[metal clanks]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- I'm mike damaski,
I'm a knife maker from west point, nebraska.
I'm a stay-at-home dad
And I make knives in my free time.
Rooting for me back home is my family.
They mean the world to me.
And they would [bleep]ing love
If I brought this money back to them.
I want to get this [bleep] going right now.
Yeah, for sure.
Am I cussing too much?
[laughing]
♪ ♪
- My name is dillon wood. I'm 22.
I'm from grants, new mexico,
And I have two years of experience as a bladesmith.
Both me and my dad operate out of orion forge.
My dad is definitely excited about me being
On the competition, but I do think he's trying
To use me for advertising at the same time.
♪ ♪
- My name is matthew shairi.
I live in the smoky mountains of north carolina.
And I think I'm ready to win.
I've got a wife and two little boys.
We like to spend a lot of time in the outdoors together.
I think I can be pretty funny sometimes.
I make my kids laugh anyway.
I don't know about other people.
- My name is jim jernigan.
55 years old.
Come from coal valley, illinois.
Been bladesmithing four years now.
I've had my mustache since 1990.
Older than some of my kids.
It had a brief trim in '91
And then full tilt from then on.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
Now this competition will consist of three rounds.
At the end of each round,
There will be a critique and an elimination.
All of this will culminate with one of you
Leaving here with the title of "forged in fire" champion
And a check for $10,000.
But in order to be that smith,
You will have to impress the judges sitting behind me
'cause they're the ones who will choose which
One of you is going home with the win.
All right, so let's get into it.
Today, you'll be making your knives out of this.
[dramatic music]
A crushed car.
♪ ♪
We've done a handful of these car competitions in the past,
But we thought those were too easy.
We found the most mangled-up mess of a car
To make it a little more challenging.
It's a new twist on a classic car competition we do.
In this competition, we want you to make
A signature blade in your signature style
Sourced only from this vehicle.
- This is not gonna be an easy challenge for sure.
Looking at the thing, I can't figure out
How in the world we're gonna get anything out of it.
♪ ♪
- Now that blade needs to measure
Between 12 and 14 inches.
You also have to be set up for a through or a hidden tang
Handle construction when the time runs out.
Now you probably know there is good high-carbon steel
In various positions around the vehicle.
But after having been crushed,
It might not be exactly where you think it is.
So just to make things a little fair,
We asked the technician to throw
Great high-carbon steel springs
Inside the cabin before they crushed it.
So you can choose to go for where you think there's
Good high-carbon steel or you can use the tools
That we've provided,
Break into the cab of the vehicle,
And get those springs.
Moving on into the second round of this competition,
You will add handles to your signature blades,
Turning them into fully functioning weapons.
At which point you will turn your blades over to our judges
Who will check for strength and durability
In a car hood stab and chop.
Then they'll check whatever edge you have left
In an antifreeze bottle slice.
You have three hours on the clock for this first round.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
[fast-paced rock music]
This is a salvage like nothing we've done before.
- I just need to find something to use.
- Right now, it's like a treasure hunt
Trying to find good metal.
- Where on the vehicle would you be looking?
- There's some springs on the front,
Tie bars on the steering bars, anti-sway bars.
- There's a lot of usable material in there,
But I don't see any way to get to those pieces.
I'm hoping to find something on the edge
That doesn't require going very deep into the wreckage.
There we go.
- Matthew's got that rear-- I think it's the anti-sway bar.
You've got plenty of steel to work with there.
- All I have to do is take it to the chop saw
And clean it up and it'll be good to go.
- You can tell that piece of steel that matthew's got
Is tough because it's taking forever to chop through it.
- It is. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
- I immediately spot something shiny
And looking further into it,
It's a leaf spring.
- Thanks, dude.
So I grab it and hand it to my competitor,
Thinking nothing of it.
I mean, it's gonna be easy to find metal, right?
- Looks like dillon just handed a nice pristine bar to mike.
- I'm flabbergasted.
The camaraderie, man.
I can't believe dillon gave me that steel.
That was awesome.
You want some more help?
