- Tonight on a special edition of "Forged in Fire"...
Today we are honoring first responders,
those who run toward danger when others are running away.
Four first responders are called into The Forge
to compete in a series of challenges
where every second counts.
- Your glove's on fire, dude.
- Who will be left standing when the smoke clears,
earning the "Forged in Fire" title and 10 grand?
- My name is Britt Barnes. I'm from Newport, Tennessee.
I'm currently a full-time bladesmith.
I spent 20 years with the Border Patrol.
A lot of times, you're miles from any help,
and so carrying knives was just kind of part of the job.
I think if you can get through the Border Patrol Academy,
you can get through just about anything.
It's probably one of the toughest academies
on the planet.
- My name is Mark Casina
and I live in Fort Campbell, Kentucky.
And I've been bladesmithing for seven years.
I'm in the Army.
I work alongside the first responders for Fort Campbell.
It's very satisfying working with the military police
because when they respond to an emergency
and help someone, you're a part of a team.
- My name is Chris Campbell. I'm from South Florida.
I've been blacksmithing for two years.
And I'm EMS Chief for the fire rescue department in my area.
My job is the greatest job on the planet.
You get to have a profound effect on people's lives.
You have to be absolutely focused
and get through whatever is thrown your way.
It changes every shift.
You never know what's gonna happen.
- My name's Forest Hansen. I'm from Hemet, California.
I'm a retired fire captain,
and I've been bladesmithing about six years.
It's extremely important for a firefighter to have
at least one good pocket knife,
or maybe even a rescue knife
for, like, cutting a seat belt.
So it's very important to have a good blade.
- First responders, welcome to The Forge.
You're here to engage in three timed rounds
of edged weapon making competition
specifically designed to push the boundaries
of what is possible in bladesmithing,
all in front of a panel of expert judges.
Let's meet them now.
Up first, two-time "Forged in Fire" champion,
Ben Abbott.
Next, historic weapons re-creation specialist,
David Baker.
And last, Kali martial artist, Doug Marcaida.
Today, we are honoring first responders,
those who run toward danger when others are running away.
Your first task is to work together
to reveal your first round challenge.
So let's go ahead and step forward.
On the count of three. One, two three.
What you see here is an old-timey fire rescue cart.
- Our eyes are going all over it.
Can we use the bell? Can we use the axes?
What's this challenge gonna be?
- Your job is to harvest the high carbon steel
from the rescue tools on this cart
and combine them with the mild steel
from the ladder on this cart
to make a San Mai billet,
from which you will forge a tactical blade
that is between 12 and 14 inches in length.
And it should have a through-tang design.
- A tactical blade is basically any blade design
that can be used in a tactical situation,
whether that's an arrest or recovering narcotics.
- If you make it to the second round,
you'll attach handles to those blades,
and we'll test them for strength and durability
in a burning log chop,
and for edge retention in a rope slice.
Gentlemen, you have just three hours
in this first round of competition
in which to complete all of your work.
Good luck, bladesmiths. Your three hours starts now.
- You wanna get that side? I'll get this side.
- The first thing these guys gotta do
is harvest that steel.
- And bring it down. - Ooh, heavy.
- There's plenty of mild steel on that ladder.
What do you grab? The rungs or the sides?
- I would grab the sides 'cause they're already set up as flat.
- Work together. - Yup, get a grinder.
- Working together is something that's gonna be instinctive
for first responders.
It just happens.
We automatically get in that groove,
and we're gonna go to it.
- All these guys working together to chop down
the mild steel on this ladder.
- We're communicating.
"Hey, you do this. You do this."
- When we work together and we destroy those things quickly,
and everybody has steel in no time.
- As soon as I heard the parameters of the challenge,
I know that I'm gonna make a tactical chopper.
- So we're asking these guys to make a tactical knife.
We're not telling them what it is that makes a blade tactical.
It's gonna be their interpretation of the word.
I mean, it can be as literal as saying
it has to do with military tactics.
Or it could be a tactical deployment
of a flat smasher or whatever.
- So the first thing I do is I grab two crowbars.
I know that if I cut these reasonably equal in half,
that everybody's gonna have plenty of metal
to make what they need to make.
