[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- My name is mark smith. I'm from china spring, texas.
I'm a design engineer
For a local bank equipment manufacturer.
Season three of "forged in fire,"
I started watching it.
But about that time, I weighed close to 400 pounds.
"forged in fire" was a driver to get more healthy.
I lost about 150 pounds from bladesmithing,
And life is good.
♪ ♪
- My name is andrew slaughter.
I'm 34 years old, and I'm from fort worth, texas.
I'd describe myself as goofy, love to have fun,
Weird, I guess, because I spend most of my time in my garage
Playing with knives and fire.
[laughs]
- Ira houseweart
From the western slope of colorado.
I've been a blacksmith now for over 20 years.
When I was eight years old, I developed a bone tumor.
And it grew real fast and then stopped.
It doesn't affect me. My eyes work really well.
But that's not really what I'm here to talk about.
I'm here to show you what I can do
With a piece of hot steel.
♪ ♪
- I'm brenden bohannon,
And I'm from johnson city, tennessee.
I constantly struggle with my hair.
I was burning in a hidden tang,
I turned my head, and there went sparks.
So I went and stuck my head in the quench bucket
And called my wife, and I'm like,
"so I kind of burned off half my hair."
I would like to say she was surprised,
But I don't think anything about me surprises her
At this point.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
Now, the four of you have been chosen to take pat
In a very intense bladesmithing competition
Where you will put all of your skills to the ultimate test.
There are three rounds.
At the end of each one,
You'll be asked to present your work
To the esteemed judges sitting behind me.
Because they're the ones who are gonna be ultimately
Deciding which one of you is leaving here
With the title of "forged in fire" champion
And getting a check for $10,000.
♪ ♪
Now let's get into it.
Over the years, we've had bladesmiths
Making knives out of all sorts of materials,
Just about anything, but I think it's safe to say
That we've never had smiths use what's under this tarp.
So without further ado,
Let's find out what you're making your knives with.
♪ ♪
Gentlemen, this is sheet metal.
We've got pieces that are 1/16 of an inch thick,
2 feet wide by 4 feet tall.
They're made out of 1095 steel,
And this is all you have to make your knives.
- All I can think is "oh, no."
It's thin. It does not adhere well.
It flexes easily.
That's not a good party.
- Now, you could use any technique
You want to make any blade that you want.
Just make sure that the knives fall within these parameter.
By the end of round one, your blades need to measure
Between 12 and 14 inches.
They need to be set up
For a through tang handle construction.
Moving on to round two,
You'll add handles to those blades,
Turning them into fully-functioning weapons.
When that round is complete,
You'll hand them over to the judges,
And they will check for strength and durabiliy
In a three-layer sheet metal stab and chop,
And then check your edge retention,
In a leather stab and slice.
Now, guys, you have three hours to complete
This first round of competition.
So good luck, stay sharp. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
All right, sheet metal, gentlemen,
Gonna be a good one.
- These sheets are so thin,
They tend to smear off each other, right?
- Well, they tend to warp away from one another
Because the thin material on the outside heats up
A lot quicker than the material in the inside.
- And you're running a risk
Of forge scale getting inside, right?
- Exactly.
- As I look at the sheet metal thinking, okay,
I've worked 1095 before.
We'll stack it together,
Weld it solid, and pound it into something.
I'm a full-time blacksmith, so I do a lot of hot metal.
So I'm feeling pretty comfortable right now.
- Ira's already got about 14 pieces,
And he's already at the grinder cleaning 'em up.
- For as long as "forged in fire" has been
On the air, I've had people telling me,
"you should be on this show."
And I've got two teenage daughters
That I think it'd be fun to be like,
"yeah, I'm on tv," you know?
So here I am.
♪ ♪
- The layered forge weld
Is gonna the fastest way to get it done,
But there's a real risk of the layers being so thin
That those aren't gonna stick very well.
- Mark got everything cleaned up.
Now he's back at the welder, gonna stack them.
- The biggest problem is the initial heat up
And having those thin pieces of metal,
You know, start spreading apart.
