting.
There are parts here that aren't sharp,
but the edges that took some rolling
actually helped cut the apron.
Overall, sir, your weapon,
it will cut. - Thank you.
- All right, james, how you feeling?
- Let's see what happens. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
all right, james, let's talk about your weapon here.
The tip does penetrate,
but it's your edges here that are actually quite sharp.
It made it easy to cut through the apron
and slash at it.
Overall, sir, your weapon,
it will cut.
♪ ♪
- all right, guys, you can breathe.
- Not yet.
- [laughs]
well, bladesmiths, we did not go easy on you.
This is our first second chance tournament,
and the three of you deserve to be standing right here.
You all won your duels,
but as you know, only two of you will be moving forward
into round three of this challenge.
The bladesmith that's gonna be leaving the forge today is..
♪ ♪
sam.
Unfortunately, you just didn't make the cut, bud.
- I understand. - J.'s gonna tell you why.
- You know, sam,
you did outstanding work in your haladie duel,
and you came back and gave us a great thrusting knife.
But handle issues aside,
you took the most damage in the strength test.
That's why we're letting you go.
- I want to say thank you for your great sportsmanship
and working so hard in the forge,
but unfortunately, your time in this competition has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you
to please step off the forge floor.
- Good luck, guys. - Sam, you did a great job.
- Well, I'm headed back to maine
feeling a little disappointed.
The steel let me down.
That happens sometimes.
It's always a pleasure to be here in "forged in fire,"
and I'm happy to be able to swing my hammer once again
and interact with some of the greats,
like doug marcaida, j. Neilson, and david baker.
♪ ♪
- well, jennifer, james,
the two of you are moving forward into round three
of our second chance tournament.
So congratulations. It's gotta feel good.
In this final round of competition,
we're gonna be sending you back to your home forges
for four days to build one of our favorite weapons
from the "forged in fire" vault.
You guys will be building this...
♪ ♪
the flyssa.
- Seen in season five of "forged in fire,"
the flyssa is a traditional sword
used by the kabyle berbers of north africa.
The weapon features a long, thin blade
that flares at the belly and tapers at the tip,
providing quick, deadly slashes in the heat of battl.
One of the distinguishing features of this weapon
is the animal head pommel,
which is designed for counterbalance.
This important element cost one smith the competition
when his unbalanced design
made the weapon hard to control.
- Now, when you're building this blade,
I want you to follow these parameters:
Your blade length needs to be between 36 and 38 inches.
The edge will then taper
and then flare out toward the belly,
and then it'll finally taper down toward the tip.
You're gonna cap this all off with an animal head pomme.
This is your second chance
at achieving the title of "forged in fire" champion.
So make it strong. We'll see you in four day.
[dramatic music]
[upbeat rock music]
- we're back at the home forge.
We got a hell of a build in front of us.
It's the flyssa, great big-ass sword.
We're gonna need every bit of the 40 inches.
I want to build this flyssa
with a little bit extra meat on it,
'cause you never know when you might make a mistake
and have to start over.
Well, I think the parameters have been met,
so at this point, I'm gonna go work on my animal.
Started off, I thought maybe a dog, maybe a bear.
It hasn't really decided what it's gonna be,
and I'm gonna keep playing with it
till I figure out what it is.
It may turn into a dragon.
We don't know yet.
The more I mess with it,
the more I started seeing this elongated nose,
and I think crocodiles are badass,
so that's what we're gonna go with.
There we go.
[upbeat music]
- we are at my home forge in versailles, kentucky.
My goal is to get a rough shape on my ram's head.
I stick it in the forge,
and it's just not working.
I don't want to waste time,
so I started a second ram.
It's okay.
And when I pull out my ram...
I lost my antler!
I've got a one-horned ram.
[mutters]
it melted in my coal forge.
So ram number three.
I'm just gonna take my time.
♪ ♪
it was worth it.
♪ ♪
- day two.
This is a pretty straightforward sword,
but there's a lot of parts to it.
The sword's coming together good.
It's going together fast.
I may end up quenching early.
Wise man once told me
"if you want to hear god laugh, tell him your plans."
well, my plans were to be quenching early today.
I don't like this weld.
It just don't feel right.
It feels like it's not solid.
I find a cold shut.
The last thing I need is to make it easy
on j. To break my blade.
That [bleep] ain't happening.
What am I gonna do now?
[bleep].
First thing I need to do
is get some good welds on this thing.
I make my first pass.
The weld looks good.
I feel like I've got a good repair on this.
I think it's gonna hold up.
♪ ♪
- day three.
I'm really anxious to quench.
My biggest fear is that it's gonna warp.
Oh, I'm nervous!
I go in for the quench...
♪ ♪
and when I take it out...
It's a fricking miracle. It didn't warp!
Holy cow, I just experienced a miracle.
There's no warp.
It's hardened.
I'm proud of what I made,
but I can only imagine what it's gonna go up against.
Yes!
Sorry.
- Day four.
Got the quench done yesterday.
I end up with a couple little minor warps.
So I'm gonna try to do the three pin method,
and pray to god that I don't snap this blade,
'cause I have a habit of breaking blades.
- Oh! - I knew it.
♪ ♪
- this time, there's no way I'm gonna make that mistake.
Start putting tension on it.
Heating up the spine.
Keep going. A little bit more pressure.
Anxiety is through the roof.
[dramatic music]
well, hopefully that got it.
That's better.
I think I can grind the rest of that out.
I'm stoked.
I've got a good straight blade now to go to testing with.
This blade's ready to rock.