- It's almost like these guys chose the crowbars together
as a group.
Like, "This is the steel that we're gonna work with."
- He's got about two feet of crowbar there he's drawing out.
- It's a taco San Mai.
We've got our hardenable steel for the inside,
mild steel on the outside.
- My game plan for this knife is to make a Ka-Bar
because it's the essence of tactical.
Marines use them, and that's tactical enough for me.
The plan is, split this mild steel ladder in half,
get it nice and clean.
Two on the outside, two on the outside,
high carbon in the middle.
I know I need to get these forge welds tight.
And without clean steel touching clean steel,
I know I'm gonna have cold shuts.
- What I like about what Chris did is
he cut things into rectangular pieces,
cleaned them all very well with a grinder,
and then stacking them all up.
- That would be, in my opinion, the best way to go.
- Yeah.
- I think the best option for me would be
using the taco method
to cut away a letter "C" with my mild steel.
And then stick the high carbon in it, and then press it down.
Ah, .
I did not tack-weld it together.
And I think "That's okay. I've cleaned it.
"I can heat both pieces to almost a white color,
"and then I can use the press just enough
"to get that shape around the high carbon steel,
just to make sure that that weld actually holds."
- He put that folded over staple of steel,
no MIG welding to hold it still.
It's a really, really difficult way to make that stick.
- I don't know Ben Abbott ever did this twice.
- I'd have thought what I'm going to do is
a version of a drop point hunter.
I've done a few San Mais. I haven't done a lot of them.
With a little luck, I'll get it done.
My plan is, is to get my mild kind of flattened out.
And then, I'm gonna wrap it around the outside
of the hardenable steel.
And then, I'm gonna weld it.
So I've got my taco started,
and I've got my hardenable steel flattened out.
I go to try to insert it.
Come on, man.
The proper technical term for what I have
is my taco is cattywampus.
- Aw, dang it. Come on.
- There's gonna be a lot of forge scale
on that taco that he built up.
He did no cleaning.
So the question is, is whether that's gonna weld up or not.
- That'll do.
Let's get up to welding temp. Come on.
- Bladesmiths, one hour has elapsed.
You have two hours left.
- I'm going to bring everything up to welding temp
and go over to the press, and just squeeze it together.
As we know with tacos,
sometimes if you handle them wrong, you lose your filling.
And I'm losing my filling.
- Forest didn't clean his steels
before he started to weld this San Mai,
and so, in my experience,
that just doesn't allow the weld to take very well.
- Reflux it, and I go over to Big Blu.
I'm able to tap that in just nice.
Now I'm in much better shape.
Can we do something easy?
- Yeah, please? Like, like save a life.
- Looking at the blade, and my heart sinks.
The welds didn't seem to take, so I tried to take a chisel
and a hammer to see how much of it isn't welded.
That's bad.
- Mark just chiseled opened his blade.
I mean, that mild steel did not forge-weld at all.
- I only have two layers.
And if I don't make the three layers,
the judges are gonna send me home.
So I take a small piece of mild steel,
and I put it near the back of the blade.
So I would almost have, just a San Mai
by the base of the blade.
- What he's doing right now is a bad idea
because no matter how he forge-welds that together,
he's not gonna get the surfaces of those materials
to even up in a welded fashion.
His glove's on fire as well. Your glove's on fire, dude.
- Yeah, buddy.
- Every weld seems like it's set.
I'm gonna go to Big Blu, stretch it out a little bit.
Give me some length, but not too much
because it's already pretty thin.
- It's disappointing how long and narrow Chris' knife is.
I would love to see more mass on it, to be honest with you.
- The plan was not to be narrow.
I wanted it to be a much bigger blade,
and I just gotta run with it.
So my focus is going to be to keep the spine wide,
and make a sharp blade that's still gonna be strong.
- We're used to doing the impossible
with little or nothing, right?
- Lives is different than steel, though.
I'm okay with lives.
- I go over to the press and I start pressing the mild steel.
And I realize that it has shifted.
- That internal steel should be welded.
- You gotta weld for daddy.
If you've got a gap, there is a possibility
you can get a cold shut in there.
As long as my sides are good and welded, I'm okay.
I can always grind off the top.