Because they're gonna heat at different rates.
♪ ♪
- I typically forge from 1/4 inch stock,
And 12 to 14 inches is a lot
Of steel to stretch out of 1/16 inch stock.
So I'm choosing to use a san mai construction.
- Brenden went back to the mild steel bin.
I think he's going for san mai.
- You could by stacking a bunch of thin pieces
And putting a good 1/4 inch piece on the outside.
That way those edge pieces
Aren't going to lift away from one another.
- Mitigating the risk of getting a forge scale
On the inside.
- I don't measure anything.
I'm doing whatever I can to get it cut up
As quickly as possible.
- Those edges that are uneven
Wind up pushing into one another
And creating cold shuts
All along the outside of your billet.
- Screw it, it's welded.
- The problem with sheet metal is, is that it's thin.
I mean, sheet metal.
I gotta figure out a way to have something thick enough
To turn into a blade.
My options are I could cut it up and stack it
And forge weld the layers together,
Or I could do a canister.
- Andrew is the only one
Who grabbed a canister and white out.
- So he's forcing himself to peel the can now.
- I'm choosing to do canister damascus
Because I think it'll be easier for me
To accomplish successfully.
I'm nervous, but I think I can get it done.
- It seems that going the canister route
Might be as advantageous because andrew doesn't hae
To worry about how precise his cuts are.
You just chop it up and chuck it in.
- But using that white out,
The amount it takes to have to peel the can,
The energy and everything can set him back.
- I wish he didn't put the white out in at all.
It's not necessary.
- It is not going quick.
I don't know if I made the right choice,
But we'll find out.
- Bladesmiths, you have 2 hours and 30 minutes remaining.
- I think it's time to take it to the press.
I don't have a press at home, super fun tool.
Weld it solid,
Put it back in the forge, do it again.
- Ira is playing it smart on the press.
He's squeezing it lightly.
He's not putting a ton of pressure.
He's just trying to get those welds set up.
- He's using his idle time wisely,
Coming back to his workstation and drawing out exactly
What he wants to get to as the end product.
- I know it has to puncture sheet metal.
You need a pretty a good sharp point.
I didn't want just a straight blade.
I mean, I'm an artist as a profession.
So I want my blade to be a piece of art.
♪ ♪
- When you're trying to set the welds
On a layered forge weld, you don't wanna press too hard
Because it'll deform the sheets and cause gaps.
So I just have to kiss it a little bit
To press the plates together.
It's very thin material, and it's gonna be really eay
To bend those or misshape them.
If there's any dark spaces,
It's probably not sticking real good.
[groans]
- Mark got really aggressive on a downward press,
And he popped the weld at the very front of that billet.
You can see he's still fighting that end.
See how it's black at the end there?
♪ ♪
- Looking at andrew, he's drawn out that canister.
Isn't he supposed to peel that?
- Yeah, he may have manipulated the metal to the point
Where he's rubbed all the white out into a problem.
- See if I can get that son of a bitch off of here.
Now I've got the angle grinder,
And I'm cutting off the billet, and it's not working.
- Andrew trying to peel his can now,
And it looks like a mangled mess.
- I'm trying to pry it off,
And I'm not getting anywhere with this chisel.
I know this is taking a long time.
They're looking at me right now going,
"what is this guy doing?"
- So now he's gotten himself in a situation where
He's got a drawn-out piece of steel,
But now he's gotta take a lot of time
To try and peel this off, and it's not a good thing.
♪ ♪
- Brenden's gotta turn on the gas, man.
He's falling pretty far behind you.
♪ ♪
- I'd say my welds are looking good.
I think it's starting to stick, but I'm seeing the error
Of my ways in not trimming before I heated it up.
- So because brenden didn't have even pieces
Cut up initially,
Right now he's got an uneven billet.
- Uneven pieces could cause delaminations.
They could cause the welds to fail.
They could let oxygen in.
But I've wasted so much time, I'm just gonna run with it.
♪ ♪
- It's starting to feel pretty good.
Like, I know I've got a pretty dang good-looking blade.