So I stick around to help him out a little bit,
But I feel like I'm kind of getting in the way
So I figured I might as well,
You know, mosey on over to my spot.
- Mike's the first one in the fire.
He got the advantage of time right now.
- Whoo!
♪ ♪
- They said they threw a lot of metal in here but...
Oh, gosh.
I'm searching left and right for some usable metal.
That don't work.
I cannot find anything in this car right now.
I ain't finding [bleep].
I am really regretting giving that piece of metal to mike.
He better make a dang good blade out of it.
Well, guess I know what I'm doing.
♪ ♪
This is taking too long, so I grabbed the sledgehammer
And I go to town on this car.
- There we go.
- Dillon is going to be exhausted
Before he even gets to the forge.
- Really?
- Killing time, killing time.
- Jim looks like he's going for a coil.
That'd be great, chop up a few pieces of that
And throw it in the can.
- Game plan is harvest as much
Of this coil spring as possible.
Throw it in a can, get it to forge-welding temperature,
And try to get a homogenous piece of steel.
- Jim's got his canister out.
- I think that's a great idea.
- At this point,
I feel a little bit of time crunch
Because there's smiths hammering a blade
And I've got a can.
[rock music]
- Got to be rough for the smiths
That aren't yet in the forge
Hearing mike hammering away already.
- I'm deciding to go with a drop point camp knife.
A drop point has a real fine tip.
It'd be good for stabbing.
- With the rate mike's going, he's gonna be done
In about another 40 minutes.
- If he were on big blu, he'd be done already.
- Yeah.
- I am real happy with where I'm at right now.
I think it's [bleep]ing awesome.
♪ ♪
- [bleep] damn it.
- Matthew's still over there at the chop saw
Trying to get through that piece of rod.
- He's gonna be there for quite a while.
- I'm worried about the time I'm spending on the chop saw.
♪ ♪
I finally get through it.
So I get the piece in the fire and take a breath.
While it's heating up,
I set out two little ninja warriors on my table
That my son's intent with me to kind of
Bring me some good luck.
It's really nice just having that little reminder
Of my boys there to keep my spirits up.
- When my son was little, he'd just say,
"don't embarrass us, dad."
[laughing]
- Bladesmiths, you have two hours remaining.
[banging]
- This is exhausting.
I've been swinging this sledgehammer for a while now.
Oh!
But I am persistent.
- Giving away that piece of metal that he got earlier
Is costing him a lot of time and effort.
- I'm searching left and right.
And I see a hole about this big
Right next to the passenger seat.
Dillon's digging really deep. I think he found something.
- Hopefully, it's a big piece.
Yes! - Yeah, attaboy!
- Ta-da. - There you go.
- Dillon has found a really, really good piece
Of spring steel.
More than enough to make a blade.
- I still got two hours. That's plenty of time.
♪ ♪
- Fireworks.
- We got a lot of sparks coming from jim's forge.
- Yeah, jim-- I don't know
If he's sealed up that can right or not.
- Now that my can is welded up.
Hot steel!
I take it to the press.
I see seams open up.
Ugly can, ugly!
And I just know there is absolutely
No salvageable steel in this can.
- Once you start having that canister start cracking
On the edges and stuff, it's really hard to fix.
- He had decided to throw it away and completely start over.
He's back at the mess.
- At this point, panic is setting in.
Damn it, I can't see!
I see failure in the distance,
And I will not fail.
This is not going swimmingly.
[rock music]
- I'm ready to do the shaping of the blade.
I'm looking to make a knife
That's kind of a classic bowie knife
With a good sharp point
So it can stab through that car hood.
- I really liked matthew's profile.
Real sweet clip point bowie.
- Good design for these tests.
- I need to make a knife
That is gonna be strong and thick
And hold up to the abuse that the judges put it through.
So I'm making sure that I work it plenty hot
And keeping it in the fire as I go.
♪ ♪
- Dillon's went from struggle to success.
He's at big blu, and it looks like he's got
A massive canvas of high-carbon steel.
He can basically turn it into anything he wants.
- Since there's no parameters on blade style,
I decided I'ma go with my signature,
Which is a chef's knife.
I think it'll cut well and stab well for this challenge.