- Britt's really going after that blade
with that angle grinder.
60 minutes, bladesmiths.
- As I'm shaping the blade up,
I notice the inside of the taco has not welded up.
- Well, look at that delam he's got at the front of that blade.
It's huge.
- If I don't get the weld along the spine right,
it's gonna, it'll just blow apart.
Not too many chances for a U-turn now.
I'm gonna have to make this work.
I just wanna make sure it's welded up good and tight,
so I take her over to Big Blu.
Give a little love. It's looking pretty darn good.
It's actually looking a little better than I thought.
- I'm working my tip into the edge of the blade
and starting to profile out the shape.
Damn it.
I'm looking at my steel. I measure it out.
I don't have nearly enough steel to make my tang.
It's not gonna work. It's too small.
- There's just not enough steel there.
- Chris doesn't know where to attack this thing.
He doesn't know what he wants to do.
- I'm in trouble.
I need to make sure I'm within parameters,
or I'm gonna go home.
- I need extra length. I got enough of the blade.
Pull out some mild steel and weld on a tang.
I like the idea of using a mild steel tang.
It's not gonna cause any vibration issues to the blade
because it's not super hard.
- Putting a lot of heat and a lot of focus in that tang
to ricasso junction.
Do you suspect that this is a weak spot for him?
- As it currently stands, it is certainly a big weak spot.
- I'm just hoping the handle doesn't fly apart.
It's not horrible.
- Back in the ball game.
It looks like it welded,
so I'm thinking I'm gonna be okay.
So now I'm trying to shape the knife and profile it.
My plan is to do a tactical fighter knife.
So I'm looking at the tang,
and I'm a little worried that it's gonna be too thin.
I want to keep it kind of wide.
Otherwise, it might crack when the judges test the blade.
- It seems like a setup that's more complementary
to a full tang blade than an actual through-tang.
- I think that'll work.
- I think I've got a pretty good weld.
So now I'm gonna work on the profile of the blade.
For a drop point hunter,
the design of that particular blade shape,
it supports the cutting edge really well for toughness,
and it supports the point really well for stabbing.
It's basically a good all-around shape
for a little bit of everything.
Finally gotta grind a little more,
and then get it heat-treated.
- Mark just quenched over here.
- When I pull this blade out,
it started to bend a little bit,
so I don't waste any time.
I go straight over to the vise.
I look down the blade, and it's pretty straight.
I'll take it.
- Now it's time for heat-treat.
My biggest concern right now is that I've got
differential metals that aren't welded perfectly.
And they're gonna expand and contract at different rates.
And I'm nervous because
I really have no idea what's gonna happen.
Good.
Everything's looking pretty damn good.
I am relieved beyond measure at the moment.
- Chris over here heating up his oil,
getting ready for the quench.
- I got a blade that's ground, my bevels are in.
I fixed a bunch of different things.
It's time to go to heat treat.
Oh, yeah. Rock on.
I check it with a file. It skates.
- Is Chris putting in serrations on his blade?
- I think so.
- I'm putting saw teeth in on the spine
to make it look more tactical
and look a little more militaristic.
- Pretty cool.
- Ten minutes!
- As I'm normalizing, I'm noticing that every time
I pull out, the blade is curving to one side.
- You could see that warp just developing--
- Oh, wow. - As the steel cools down.
- This is not gonna be good.
I'm gonna have a massive warp on this thing when I quench it.
All the grinding on the planet isn't gonna fix this .
I'm thinking the best thing I can do
is get it a little bit hotter on the non-warp side,
so it'll pull a little harder to that side.
I pull my blade out. It's got a kink to the left.
Dang it.
- I think it's warped like a ski.
- So the only thing I can think of is to stick the knife back
in the forge, edge up,
and just get my edge at quench temp.
I pull that thing out, and the warp is there,
but it's not nearly as bad.
So I run over to the post vise.
Hell, yeah. That'll work.
That'll work.
Sure enough, it's pretty straight.
I can live with it. - Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, shut down your machines, drop your tools.
This first round of competition is over.
- I'd rather be in a gun fight than go through that again.
That was tough.
I made a knife in three hours.
Not a great knife, but it's a decent knife.
- All right, bladesmiths.