They asked for a through tan,
So I know I'm gonna need some sort of pommel.
I'm thinking, I gotta do something.
So I've chopped off some of my excess material.
Take that piece, make a pommel.
But I didn't see a little 1/2 inch square drift.
So I go grab some of my excess,
And I quick pound out a little drift.
- That's the kind of thinking that I really like to see.
- Blacksmiths have always done this.
You can't just go and buy a blacksmith tool
Down at the hardware store.
So you have to be able to make these specialty tools.
Hopefully, this is gonna work.
♪ ♪
- The material is only about 5/16 thick.
That's really hard to press.
And it starts folding.
The end takes it a little worse.
- Look at mark's billet.
It looks like it opened up on the tip again.
- And that's the part that's already delaminated.
- What I decide at that point is I'm going to put the poit
Where the work stick is,
And I'm gonna make the tang on the tail.
- Smart, flip it around, make that your tang.
Especially if it's gonna be a through tang,
You'll never even see it.
- That's a really, really solid save move right there.
- It looks like this is gonna work.
Let's go forward.
- Bladesmiths, you have one hour remaining.
- Looks like andrew's trying to peel his can again.
- Say it isn't so.
- I wanted to make sure that I don't have any
Of this mild steel on my blade edge whatsoever.
Nothing's working.
I'm not sure if I'll have enough time
To restart a blade at this point.
- Would you guys say
He's beyond the point of no return for peeling it?
- Yeah, I mean, it would be miraculous
If that can actually comes off.
- [bleep]
He'd be better off going to the grinder.
- I'm regretting doing canister.
I shouldn't have done that.
I think I need to switch it up.
- Andrew just quit on trying to peel the can.
- Good. - That might not be a bad idea.
- When I switched to grinding, got my fingers crossed.
I need to get this can off my edge.
- I managed to get all the ugly off
With the angle grinder
And start actually hitting some length.
- Brenden back on big blu, drawing it out.
Coming from way behind,
He's doing a pretty good job right now.
- I'm going for a celtic style, aggressive triangle.
Sometimes the steel just wants to argue with you.
And looking at the shape that's coming in,
I'm gonna kind of reevaluate a little bit
And go to something more like a spanish navaja.
Start drawing out my tang, and I don't know,
I saw a squirrel, or a butterfly,
Or a fairy, or something,
And gave it one squish too many.
Oh, [bleep] [bleep].
There are no mistakes, only happy accidents,
Except for my brother, he was a mistake.
I guess I'm just gonna try and squish it back into shape
And keep going with the flow.
♪ ♪
- The quench is always, what can go wrong?
You know, hopefully this thing isn't gonna wanna warp.
- Here we go.
Ira is the first one to be quenched with 45 minutes left.
- It's looking good.
I don't see really any bends or anything.
And I think I've got it.
- A lot of things can go wrong in the quench.
I've got maybe 3/16 on the spine,
Which is considerably less than I wanted.
So I can get a big wicked bend, the blade can crack.
♪ ♪
- All right, mark in quench, guys.
- It's got a curve down at the tip,
And the tang is pretty severe.
Any attempt to do any straightening at this point
Can end in disaster really quick.
So I'm going with it.
- Bladesmiths, you have 30 minutes left
Before your first critique.
I don't know if he went and talked to the forge gods,
But andrew's billet looks all right.
♪ ♪
- There's a little bit of a warp,
But it's nothing that I can't grind out later.
I'm getting the can off the edge.
It's taking some time, but I want to get as much doe
As I can before the clock runs out.
[bleep]
I start seeing some cracks. I'm panicking.
I gotta grind through those and get them gone,
Or they're are not gonna want to test my blade.
Definitely feel the pressure.
♪ ♪
- Brenden's quenched.
All right, guys, we got all four blades quenched.
Now everybody needs start making their way
To the grinder getting that final profile done.
- I start cleaning off the tang,
And I start seeing delams.
If they're just in the handle, everything's okay.
It's gonna be okay, it's gonna be okay,
It's gonna be okay.
I get about midway down the spine.