It ain't the most accurate blade but it works.
♪ ♪
- What the heck is dillon doing with the start of that tang?
- Whoa.
- Looks like he tried to squeeze in the shoulder
Of his tang and went a little too far.
- It's not in a good alignment for thrusting,
Definitely, because it's above the blade.
- Yikes!
I look at my tang and big blu
Has squished it just a little too much,
But it's not a deal breaker.
I'm really feeling the clock right now,
But I just go with it at this point.
Let's just hope problems like this don't keep happening.
We're good.
- Whoo!
Forging's going pretty good.
I'm gonna start on the guard.
It is not necessary right now to make a guard,
But a guard helps so your hand doesn't slip when stabbing.
♪ ♪
My plan with the guard is to do a hot fit up.
♪ ♪
- Mike's thinking ahead.
He's putting a guard on this blade.
- If we call for a through or hidden tang, chances are,
You're gonna need to put some kind of guard on there.
- I'm having trouble getting it to fit correctly.
I don't wanna spend too much time on this.
And it's a little frustrating, to be honest.
It's as good as it's gonna get right now.
I can always fit that a little bit better later on.
♪ ♪
- All I hear is the clock ticking.
- You have 60 minutes left!
♪ ♪
- And I can't find hardenable steel.
And all of a sudden, I see something shiny.
- Oh, what do you got? - Oh, ah, wait, wait, wait.
- Well, I made 10 cents on the deal.
[laughing]
- This might actually be one of my cars.
- Hell, yeah, I'm keeping that dime.
That's mine!
[groaning]
- I thought he had a "eureka" moment.
- I can't find steel.
There ain't [bleep] in here. - Ah.
- He's starting to get frustrated.
It's painful to watch.
- I'm going home.
I'm looking at jim hacking away at this car
And I don't want to see jim out on the first round
Because he didn't have a piece of steel to work with.
So I went to help him out a little bit.
Hey, jim.
It's not enough to get a knife out of, I don't think,
But there's that left over from my piece you're welcome to.
- Yeah, have at it, man.
- This is what I love seeing
About the bladesmithing community.
Matthew's sitting here watching jim struggling
To find steel and he had some excess so he offered it to jim.
- He went above and beyond to kick that steel my way.
♪ ♪
There's possibly not enough steel,
So I'm gonna try san mai.
I'm behind the clock.
I have to get something done.
♪ ♪
- I need to prioritize getting this knife hard.
♪ ♪
- Mike has quenched, the first one in the oil.
- No marks?
- I mean, not enough to care about.
Whoo!
I will take that.
♪ ♪
- Dillon already heated up his oil
So he's getting pretty close to a quench as well.
- If something does go wrong,
I will not have time to start over,
So this needs to go right.
Here goes nothing.
♪ ♪
I think we're good.
I cannot believe it.
It looks straight to me.
I am proud that I actually produced a knife.
From the amount of struggle that I had at the beginning
Of this round, I did not think I would do it.
- Bladesmiths, you have 30 minutes remaining.
♪ ♪
All right, matthew's in the oil, guys.
- I don't see any cracks or anything.
It's straight as an arrow and hard as a rock.
I'm feeling really good.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- Get in there, get hot!
At this point, I know I have a workable san mai.
[laughs]
- For jim having to restart,
He's making very, very good speed.
- He's doing great.
- She ain't no prom queen!
I decide I better quench now.
♪ ♪
- Jim is in the oil.
- Wow. - Nice.
♪ ♪
- We're good.
I start grinding.
[bleep] me.
That's when I noticed dark seams,
And I knew I'm in trouble.
- I can see some kind of a delamination.
- It's not great, but I know
If I can get these delams cleaned up or erased,
I'll be good.
I have to turn something in.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, turn off your machines.
Put down your tools. This first round is over.
[tense music]
- It's not ideal, but at the end of this round,
I produced the best knife I could produce
In the allotted time with the steel
I had a hard time harvesting. [chuckles]
♪ ♪
- Well, bladesmiths, the time has come
For the judges to do their first critique on your blades
And decide which three of you will be joining us
In the second round
And who's gonna be heading home.