In this first round of competition,
you were asked to produce San Mai tactical blades
between 12 and 14 inches in length
with through-tang setups.
Now it's time for the judges to take a closer look.
Forest, you're up first.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Well, Forest, I really like what I see here.
There's a nice amount of height, there's a fair weight.
But there's a couple of delaminations down here
near the ricasso.
There's also the fact that all the way down the spine,
it never welded in the center.
This isn't in a place that, in my mind, causes me any worry
from a structural standpoint.
All in all, I think you did a good job.
- Thank you. - You're up, Chris.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Well, Chris, I liked your setup
with the stack and the weld.
You know, it's a good way to get a San Mai.
I just wish those pieces were a little bit wider
when you started out.
It would've been nice to see
a little bit more height than this.
- I can see here where you welded that mild steel rod
to your existing tang.
And there's an incomplete portion of the weld right here.
And this is a pretty critical area
for the strength of your blade,
so if you were to move forward from here,
I would make it as strong as it could be.
- Yes, sir. - Mark, you're up.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Mark, right off, I do like this profile.
Unfortunately, we saw you struggle with that San Mai,
and at one point, you lost the entire side.
- Yes, sir.
- And went back and put in a section.
But that sectional San Mai kind of causes its own problems.
Right here, the hardenable steel in the center
has been pushed down so thin,
that this right here is the thinnest portion of your blade,
which is gonna take a lot of the brunt of any chopping.
- Also, the tang setup
feels like it's a full tang right now.
We'd like to see some shoulders on that
so we could make it a true through-tang.
- Thank you. - Britt, you're up.
Please present your blade to the judges.
- Okay, Britt, looking at your edge here,
it wobbles right here toward the end.
Also, you have some delaminations here
that are coming out.
Dealing with this,
just be careful not to take any more out.
It's a very light blade as it is,
and you need that, have to be able to slash with it.
But I do like the design and your setup for a through-tang.
Thank you. - Yes, sir.
- Bladesmiths, the judges' deliberation is complete.
The bladesmith leaving The Forge is...
Mark, your blade didn't make the cut.
- Mark, I really applaud all that work you put in
to try to fix that major delamination you had.
But your fix didn't really stick well,
and your blade, of all four blades, has
the least mild steel traveling the length of the blade.
That and the fact that
it's not truly set up as a through-tang at this point.
It needs the most refinement out of all of our blades,
and that's why we're letting you go.
- I understand.
- Mark, please surrender your blade.
- I respect their decisions. I think they're correct.
It wasn't enough mild steel to be an actual San Mai.
I came here to prove that I can do this
and I can make a really good knife.
And yes, I believe that I accomplished that.
I'm not going home the winner today,
but I gave it my all.
- Congratulations, bladesmiths.
You've made it into the second round of this competition.
And now that those blades have been tempered,
it's time to make them fully functional tactical knives.
You must have a stacked handle construction
using only the rescue equipment found over here in our pantry.
That's the boots, helmets, jackets, and fire hoses
to finish your handles' overall construction.
- I'm familiar with all that material.
I'm in the fire department for 27 years,
so I know it's good, strong material
and it's gonna hold up to anything.
- You have just two hours in this round
to accomplish that task.
Upon completion of this second round's construction,
your blades will be tested for strength and durability
in a fire log chop,
and for edge retention in a rope slice.
After your blades have been tested,
one of you will have to surrender your tactical knife
and leave The Forge.
Good luck, bladesmiths. Your two hours starts now.
All right, so these guys have two hours
to complete these stacked handles
using this rescue material over here.
- Give me a hand, would you? - Yeah.
- I think this is great that Britt and Forest
are over here helping each other out.
- It's looking like Chris has got
a few more things to address than we do on our blades,
so we're gonna go ahead and cut up the material
off the fire hose for all of us.
We've got five more to go.
- Forest does the math
and says we need eight slices per smith.
- I'm thinking that much times three.
Worst case, you got plenty. Got it?
- Fantastic. Thanks, buddy.
- You got it.
- The way the materials were provided by my friends here,
we're all watching each other's back.
And it's really nice to see that.
I started with the weld because the judges said,
"Watch that weld."
And I'm gonna listen to what the judges tell me
and try to address the issues that they had.