Let's see what we can do.
- Hey, it's day four,
and I am ready to finish my flyssa.
I am exhausted,
but I still have so much to do.
This is gonna polish up so pretty.
I'm going back and forth from the grinder
to my food scales,
and I just start seeing my drawing
come to life.
It feels sharp to me,
but I really want to test it on something.
[upbeat music]
yes! Yes!
It is looking like a superstar.
I'm so happy.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome back to the forge.
This is it, the final round of our second chance tournament.
But as you know, only one of you
is gonna be leaving here with a check for $10,000
and the ever-coveted title of "forged in fire" champion.
Before we get into testing your blades,
jennifer, tell us about your build.
♪ ♪
- my steel is made out of 5160.
My handle material is figured walnut.
And my pommel is made out of mild steel,
and it's a ram.
- Fantastic. James, how 'bout you?
♪ ♪
- I also went with the 5160.
Blood wood for my handle.
Brass pins, and mild steel for my crocodile.
- Well, you both brought us beautiful swords.
And you know we only have one way to find out
which one of them's gonna end up on the wall.
We've got a sharpness test, we've got a strength test,
and up first, the keal. Doug?
- All right.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
Well, your flyssa swords are long and slender,
but are they lethal?
Well, we're gonna find that out.
To do so, I'm gonna take your weapons
and deliver some slashes and thrusts on this pig carcass.
Jennifer, you're up first. You ready?
- Yes. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- this pig carcass is huge. It's thick.
My heart is just pounding.
I hope that my flyssa just cuts it right in half.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- all right, jennifer, let's talk about your flyssa here.
This is a long and heavier blade.
It's forward-heavy right here.
But your edges are sharp,
and it allows the forward weight to cut deep
into this pig carcass.
Your point right here is sharp enough to thrust
and cut all the way out.
But more importantly, your weapon...
Will keal.
James, your turn. Are you ready?
- Let's go. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- any time you're slicing into an animal,
you got a chance of hitting a bone.
You hit that bone,
you could roll an edge or snap your blade.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- all right, james, let's talk about your flyssa here.
First up, your handle construction.
It's comfortable, but there is still a lot of play here.
So in order to wield and control it,
I have to use two hands.
But your edges are sharp.
As you can see,
it cut very deep into the pig carcass,
and was easy to cut all the way through.
Overall, sir, your weapon...
It will keal.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths, you know what time it is.
It's time for the strength test.
♪ ♪
the dreaded bull hide shield and skull chop.
I will be taking your flyssas,
and I will be attacking our shield and then the skull.
And this test is not about
what your weapons do to these targets.
It's about what these targets do to your weapons.
All right, jennifer, you're up first.
You ready? - Yes.
- Okay.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
all right, jennifer.
Your handle construction is pretty comfortable.
But as far as your blade goes,
you took no damage whatsoever.
This still has the same edge it started out with.
So good job. - Thank you.
- All right, james, your turn. Ready for this?
- Let's see what we can do. - Okay.
- I had the issue with the cold shut.
It threw me off my game,
and any time you take your blade,
and you smash it against something as hard
as bull skull bone,
you're nervous.
[dramatic music]
[heavy rock music]
♪ ♪
- all right, james.
The weight on this-- pretty well done.
We got a bit of an issue
in that your crocodile head has come loose.
Pin's still there.
But that's now moving.
Your blade has taken some rolling.
You can hear it in my fingernail on it.
But you're still in one piece,
did the job.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths,
this is a sharpness test,
the fabric slice.
To find out how sharp your weapons are,
I'm gonna take your weapon and try to slice
over these two different kinds of fabric.
Jennifer, you're up first. You ready?
- Yes. - Let's do this.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
all right, jennifer, let's talk about your edge here.
On the first cut on the silk,
it cut easily in one shot.
On the second one, it is a thicker fabric.
It did cut,
but not enough to cut all the way through.
But overall, it will cut. - Thank you.
- All right, james, your turn. You ready, sir?
- Yes, let's see what it'll do.
- Let's do this.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
all right, james, let's talk about your weapon here.
It did cut the fabric, but not all the way through.
The one concern I had over here is just a junction here
that broke off.
It's got pieces of steel sticking out,
and that dug into my hand.
But overall though, it still did cut the fabric.
♪ ♪
- well, james, jennifer, you both have a ton to be proud of.
But there can only be one champion
in the second chance tournament.
Today, the "forged in fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
jennifer, congratulations.
James, unfortunately, your blade did not make the cut.
J.'s gonna tell you why.
- James, you obviously put a lot of work into your sword,
and it shows.
But as testing went on, you took damage in the blad,
and your pommel broke loose
enough where, during the sharpness test,
it actually bit doug.
That's why we're letting you go.
- Well, james, you can say you beat out
six of the best smiths we've seen in a long time.
But unfortunately, your time here in the forge has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you
to please step off the forge floor.
- Thank you. Congratulations.
- Thank you. - Thank you, james.
- Even though I don't get the opportunity to walk away
as the champion today, I won my duels,
and that's something for me to be proud of.
There's no shame in coming here and doing the best I can,
and that's what I did.
- Well, jennifer, that means
that you are the newest "forged in fire" champion,
and the winner of the second chance tournament.
Congratulations.
[applause]
- oh, my gosh.
I'm really emotional.
I'm gonna cry the whole way home. [laughs]
- well done.
- This has been quite the journey.
I made it through the duels.
I'm so proud of myself just for getting that far,
and now I'm the "forged in fire" champion!
♪ ♪