[bleep]
I thought I got rid of all the bad steel,
But apparently, I ended up with a huge delam.
- Oh, snap.
- Probably from such thin material
Just not wanting to adhere.
I have two options at this point, give up,
Or I can go over and grab the welder
And see what we can do.
So I start welding up the spine and decide
That that's good enough, back to the grinder.
I'm going to work until the absolute last second
Trying to clean up the delams, trying to clean in the shap,
And try and make everything look nice.
♪ ♪
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, turn off the machines,
Put down your tools.
The first round of competition is over.
- At this point, I'm just glad
That I'll have something to turn into the judges.
I think I still have a knife that's gonna do everything
That it needs to do for the tests.
So with a little luck, maybe I'll make it through.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, congratulations.
The four of you managed to take sheet metal
And with various techniques, turn them into viable blade.
But the time has come for the first critique.
Mark, you're up first. Are you ready?
- Yes, I am. - Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, so, mark, your steel looks solid here.
I was worried about you.
It looked like you had a delam
At the front of that blade, but you reversed it,
Put it on the other end of the blade.
That was smart work.
What we do have going on here is a little bit of a warp here,
But most of it happens from the tang back,
And it'd be nice to see that straightened out
If you move forward, but good job.
- Thank you. - Andrew, you ready?
- Yes, I am. - Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, andrew,
You've got a good amount of steel here.
You got a couple pockets
And a couple light delams, nothing major.
You definitely waited too long to peel that can off,
And we didn't require it.
But next time you try a can, call me first.
- Okay. [laughs]
- I can tell you a lot easier way to do it.
- Okay.
- But otherwise, did a good job.
- Thank you. - Ira, you ready?
- Yes, I am. - Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- All right, ira, off the bat, it's beautiful work.
You sure have some skills out there,
So much so that you even got started on your pommel,
Always good to have that foresight.
If you move to the second round,
You have little work to do,
And you can focus more on refining your blade
Because that is a beautiful shape.
- Thank you.
- Last but not least, brenden, are you ready?
- Yes. - Please present your wor.
♪ ♪
- All right, so, brenden,
I do like that recurve kind of a vibe to a blade.
It's a shape that I really enjoy.
But I would have loved to have seen more meat back here
At the back of this blade.
Also, there are some delams
On your blade that are worrisome.
So things like that really need to be cleaned up on this blade.
And I'd just love to see this, have that taper and profie
That's really clean.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, all four of you have a lot to be proud of.
But as you know, only three of you can join us
In the second round of this competition,
Which means one of you has to go home.
The bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
Brenden.
Unfortunately, your blade did not make the cut.
And doug's gonna tell you why.
- Your blade having the delaminations,
And your blade being the least refined,
You have the most work going to the second round.
For these reasons, we're sending you home.
- I understand.
- Brenden, we wanna say thank you for coming out,
But unfortunately your time in this competition has ended.
Please surrender your work and step off the forge floor.
- I 100% agree with the judges' decision.
That is probably one of the worst knives I've ever made.
I spent a lot of time chasing delams
And ended up catching a bad weld off of a bad plan.
But this was an amazing experience.
- Bladesmiths, congratulations.
The three of you are joining us
In the second round of this competition.
Now, in this round, you will add handles to your blades
Turning them into fully functioning weapons,
As well as fix any issues that the judges brought up.
Now, along with those handles,
Because we are doing stab and chop,
You guys will have to have a functional guard
And a mechanical connection like a pommel.
Once this round is complete,
You're gonna turn your blades over to the judges,
And they'll check for strength and durabiliy
In a three-layer sheet metal stab and chop,
And then check your edge retention
In a leather stab and slice.
Bladesmiths, you only have two hours
In this round of the competition.
So good luck, work hard. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
With two hours on the clock,
They still have a lot of work to do.
- But the one that's really ahead of the game is ira.
- Oh, yeah.
- He's got a pommel worked out already.
- My game plan is to try to make a stacked leather handle.
- Is a choice of going with leather
A longer time-consuming thing?
- Oh, it's definitely more time consuming, yeah.
- Does he get style points for your guys?