- What is the worry here?
- Where the weld touched the high carbon steel,
it could've cooled rapidly enough to harden it.
And it might snap at that junction.
- Forest is coming away from the pantry
with a little bit of mild steel
to use as either a guard or a butt cap.
That's allowable, as long as he uses only this equipment
in the body of the handle.
- I'm gonna make my guard first and get that fitted.
This'll be my front guard.
Might have to modify the blade a little bit to fit,
but that's, that's an important spot.
Then I'm gonna punch holes in my handle material.
Punching the holes is kind of labor intensive,
but the main thing is that I get a nice, tight fit.
- I'm going to MIG weld the delam
right there at the ricasso.
- Britt over here on the flat platen
of his grinder,
just kind of working on cleaning up his welds.
- The delam I'm dealing with is right at the top of the spine.
So I wanna relieve every bit of the stress
out of the spine of that knife that I can.
So I'm gonna blue-back the knife
so that the spine of that knife is
as soft as it can possibly be.
That's gonna allow that spine to absorb a lot more shock
without damage.
- One hour, bladesmiths.
You have one hour remaining in the round.
- I am working on my guard right now.
Guards always take me a long time
and I kind of suck at them, so I'm gonna try to get this done.
It's gonna be ugly, but it's gonna be done.
It's in.
Handle material's gonna be this hose,
cut to stack and glued.
- As Chris stacks that handle, every five or six pieces,
he's using that pipe to compress everything.
So he's getting the compression with the glue as it dries.
That's pretty smart.
- I finish up the compression, trim off my tang.
On to grinding.
- When I'm clamping this, I'm gonna kind of overcompress.
So that way, when I let it loose,
it will come back a little bit.
- It looks like Forest is actually using a work stick
to slip down in between those clamps
to peen on the tang 'cause you can't get a hammer in there.
- Peening this over, I'm peening the end of the tang.
And I set this thing on fire, and then that's a real pain.
Now we go put the fire out.
- Bladesmiths, you have less than 30 minutes remaining
to finish your work.
All of these guys opted to create their handles
in an identical manner.
They all put guards on, they're stacking just fire hose handles
with mild steel butt caps.
- Oh, boy. - Snap, my pommel cracked.
Not good.
I don't have enough time to make another butt cap.
- It could actually let go in the testing.
- I'm worried that the judges are gonna feel
the pommel may come off.
And if they feel it's unsafe to test, I'd be eliminated.
Can't do anything about it. I've got my fingers crossed.
It's too late to do anything about it.
I don't have enough time to fix it.
I think it'll hold to get through testing.
As I'm grinding this material,
I think if I can trim a little bit off of that butt cap,
I might relieve some of the stress.
And I'm hoping I've got enough of a pommel
to hold that handle together.
- Britt's got some issues with his but cap.
- Oh.
- And he's gluing the heck out of it.
- People underestimate the amount of shock that comes back
through the handle.
I think there's a high probability
that butt cap is gonna snap.
- 20 minutes, bladesmiths.
- Right now, I'm shaping up my handle.
I'm gonna whittle it down and try to make a shape
that fits my hand.
The clock is not my friend.
The material's not moving fast enough.
I have to sacrifice
what I normally would keep as standards...
It's so small.
In order to make sure it's a completed, strong knife.
- I got my bevels finished.
Now I'm ready to just finish this handle up.
We're gonna just narrow this down, get this smoothed out.
I'm rocking and rolling.
- Five minutes, bladesmiths.
- All I got left to do is just get it sharp.
I'm going for what we call an appleseed edge
which allows brutal chopping.
It's also extremely sharp.
In my opinion, this is the only kind of edge
that's gonna get through this challenge,
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Bladesmiths, stop all that sharpening.
This second round of competition is over.
Good job.
- My blade may not be quite as pretty,
but I'm hoping that that serves its purpose
as designed.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test,
the burning wood chop.
To test the strength of your edge,
I'll be chopping them into this burning wood.
Remember, this test is all about what the wood does
to your knives, and not what your knives do to the wood.
Forest, you're up first. How are you feeling?
- Nervous, but I'm ready to go. - All right.