And, mike, you are up first, sir.
Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, so, mike, I like the profile of your blade.
This was a really good idea in the first round,
Taking that time to make that guard,
But getting that fit up dialed in
And get this all refined
Is going to be interesting to watch if you move forward.
But all in all, nicely done. - Thank you.
- All right, dillon, you're up next.
You ready? - Yes, sir.
- Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, dillon,
Your blade profile is nice and wide.
I like the curve there. Nice for slashing.
But what gives me pause is this tang
Because it rides right in line with the spine for thrusting.
It may not be as comfortable when it's above the handle.
But overall, I commend you on your perseverance
Of looking for the metal, not giving up,
And presenting us with a blade.
Good job.
- Matthew, you ready? - Yes, sir.
- Please present your work, bud.
♪ ♪
- Nice work, matthew. - Thank you.
- I mean, everything's straight in a line.
I'd like to see it a little slimmer.
Bring your grinds up, maybe, to lighten things up.
But otherwise, this is a beautiful piece of steel.
You did a very good job. - Thank you.
- Last but not least, jim. Please present your work, bud.
♪ ♪
- Well, first off, jim, your moustache
Is what mine wants to be when it grows up.
[laughs] - thank you, sir.
- I don't know that it was necessary to do this san mai.
It looks like to me like there was enough steel here.
But, it's like 80, 90% there.
But you've got some delams.
But I do commend you.
That looked like a very frustrating start for you,
But you found a way around it.
Good on you. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- Well, bladesmiths, you all know only three of you will
Be joining us in the second round of this competition.
The bladesmith that's gonna be leaving the forge is...
[dramatic music]
Jim.
You fought hard, but unfortunately,
Your blade did not make the cut.
- Jim, I have to commend you, because that is
A san mai blade that you turned in.
But your blade has the most flaws
In terms of delaminations,
And for that reason, we're sending you home.
- Thank you, sir.
- Well, jim, thank you for coming out and trying so hard.
But unfortunately, your time in this competition has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your work
And step off the forge floor.
♪ ♪
- It's a little bittersweet moment.
Thank you.
I would have loved to move forward.
But you know what?
Maybe not $10,000.
I got a dime.
♪ ♪
- Gentlemen, congratulations, you're joining us
In the second round of this competition.
In this round, you'll be adding handles
To your blades, turning them into fully functioning weapons,
As well as fixing any issues that the judges brought forth.
You must also add a functional guard to your blades.
And the materials for that must be sourced again
From the crushed vehicle.
At the end of this round,
You'll hand your blades over to the judges
And they will check for strength and durability
In a car hood stab and chop
And then check your edge retention
In an antifreeze bottle slice.
Gentlemen, you have two hours on the clock,
And good luck, because that time starts now.
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪
Mike must have a crystal ball,
Because that planning ahead in the first round
Has set him up for a lot of success here in round two.
- I'm pretty stoked that I just randomly made a guard
In the first round.
It's really gonna help me with my time in this round here.
But I need to shape the guard up so it looks
A little bit nicer than it does right now.
- I'm personally not crazy about mike's guard.
The fact that it's curving up
Into the blade as opposed to back,
Your hand could still slip up onto the blade.
- It's going real well, but it's just taking some time.
♪ ♪
- There's major issues I gotta address
That the judges gave me for my blade.
An issue that they had was with my tang,
It was in line with my spine.
It's typical for a chef's knife,
But if you're going to be thrusting into something
It's not ideal.
I definitely need to lower that.
- Can he just cut down shoulders
And just bring it down just a tad?
- Regardless of what he does, he's still gonna have a handle
Material that sticks high above that handle,
Just 'cause that tang's about the thickness you'd want
That tang to be... - Yeah, exactly.
- But down a quarter inch. - That'll work.
This tang is not as low as I would like
But it's good enough for now.
So I'm going to move on to the guard
Because that's my biggest worry at this point.
What do I want to use?
- Fabricating the guard
Is the biggest challenge of the round.
So I want to get that done before I do anything else.
- Well, matthew's right in here, grinding away, taking off
A chunk of mild steel right off the front frame of the vehicle.