- If he does it right, yeah.
- Having that pommel made,
It's about my pommel attachment.
I'm gonna peen over the end.
I'm gonna hit pretty hard.
I was worried if I put wood,
Anything else, I'm gonna crack and break it.
The leather is gonna take a lot of compression,
And if anything, it's gonna help it.
♪ ♪
- The first thing I need to do is get the tang straight.
- Mark's got everything in a vice,
And that vice will work as a heat sink.
- Smart. - Ooh.
It's still got a warp on the end,
But it's close enough
That I can just even it up with grinding on the handle.
♪ ♪
- Typically, in a through tang construction,
There's a tang going through the handle,
And then there's a pommel connected to it
To keep everything secure.
But I'm not confident in my pommel.
So I'm also adding a pinhole.
That way the pommel isn't my only mechanical connectio.
- All of our knives need a mechanical connection
From the handle to the knife, so the pin can do that.
But if you're putting a guard on the pommel,
The pommel can do it as well, so it's overkill.
- I'm drilling this pinhole now,
But I'm gonna have to remember where it is later on
When I fit up the handle.
♪ ♪
- Ira is on the vice.
He's got his handle completely assembled
With epoxy and everything.
- I grab the torch, gets hot quick,
Start peening it over, and it starts cinching out.
- Will peening it over give enough compression
To where that leather stack will not move around?
- Done properly, yes.
- I peen it over, and the pommel's not wiggling.
I feel pretty good about time.
Now I gotta shape all the leather wedges
To make it a comfortable handle.
- Bladesmiths, one hour has elapsed.
- I go to the pantry.
I'm looking for a piece of handle material.
- And mark's got some kind of green block.
- Fairly certain that's a synthetic.
It's a mix of a blue and green.
- So the next thing is to get holes drilled into the hande
And get it fitted up onto the tang.
Man, I love that green stuff.
- His handle material is not that thick.
It's like 1 1/2 inch by 1 1/2 inch.
- Oh, man.
That's when I noticed a couple of chips.
So I realized that this isn't the epoxy resin
I thought it was,
And that it was probably kirinite,
Which is beautiful stuff,
But it's a little more fragile,
And it chips easier.
I'm gonna cut that end off, so hopefully it won't crack,
And move on, and start doing the guard and pommel.
♪ ♪
- So now I'm epoxying the guard, the handle,
And the pommel all together onto the tang.
And I'm also adding a piece of mild steel
To the end of the pommel.
- We've seen a lot of smiths do this.
Instead of peening, what they'll do is
They'll basically put a washer over the back and then weld it.
It's not a real favorite of mine.
- So I've got my handle attached, and now it's time
To attach the pin to the pinhole,
But I'm going in blind.
No way.
And I'm like, "oh, [bleep],
It goes through the handle material,
But I completely missed the tang.
I don't want extra holes in my handle material
For no reason.
Yeah, now I have to drill another one.
- Oh, no.
- Damn it.
I drill the second hole. I miss the tang.
- I wonder if he measured not factoring the guard.
- Probably.
- I've got two holes in my handle already.
I'm going in for a third time.
It's like doing surgery with your eyes closed.
- Andrew's already got the connection.
He doesn't need this hole, and he's still got work
To do on the blade in less than an hour.
- This one has to work.
I don't have time to keep messing with this pinhole.
- Holy smokes.
♪ ♪
- This is just wasted time.
- The third time I find the tang,
And I drill a new hole,
So that I at least have something
That I can put a pin through.
Perfect.
It's not the hole I originally made,
But it'll work.
- Bladesmiths, you are down to the final 30 minutes.
♪ ♪
- It's time to start getting this edge addressd
Because a dull knife is not gonna work here.
- Ira is just cruising.
Now he's just refining everything.
- Put it to the arm,
And it just shaves hair off really well.
[laughs]
I think when my daughters find out that I just shaved my am
On tv, they're gonna lose it.
They're like, "oh, my gosh, dad, why?"
♪ ♪
- I've still gotta shape the handle
And sharpen the blade.
- Mark back over to work on that handle a little bit more.