- Number one thing that could go wrong with this blade,
I'm concerned about catastrophic failure.
Obviously, that's gonna knock me out of the competition.
- Well, Forest, first thing's first,
your edge held up great.
I'm still seeing some delaminations from earlier,
but it didn't cause any structural issues
in this blade at all.
Well done. - Awesome, thank you.
- Chris, you're up next. Are you ready?
- I am.
Coming into this test,
I feel very strong about my steel.
My only concerns are the handle
and where I didn't weld.
- Oh, man. - That weld.
- Well, Chris, we got an issue here.
This is the spot, of course,
where you welded your mild steel tang
onto your existing tang.
I just see the slightest of penetration in that weld.
I mean, it's like it just came in from the insides
and just didn't get deep enough.
- Chris, your blade has suffered
a catastrophic failure of the handle on the fifth strike.
But that doesn't mean that you're out of this competition.
If Britt's blade goes bad before five hits,
you'll be moving forward in this competition.
Britt, how you feeling? - Let her rip, tater chip.
- Ben.
- I know my blade's gotta survive five strikes.
I'm still concerned about my butt cap.
Man, I really hope my blade holds together.
- Gentleme- Good job, man.
- Well, Britt, you're all in one piece.
The edge itself,
for being such a fine grind on your knife here,
it held up nicely.
And I was sure this butt cap was gonna come off.
- I was seriously concerned it was gonna come off myself.
Well done.
- Thank you, sir.
- All right, bladesmiths.
What we have here is two blades that can continue with testing.
Chris, unfortunately, your blade cannot.
For that reason, come on over.
- I do feel like I proved what I wanted to prove
by coming here.
Thank you, sir. - Good job, man.
- I made a solid blade, no damage to it.
The only issue was the handle.
I may not be the "Forged in Fire" champion,
but I do feel
that I did my fellow first responders justice.
- Britt, Forest, congratulations.
The strength of your tactical blades has landed you
in the third and final round of this competition,
which means that you're both four short forging days shy
of the title of "Forged in Fire" champion
and that check for $10,000.
All you need to do now is make one of these.
A Halligan bar.
- It is an iconic rescue tool,
and here to tell you more about it is Captain Brian Olith.
- The Halligan bar, to the modern fire service,
is the multipurpose tool.
It is probably the most important tool
that's carried on the fire truck
besides water and hose and the firefighters themselves.
It was originally designed by a deputy chief
in New York City in 1948.
The primary purpose was to force entry through doors.
On one end, there's a fork.
On the other end, there's an adze and a metal pike.
You take the tool, and you put it in between the door frame
and the door itself,
and you could actually wedge the fork and force the door.
The primary striking surfaces of the tool are
the adze itself and the back of the adze.
So this part of the tool has to be extremely strong
'cause it's gonna be taking a full force strike
with an eight-pound ax.
- All right, gentlemen.
Your Halligan bars must fall
within the following parameters.
The length should be between 28 and 30 inches.
The length of the forks, pike, and the adze
should be six inches.
- It's a complex tool, so it's not something
you can just forge in the shape of a blade.
There's a lot of different angles,
and everything all has to be functional.
So it's gonna be a very difficult build.
- Gentlemen, you have four days at your home forges
in which to complete this challenge.
At the end of that time, we will be testing
your Halligan bars, and then one of you
will be awarded the title of "Forged in Fire" champion
and be given a check for $10,000.
Good luck. We'll see you in four days.
- Good luck, brother. - Right on.
- We're at the beginning of day one.
Looking forward to representing
the Border Patrol.
I can't wait to get started on this Halligan tool.
I'm going to utilize the quarter band.
I'm gonna make a couple of initial cuts
and isolate some material.
Let's get it hot.
One side's gonna be the adze,
and one side is gonna be a spike.
What the tool needs to do,
there needs to be a certain amount of mass
for the ax to strike it.
Also, there's a lot of wrenching and twisting,
so there needs to be some mass to support that.
It's the end of day one. Today was challenging.
I think the build is still going pretty well.
We'll just have to see what tomorrow beings.
Ain't we having fun now?
- Today, I'm gonna start forging the Halligan.
I'm gonna start at the fork end and just work my way back.
My plan for construction on this Halligan
is forge-weld the Damascus billet.