- I would go with something much thicker.
- I just want to get in there.
- The material is pretty thin,
But it meets parameters and I need to get moving.
- The thing about having guards that are
With thin materials is that if they don't round out
Those corners, those guards can cut you.
- Bladesmiths, you have 90 minutes left
To finish your blades.
- I want to get in as quick as possible.
This car has given me nothing but issues.
Oh, gosh. That don't work.
I see a piece of the frame sticking out
And I figure that's easy.
I'm cutting out just a square piece for my guard.
- Dillon's cutting on the back bumper.
He's gonna end up with a solid, probably,
Quarter inch piece of steel.
- Good choice.
- This piece of metal will not come off of this car.
Oh, I hate this.
- That's not good.
- Getting this piece of metal should have been
A 30-second ordeal,
But now it's really consuming my time.
I am definitely starting to panic.
What the hell?
- That's not good.
- Getting this piece of metal,
It's really consuming my time.
- There we go, dillon finally got that piece of bumper off.
- I'm feeling relieved
But I've already wasted enough time
And I need it on my knife right now.
[tense music]
- I'm gonna try to fit my handle.
I need to get a hole all the way through this block.
Holy crap.
This drill press is giving me fits.
- Some of this handle material will gum up and heat up
And kind of glue itself to the drill bit.
So what you want to do is work it a little bit,
Make sure your drill bit's clean
And work the material again,
Make sure your drill bit's clean.
♪ ♪
- Drill press, can we get this [bleep] done, please?
I don't know.
- He's been there 20 minutes going in and out
And it's not moving.
- I need this handle on this knife.
Whoo!
This is a huge weight off my shoulder
Getting this handle fit up to the tang here.
But I'm definitely feeling the time
Burn up from the clock.
[rock music]
- I've got my guard shaped up and fit.
Now it's time to hot fit the tang to the handle.
- The best time to do a burn through
Is on your own time at home.
Not here. - [laughs]
- [bleep].
It's not going smoothly.
I'm worried that as I'm doing this, I'm going to split
My handle material and have to start over.
I know that I don't have enough time
To do another handle at this point.
- Ah. Golly. Come on, matthew.
- Matthew, hit it harder.
- No, don't hit it harder.
- You're taking the fun out of it, dave.
- Finally, it bottoms out and fits.
It's a huge relief that the handle's on
And I'm that much closer to glue up.
- Bladesmiths, you are down to the final 30 minutes.
- I have to add a pommel to this knife
So the handle doesn't fly off the back.
- That butt cap and guard are compression.
So that's holding your handle together.
- I'm grabbing some penstock that I can put
Over the tang and hopefully weld all three together.
It's not moving anywhere. I feel pretty good about it.
♪ ♪
- At this point, all I have to do is sharpen my blade.
In round one,
J wanted me to make my edge geometry a little finer
And take a little bit of weight off the blade.
- The car hood stab and slice,
One of these tests that really
Tests the edge geometry of your blade.
So this is where we talk about that appleseed edge
Being the ideal edge 'cause it's very supportive.
- I'm testing and feeling it with my fingers
And I'm liking what I see.
[rock music]
- I'm really low on time. I got to get this handle on.
I put my blade in and there's a gap.
That doesn't work.
I need to get this fixed right now.
- Probably go to the grinder and take four little corners
Off the end of that tang
And probably it'd slide right in and fit perfectly.
- And I think maybe I can fill it.
So I grab a piece of d10 and I make a spacer.
- Can adding a wedge introduce undue stress?
- It could bust loose, which will allow
That handle to start moving a bit.
- I roughly shape out my handle and I put the best edge
That I possibly can with this time remaining.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, second round of this competition is over.
- This handle might be the roughest and fastest handle
I've ever made, but it'll work.
I can't believe I even finished that handle.
[tense music]
- All right, bladesmiths. This is our strength test.
The car hood stab and chop.
Mike, you're up first, you ready to go?
- Let's do it. - All right, cool.
♪ ♪
- This test is crazy because, I mean,
You're stabbing through metal.
My heart's just beating.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
Mike, you survived.