You can see that green dust flying off that grinder.
- For me bladesmithing is fun. It's therapeutic.
You know, I'll go home stressed,
And I'll start beating some steel,
And it's a blast.
Get the handle shaped where it will be comfortable,
And then I gotta start working on the edge.
- Bladesmiths, you have ten minutes.
- Right now my handle is really big and blocky.
I need to grind those corners down
So that the judges can get their hands around it.
If they can't hold the knife,
They're not gonna be able to test it.
It ain't "purdy," but it's sturdy.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, put down your tools,
Grab your blades.
This round is over.
- For good luck.
I've never kissed a blade before,
But I did this time.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to our strength test,
A three-layer sheet metal stab and chop.
Mark, you're first. You ready to go?
- Hit it, sparky. - I can do that.
♪ ♪
There's always a question of the heat treat.
And is there cracks
That you just can't see that are gonna appear?
So yeah, I'm pretty scared as he's getting ready to do this.
Oh, come on.
♪ ♪
- Uh-oh.
All right, mark. You survived, good job.
The big problem is
That the handle has cracked lengthwise.
It took a little bit of glinting.
There's a couple little rolls here from chopping
In that sheet metal, but your blade held up,
You still got an edge, still got a tip.
Good job. - Thank you.
- How you feeling after that, andrew?
- Nervous. - It's all right.
Be fine. Be over shortly.
♪ ♪
- I'm concerned about my edge a little bit,
But I'm mostly concerned about my pommel.
I'm not 100% sure that I have it secured well enoug.
The sky is the limit on what could go wrong here.
♪ ♪
- All right, andrew. That's not good.
- Right.
- Not only it shortened your handle
And you lost your counterbalance,
But now I've got a sharp edge of wood
Sitting in the palm of my hand.
But on the plus side,
Even with your pommel falling off,
You've got this pin that you put in through the tang.
So everything is still mechanically connected.
It's still a testable knife. That was a good move.
You've got some rolling and some chipping,
But for the most part, you survived.
- Thanks. - All right, ira.
Been fun ride so far. You ready to keep going?
- Let's do it. - All right.
♪ ♪
- I'm a little nervous, you know.
Mark and andrew both took some damage on.
I mean, they're about to take my blade and swing it
Into a piece of steel.
It's not like some soft thing.
I mean, lots of things can go wrong.
♪ ♪
- Nice job, ira.
Your edge is good and still straight.
Still tight, good job.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths.
This is the sharpness test, the leather stab and slice.
♪ ♪
Mark, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Leather rip.
- [laughs] I like that.
Let's do that.
♪ ♪
- Oh, yeah.
♪ ♪
- All right, mark.
Despite some of the glinting,
Cut easily, nice slices through.
Your handle construction,
Though you still have the cracks in there,
Simply by putting my hand onto that,
And closing, and making a fist.
Well, it put everything back together.
Overall, sir, your weapon, it will cut.
- Thank you. - All right, andrew, your turn.
So you ready? - Yep.
- Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- All right, andrew, let's talk about your blade here.
When I'm slicing onto this leather sheet, it caught up,
And you can see there's some jagged edges in there,
But overall, sir, it will cut.
- All right, ira, your turn. So are you ready?
- Absolutely. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- All right, ira, let's talk about your weapon here.
Your edges are sharp.
I mean, it lends itself to thrusting and slashing.
Overall, sir, it will cut.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths, only two of you can join us
In the final round of this competition.
Our judges discussed your blades,
And they made a final decision.
The bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
Andrew.
Unfortunately, your blade didn't make the cut,
And j. Is gonna tell you why.
- Andrew, you worked really hard.
You should be proud of what you did.
But during the strength test, your edge took the most damage,
Which showed in the sharpness test.
And you actually have pieces falling off.
So that's the reasons we're letting you go.
- I understand.
- Andrew, you got a ton to be proud of.
Unfortunately, your time this competition has ende.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step
Off the forge floor.
- Thank y'all. Good luck, guys.
I agree with the judge's decision.