Not only is that gonna add strength,
but it will lend a considerable amount
of aesthetic value to this.
Is this enough steel?
Yeah.
The pressure of being a retired fireman,
and being tasked with making the very first Halligan
on "Forged in Fire," that situation is not lost on me
by any means.
If I think about it too much,
I could probably put a lot of pressure on myself.
But what I have control over is my design,
and I'm gonna do it the best that I can.
And this day is over.
- Beginning of day two.
Let's get that steel hot and beat the hell out of it.
What we're gonna do today
is we're gonna work on forming the adze.
We're gonna stretch out the handle.
Right now, we're just getting that handle stretched out
to give us our length.
For firefighters, you're gonna want something
with some heft to it to grip it.
So for now, I'm just coming in here and squashing my corners.
To give it an octagonal shape.
It's really looking like it's supposed to.
I'm gonna do some grinding, and clean up,
and make sure I don't have any cold shuts.
I got a lot done today.
I'm down to forging out the forks
and a little bit of straightening,
and then on to heat treat.
Really feeling good about it. Whoo-hoo!
Life is good. Life is good.
- Day three.
I'm ready to get this thing forged and get it quenched.
Get my forks pretty well shaped up.
I start forging that pike out and it's looking good.
So now it's time to drip the hole for the pike.
Here we go.
All right. That's a biggie.
Now all we have to do is get the adze into place.
And we're ready to quench.
I get things up to heat.
I go ahead, put it in the quench tank.
And I've got too little oil.
Oh, that's not good.
So now, I've got an incomplete quench.
The only part that's really not hard
is the really important part like the adze and the pike.
I'm gonna requench on that.
Every time that we do this, we're just running
the risk of other failures, more stress in the tool.
Everything's riding on this being right.
If this doesn't work, I'm screwed.
Much better.
It's actually a really good quench.
I'm happy.
It's a good thing I'm retired, 'cause I don't know
that I ever want to see a Halligan again.
- Beginning of day four.
Today we're gonna forge out the forks.
And there you have it, boys and girls.
That's heat-treated.
This is, hands-down,
the largest tool I've ever quenched.
So what we're gonna end up doing is,
we're gonna heat-treat the front half,
flip it around, heat-treat the second half.
Let's quench this beast.
She's straight. I see no cracks.
Let's quench the other half.
Three, two, one.
We have a successful quench.
So what we're gonna do
is simulate a breach.
I'd say it works.
- So day four.
I'm just going to do some final grinding,
basically get it all cleaned up and ready for show.
I'm confident in it, but it is kind of lightweight.
Just gonna test this out.
That's about all the testing I want to do.
'Cause I'm kind of chicken.
Britt, Forest,
welcome back, and welcome to
the Stamford Fire training center.
You guys have had four days at your home forges
to work on your Halligan bars.
Britt, how did it go?
- Went well.
It's 1045 tool steel.
Forged it from one piece.
Both of the tool ends were all hand-hammered.
Looking forward to see what it does.
- Forest, how'd it go for you?
- I'm happy with the design and how it all came out.
I've used 1045
and then with a six-layered Damascus on my top and bottom,
so it's a Damascus sandwich from end to end.
- Gentlemen, these are very special rescue tools,
and we're putting them through the paces today
here at the training center.
Your weapons will be put through two
very, very staunch rescue tests.
Up first is Doug.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the car crash extraction test.
To test your Halligan bars,
I'm gonna take your Halligan bar
and try to rescue this dummy inside this crashed car.
Now, this is all about how well your Halligan bars perform.
It's time to find out if your Halligan bars will rescue.
To test your Halligan bars,
I'd like to introduce firefighters Jim and Carl.
Welcome, gentlemen.
Britt, you're up first. You ready?
- Grip and rip it.
- All right, let's do this.
- My biggest concern coming into the testing
is the thickness of my adze.
It's an area that's gonna get a lot of pressure.
And that prying movement could expose
anything where I might have done something wrong
in my heat-treat,
so as long as I nailed my heat-treat,
I'm not gonna have any issues.
- Hit.
Yep.
Hit.
- Nice.
- All right, gentlemen, what do you think?
- The weight is a little heavy.