I'm not a huge fan of the guard facing the direction it is.
I would rather it was the other way around
Because if you're not paying attention,
You could still actually slip up on this blade.
But everything held together.
Good job. - Thanks, j.
- How you feeling, dillon? - Little nervous.
- It's all right. We'll get through it together.
- Yep.
♪ ♪
That car hood is sturdy and j. Does not take it easy
And I am definitely starting to feel the nerves.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
[banging]
♪ ♪
- All right, dillon, you survived.
A little bit of dulling but it held up just fine.
You got some gapping at the base of the blade here
And in your handle setup, but it didn't come apart.
Good job. - Thank you.
- How you feeling, matthew? - Great.
- Let's do it then. [laughter]
♪ ♪
- Seeing the other two knives tested I realized
What a brutal test it is to these knives.
I know j. Is just gonna beat the heck out of my knife
And really put it through the wringer.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
[banging]
♪ ♪
- Matthew, you survived. Your edge held up fine.
Just a little bit of glinting.
But this guard is extremely thin.
Even with a glove on when I was stabbing,
I could feel the edges of that guard.
A little more mass, a little more contouring
Would have helped, but otherwise you survived.
Good job. - Thank you.
Doug.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths. This is the sharpness test.
The antifreeze bottle slice.
♪ ♪
Mike, you're up first. You ready?
- Yep, let's do it. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
All right, mike, let's talk about your weapon here.
Your edge, it cut very cleanly
Through these antifreeze bottles,
And at the same time,
It punctures and slices well.
Overall, sir, your weapon...
It will cut. - All right.
- All right, dillon, your turn, sir.
You ready? - Ready as I'll ever be.
- All right, let's do this.
- After watching mike's blade cut
Real cleanly through those bottles,
I'm definitely starting to feel the pressure.
I definitely ran out of time sharpening the blade,
So if my blade doesn't cut as well as theirs,
I'm thinking I'm going home.
♪ ♪
- All right, dillon, let's talk about your weapon here.
I really appreciate the adjustment you made
To bring your handle almost in line with the spine.
That allowed me to have a very deep thrust in here.
Little curve there with a swing of that,
But the edge, it's sharp.
Overall, for this test,
It will cut. - Thank you.
- Matthew, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
All right, matthew, let's talk about your blade here.
It's nicely balanced.
Your edge is sharp.
Those are clean cuts all the way through.
Overall, sir, your weapon,
It will cut. - Thank you.
♪ ♪
- Now bladesmiths, we gave you a difficult challenge,
And all of you stepped up to the plate
And brought forward high functioning
Strong and sharp blades.
But as you know, only two of you can join us
In the final round of this competition
And our judges have made a final decision.
The bladesmith leaving the forge is...
[dramatic music]
Dillon.
Unfortunately, your blade just didn't make the cut, man.
And j.'s gonna tell you why.
- Dillon, you should be very proud of your performance,
But you've got excessive gapping at the face
Of the blade and on the handle.
That's why we're letting you go.
- Makes sense.
- Dillon, you're a talented smith,
But unfortunately, you're not going to be
Moving forward in the competition.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please
Step off the forge floor.
- Thanks for having me, guys. - Good job, dillon.
- I had a lot of fun.
I'm definitely proud of what I produced here.
I definitely don't regret passing the steel to mike.
I still made a blade, so I can't complain.
♪ ♪
- Well, mike, matthew, gentlemen, congratulations.
You're going into the third and final round
Where you'll be battling it out from your home forges
Fighting for that title of "forged in fire" champion
And a check for $10,000.
Now, guys, in this final round,
You will be building an iconic weapon from history.
And that weapon is this.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
A matched set of curved katars.
♪ ♪
- While the katar was immensely popular in india
During the 16th and 17th century,
This curved version is extremely rare and has been
Hailed as one of the most unique weapons in history.
The ornate handle construction features
Two bars for the grip
And provides the user enough control
To make a very effective fighting knife.
As a pair, the curved katars were designed
To deliver quick and lethal stabs
And slashes using both arms.
Today, this one-of-a-kind weapon can be seen on display
At the metropolitan museum of art in new york.