I'm glad I put that pin through the tang
And was able to fight until the end.
First thing I'm gonna do when I get home
Is hang out with my dog, bogey,
On the couch and relax for a bit.
♪ ♪
- Well, mark, ira, guys, congratulations,
You are moving forward in the third
And final round of this competition.
In this round, you're going back to your home forges
To battle it out for four days,
Building an iconic weapon from history.
We want you to build this...
♪ ♪
The serrated indian saber.
- The serrated indian saber traces its origins
Back to 18th century india.
The deadly weapon features a long curved blade
With serrated edges designed to intimidate enemis
And penetrate deep into the thick leather armor
Worn by infantry and cavalry forces of the time.
This blade played an important role as the sword
Used by indian forces during the bloody 1857 uprising
Against british rule known as the sepoy mutin.
- When you turn your blades in,
They need to measure between 30 and 32 inches.
And as you can see, this entire blade is covered in serrations
Minus an 8 to 10-inch section
On the cutting edge that is still sharpened.
Your hilt needs to have a clover shaped guard
And a forward-facing integral pommel.
- There's a lot of serrations.
I really am not a serrations expert at all,
But what the heck, let's do it.
- Without further ado, guys, good luck.
We will see you in four days.
- Good luck. - Gonna kill it, brother.
♪ ♪
- Day one making a serrated indian saber.
I've never made a big curved blade like this,
So there's gonna be a lot of experimentation here
In the next couple days.
It's a really lightweight blade.
So I think I'll just do solid steel.
This is a functioning ranch.
My great granddad moved here in 1895,
And I'm still on it, and stayed in the same famil,
And hopefully I'll hand it off to my girls.
It's pretty well shaped.
I need to sand it up a little bi.
So far I have the blade forged out,
Shaped minus the serrations.
I think I'm okay.
♪ ♪
- Day one in my forge,
I'm just gonna use 80crv2 mono steel.
I was really tempted to do damascus,
But there's just too many possibilities for error.
♪ ♪
I'm really excited to be in the finals.
This competition really puts you in like a cauldron
Of mental and physical pressure.
I'm looking forward to it.
It's taking more time than I anticipated
To get the material down to the thinness that I want.
♪ ♪
And then we'll be ready to go
And start doing the features of the saber.
♪ ♪
- Beginning of day two, game plan,
Grind in some serrations
And then do a quench here this afternoon.
There's 99 teeth to do.
So it's gonna take a little while.
I'm worried about the spacing and the angle
In which they go in.
It's one of my biggest concerns on the entire build.
I feel relieved after getting all the serrations in.
It's time to quench.
Lots of things can go wrong with the quench.
I can just be too hot.
I can have a big cold spot that just won't even harden,
But let's go for it.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
It's perfectly straight. Let's finish it up.
- Well, today's a big day, and I'm gonna need to do
Quite a bit of handle fittin,
And then I will do the heat treating.
Fitting the guard, I have to be careful.
If I remove too much material off the inside of the guard,
There's gonna be big gaps, it's not gonna fit tight.
And if it doesn't,
I'm probably gonna have to redo the guard.
It should be fine. It should be okay.
So I'm quenching the blade today.
There's no cracks,
And everything's looking pretty good right now.
♪ ♪
- Day four, last day.
It's time to wrap this thing up.
We're gonna use a black walnut for the handle.
And then on the top, it's gonna be capped
With silicon bronze.
I'm gonna wrap the handle
With a little bit of copper twisted wire.
It looks good.
Finish sanding and then finish sharpening.
♪ ♪
I'm nervous, but hopefully it holds up.
I think that's it.
- Today I need to get my handle and guard on,
And then sharpen the blade, and it'll be ready to go.
I'd add the epoxy gold because it looks cool,
And it's close to the bronze guard.
I think it has a nice touch to it.
Winning this competition would be
Like winning the super bowl.
It's about showing that "forged in fire"
Has turned my life around
And given me the skills to do this.
[chuckles]
♪ ♪
- Mark, ira, gentlemen, welcome back to the forge.