The spike worked very well.
- All right, Britt,
let's talk about your Halligan bar here,
based on the firefighters' feedback.
First up, the bar: it's a little bit heavier.
But it's manageable.
When it comes to your spike and your adze over here,
they function quite well and they got the job done.
Overall, sir, it will rescue.
- Thank you, sir.
- Okay, Forest, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Well, we didn't get dressed up for nothing.
All right.
Let's do it.
- Man, I'm nervous.
We're gonna really test this Halligan.
We've got firefighting professionals
that are well-versed in utilizing
the ways that would be typical to use this.
My biggest concern is a possible structural failure
'cause it's a little on the lighter side.
I just hope that it's strong enough to hold up.
- Clear.
Hit.
Hit again.
Hit.
- Damn.
- The striking surface is a little bit off.
- Striking.
- Yeah, 'cause it's curved here.
- All right, Forest, let's talk about your Halligan bar here.
First up, it's a lighter weight,
so it's easier to carry.
Now, the adze over here
did not penetrate nicely inside,
and the reason for that is,
you don't have a flat surface here.
Not having a flat surface here,
when you're making impact, it kind of shears off the side.
But it was effective, it worked,
and more importantly,
it will rescue.
- Congratulations, gentlemen.
Your Halligan bars have passed our first test.
So now we've turned up the heat.
This is our flaming tower test.
Now, to test your Halligan bars,
firefighter Steve and Captain John
are going to take them
and break through this training door.
Once they're through that door,
they'll go up three flights of stairs,
use your Halligan tool again
to bust out that window to assist in the rescue.
Now, no one really knows
what's gonna happen in a rescue situation,
so to test that Halligan tool one more time,
we're gonna drop it from that three-story window.
- Awesome.
- All right, Britt, are you ready?
- Let's break it.
- Hit.
Hit.
- Oh, yes.
- The biggest thing was the forks.
They were a little too thick.
- So, Britt, first off, your adze worked very nicely.
But the width of your forks was an issue
since they're so thick right here.
Captain had a hard time
getting that into that door jamb.
When every second counts,
you want that to pass right through.
But overall, performed well, took the fall like a champ.
Good job.
- Thank you, sir.
- All right, Forest, you're up now.
You ready?
- Yes, sir.
- Captain, it's all yours.
- Hit.
Hit.
Good.
- This hitting surface could be a little bit bigger.
- Right.
- My guys could tend to miss it a little bit.
- So, Forest, right off, the Damascus was a nice touch.
The forks got into that door really easily,
but this corner should be sort of a 90-degree with flats.
The ax kind of slid off a few times,
and you really want a good driving surface on this.
- Yep. - But all in all, it survived.
Good job. Well done.
- Thank you.
- Britt, Forest,
this has been an extremely tough competition.
For the first time ever,
we asked smiths to go back to their home forges
and make something other than a weapon.
And you've both proven that your Halligan tools
are "Forged in Fire" tough.
However, only one of you
can be the "Forged in Fire" champion.
And that champion is...
Britt.
Congratulations.
You're the "Forged in Fire" champion.
Forest, unfortunately,
your Halligan tool didn't make the cut.
- Well, Forest, you brought us
an attractive and functional rescue tool.
However, its lack of a defined corner
with flat striking surfaces
caused it to be a little less effective
than your competitor's.
And that's why we're letting you go.
- It's all right.
- Forest, you made a beautiful Damascus Halligan tool,
but at this time,
you're dismissed from the training area.
Good job, brother. Good job. - Thank you.
Britt and mine both performed well.
It just came down to some very minor design decisions,
and Britt made some better decisions than I did.
I'm exceptionally proud of the fact
of being able to represent the fire department.
Sorry I didn't come out on top, guys, but you know what?
We gave her a hell of a good go.
- Britt, congratulations.
You are the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and that's a title that comes with a check for
$10,000.
Good job, man.
- Thank you, sir. Thank you.
I'm the "Forged in Fire" champion,
and it feels amazing.
I came in here confident that I had a pretty good shot.
Forest comes from the fire service side.
I come from the law enforcement side.
I thought he made a beautiful tool.
I simply just made a slightly better tool than he did,
and--and brought the win.