- Bladesmiths, you've got two curved blades on here
That need to measure between 11 and 12 inches.
On both those blades, you need to have two fullers
On both sides.
Now down to the handle. You've got two sidebars.
You need to have cross bars
Which will be used as your grip.
- Yo, what is that?
[laughs]
Kind of looks like something a pirate
Would have under his sleeve.
It'll be interesting.
- All right, gentlemen, you have four days
At your home forges to build these blades.
Do your very best work. We will see you in four days.
♪ ♪
[upbeat rock music]
- I'm back home here in sylva, north carolina.
And I'm super excited to get started on these curved katars.
♪ ♪
Today, I'm going to try to get the blades forged
And possibly the cross bars.
My biggest concern is creating fullers in the blade.
I'll put the piece of steel in between
Those two dyes and forge the fuller.
This is the part I was most nervous about,
So I'm going to take it nice and slow.
[clanking]
♪ ♪
Finally, got my fullers roughed in.
Day one has come to a close and I feel like
I've accomplished everything I set out to do.
And I'm looking forward to tearing into it tomorrow.
♪ ♪
- We're at the home forge in west point, nebraska.
I'm liking the shape. Looking good so far.
I'm hoping to forge it predominantly out of
Homogenous steel one piece construction.
So gonna be a lot of forging.
I'm thinking this one steel construction,
You know, might put me over the top.
♪ ♪
I'm stoked about how it's looking right now.
I got some good progress going on both blades
And a couple of the brackets on one of the blades.
So you know, I'm feeling good.
That's working.
♪ ♪
- My priority for day two is getting
A lot of the fabrication for my handles done.
These are the cross bars for the handle.
Challenges are going to be getting these handles
Just right.
So I've just done what's called a reverse twist there.
I've got the frames fabricated for my blades
And the cross bars and it's time to start assembling them.
I'm not liking how far apart my handle cross bars are.
It's a little uncomfortable.
So what I'm going to do is make the u-frames over.
♪ ♪
My handle in round two wasn't quite perfect
And I want to make sure that doesn't happen
In the final round.
It was a little frustrating to have
To go back to the drawing board and start over with those,
But I'm going to keep moving forward
And make it happen anyway.
All right, I think that one's good.
♪ ♪
- It's the morning of day three,
And I'm feeling good about this.
Today, I got to get those brackets done.
I need it to be comfortable in their hands.
That means that it's better to go wider.
So I want to make sure that they're not
Digging into their arms.
They're looking good.
♪ ♪
I'm having a little bit of an issue getting these
Two sides of the brackets lined up perfectly.
Looks like [bleep].
♪ ♪
[metal snaps] oh!
[bleep].
♪ ♪
This is a big deal because it's one piece construction.
I might have to forge a new blade from scratch.
I'm [bleep] right now.
I think before I start making another one,
I might try to forge weld that back on there.
♪ ♪
If I get this back on there, it'd be a miracle.
♪ ♪
Oh, [bleep].
All right, I'm calling it for today.
I'm done.
I'm trying to stay positive, but I don't--
I don't see myself making two at this point.
Today was pretty much a loss.
I gotta figure this out tomorrow for sure.
[upbeat rock music]
- It's day four.
Yesterday, I got most of the fabrication
Done for my handles.
Got the handles attached to the blades
And ready for heat treat.
There's always a moment of truth.
I'm a little nervous going into it.
♪ ♪
Yeah, that one looks good.
Getting number two, and we're good to go.
♪ ♪
Good work.
I feel ecstatic about my progress.
I'm really pleased with the way they're looking.
- So I got this broken blade.
I'ma need to try to salvage this.
I'm going to try to weld the bracket back together.
If this weld does not work,
I'm probably not going to be able
To have a second blade to turn in.
Here I go.
♪ ♪
Let's see if it holds.
I'm going to throw it a few times
And see what happens.
If it's going to fail, I want it to fail here
In my hands, not when the judges are using it.
♪ ♪
I mean, I feel good about that.
[upbeat rock music]
Let's get these handles on here.
♪ ♪
So at the end of day four,
Finally got these finished and sharpened.