You just had four days in your home forges
To put together your very best serrated indian sabers,
And, guys, they look menacing.
But before we get to testing, I wanna hear about 'em.
So, mark, how'd it go for you?
- It was good.
80crv2, put the curve in it, and then spent
A whole lot of time putting serrations in it.
- Well, it looks great. Ira, how about you?
- Went well.
Forged it out day one out of 80crv2,
Then some black walnut from a tree off the farm.
- Gentlemen, both your blades look strong,
And they look wicked sharp.
But the best way we know how to find which one of you guys
Is gonna go home with the win today,
By putting them through two dynamic tests.
And up first, doug.
♪ ♪
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the dynamic keal test.
♪ ♪
Mark, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Blade's ready. - All right, let's do this.
- There's a lot of stress involved in,
How is mine gonna perform?
Is it gonna fail?
♪ ♪
- All right, mark, let's talk about your weapon here.
Your handle is a little bit on the rounded side,
But the saving grace is this flare that you have there.
It allowed me to get my hand in here,
And it's locked in between your guard and your pommel,
Good on that.
Now you did pick up one small chip where it cut the bone.
But other than that, it'll keal.
- Thank you.
- Ira, your turn. So are you ready?
- I'm ready.
I'm worried about this test.
My heart's racing, my knees are shaking,
My hand's sweaty.
I'm just so worried he's gonna swing it,
And it's gonna break on the first swing.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[laughs]
♪ ♪
- All right, ira, first up,
The slices into this ballistics dummy,
Thrusting and using the teeth,
I can really feel everything on the blade,
But what's more important
Is the wield ability of this weapon.
It's so nice and light, and I can control every move.
Overall, sir, your indian serrated saber,
It will keal.
♪ ♪
- All right, gentlemen, welcome to our dynamic strength test.
Sticking with our sheet metal theme,
Our sheet metal chop and bag slice.
Mark, you're up first. You ready?
- She's got this, but I might need a hug.
- [laughs]
♪ ♪
- All right, mark, right off,
Your blade is still in the shape it came in.
It felt good cutting.
It's a little on the forward heavy side.
I would love to have seen that balance
Just a little bit further back.
But it didn't affect the cuts at all.
So good job. - Thank you.
- Ready to play, ira?
- Not really.
- [laughs] I am.
♪ ♪
So, ira, first off,
The shape and scale of this is really beautiful.
The way it just flows from one point to the other.
The taper really, really nice.
You took one chip in the blade right here.
But other than that, man, this is still--I'm not
Gonna run my finger down this blade.
It's still sharp. Well done.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- Well, gentlemen, in the first two rounds of this competition,
You both proved your worth
By making knives out of sheet metal.
And in this final round, you both knocked it
Out of the park with the most intricate blades
I've seen in a long time.
But in this competition, only one of you can take home
The title and a check for $10,000.
Our judges did agree
That today's "forged in fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
Ira, congratulations.
Now, mark, you did a phenomenal job,
But unfortunately your blade did not make the cut.
And dave baker's gonna tell you why.
- Mark, you brought us a performer
That tested out really, really well.
This came down to fit, finish,
Balance, and the handle construction.
And that's why we're letting you go.
- Yep.
- Well, mark, we hope you enjoyed your time here.
And we wanna say, thank you so much
For letting us watch you work, but unfortunately,
At this point, I'm gonna have to ask you
To please stay up off the forge floor.
- Been a tremendous pleasure. - Thank you, sir.
- Good job, mark.
- I'm happy that it came down to such details.
I think any other competition
I could have gone home a winner.
I'd love to compete on "forged in fire" again.
It pushes your abilities,
And it is just--it's an amazing adventure.
♪ ♪
- Ira, congratulations, sir.
You are the newest "forged in fire" champion,
And you just received a check for $10,000.
Congratulations.
- Just won "forged in fire."
It feels pretty awesome.
- That's a beautiful example of that weapon.
I think you nailed it.
Well done. - Thank you.
The whole experience has been super fun,
From the stressful part of building the first knife,
Playing with the coal iron press.
I think that's where the money's going.
♪ ♪