I am super stoked right now.
Whoo!
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, it's good to have you back in the forge.
So you just came back from four days at your home forges,
Building a matched set of curved katars.
But before we get into testing your blades,
We want to hear about them.
So mike, how'd it go for you? - It went crazy.
♪ ♪
I went with 80crv2 for the blades and the bracket
And then some mild steel for the handles.
- Matthew, how about you?
- I forged the blades from 5160.
For the handles, incorporated a lot of forge texture.
And a reverse twist on the cross bars,
And mortise and tenon joinery to hold it all together.
- Well, bladesmiths, both your sets of blades
Look strong, sharp, and deadly.
Now we have to find out which one of you
Is leaving here with the win today.
Bladesmiths, we're going to put your blades
Through a couple rigorous tests.
And up first, the dynamic keal tests with doug.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths,
Welcome to the dynamic keal test.
♪ ♪
Mike, you're up first, you ready?
- I'm ready. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- The only thing I'm really worried about
Is that those welds pop.
So we're gonna have to see what goes on.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[dummy squelching]
♪ ♪
- All right, mike, let's talk about your curved katars here.
For a matched set, not bad.
They're almost identical in the feel of your weapon.
Your edges are sharp.
And overall, sir...
It will keal.
- That's great to hear.
- Matthew, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Yes, sir. - Let's have fun.
- I'm a little nervous.
I feel like I've made two solid blades,
But I know they beat the heck out of these knives.
So when it comes down to it, anything could happen.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[squelching]
♪ ♪
- All right, matthew, let's talk about
Your curved katars here.
First up, I like the scale of your blades
Because katars are the-- well, the big daddies
Of push daggers and push daggers are relatively small,
So there's a scale that goes with it to make it easier
To control and I think you've got that with your blades.
That gives also a nice support when I'm stabbing and slashing.
Overall, sir, your curved katars...
It will keal.
- Thank you.
[tense music]
- All right, gentlemen, welcome to our dynamic strength test--
The kendo stick chop and ballistic tube slice.
♪ ♪
Mike, you're up first, you ready?
- Yep, let's do it. - Okay.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
[clacking]
♪ ♪
[clattering]
♪ ♪
- All right, mike, right off,
It's an interesting way to build these.
It's a non-traditional way.
But the issue I have is that there's so much space
Around my hands that they kind of
Are trying to find what's comfortable.
The other thing that I noticed is your blade
Is really no longer in line with the handle.
But, good cutters, they held up.
Nicely done.
- Thanks, dave.
- Matthew, you ready?
- Let's do it. - Okay.
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[clacking]
♪ ♪
So, matthew, right off, good traditional look to these.
I like that a lot.
They cut like they're supposed to cut.
They're plenty strong.
They held their edge beautifully.
Good job. - Thank you.
[tense music]
- Bladesmiths, there is nothing easy
About fighting in this forge.
And the two of you proved yourself in the final round
With some unique blades.
Now unfortunately, only one of you
Go home today with the win.
Today's "forged in fire" champion is...
[dramatic music]
Matthew, congratulations, man.
Mike, you fought hard. You're a talented 'smith.
But unfortunately, you're not taking home the win today.
And dave's gonna tell you why.
- Mike, I commend you on the work
You put into those blades.
Going with that non-traditional shape
And the scale of that handle made them difficult to wield,
And it started to take some damage.
Those things combined, that's why we're sending you home.
- Thanks for the opportunity, guys.
- Well, mike, unfortunately,
Your time in this competition has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step off
The forge floor.
- Thank you, sir. - Good fight, mike.
- Pretty bummed right now.
A lot of highs and a lot of lows,
And here we are.
I knew I had some stiff competition this whole time.
Matthew is a great smith.
He's been doing it for a long time.
Congrats, matthew-- couldn't go to a better person.
Good job, dude.
- Matthew, that makes you today's
"forged in fire" champion.
You just got yourself a check for $10,000.
Congratulations. How you feeling?
- Fantastic.
I feel elated.
Been a hard challenge from the first round to the last.
- [grunts]
- I'm just on cloud nine right now.
♪ ♪