[dramatic music]
- Here in The Forge, we put hundreds
of smiths to the test.
- It's hot in here.
- But only a select few have proven themselves
time and time again, remaining undefeated.
♪ ♪
Now, three of our most decorated champions
will put their perfect records on the line
and go head-to-head against previous
"Forged in Fire" winners in some
of the most heated battles yet.
- This is a living nightmare.
- Everything's [bleep] [bleep] right now,
if you know what I'm saying.
- Will anyone have what it takes to finally...
Oh!
Beat the unbeaten?
♪ ♪
[dramatic rock music]
♪ ♪
- My name is Jay Replogle.
I first competed on season three
and became a champion when I made the German Zweihander.
Being a champion has allowed me to grow my craft
and become better over the past six years.
I'm coming back to test my skills
against another champion,
and then possibly
face another champion.
Hopefully, I'm ready.
- I'm Trevor Jenkinson.
I'm a returning champion from season seven.
I made the war scythe on the Halloween edition.
Since I've been on the show, I'm in nursing school
right now, and that's taken up the majority
of my time the last two years,
But I definitely know more
than when I first competed,
and I'm really excited
to defend my title.
- Champions, welcome back to The Forge, gentlemen.
You guys are about to take part in an intense bladesmithing
competition that's going to test all of your skills.
Now, to start things off, it's just gonna be the two
of you in the first round going head-to-head
in a five straight hour bladesmithing round.
Now, when that five-hour round is over,
the judges will step in and test your blades
and ultimately decide which one of you has impressed them
the most and will be moving into the second round
of competition.
Now this is where things get interesting.
In the second round, you'll be going toe to toe
with one of our titans of The Forge
because this is "Beat the Unbeaten."
Now, if you have what it takes to beat your first round
competitor and one of our unbeaten champs,
you will go home with your second "Forged in Fire"
champion title, but also a check for $10,000.
- I love the challenge of facing an undefeated opponent,
but it's going to be super tough.
- Now in this round, you're going to be building
a signature blade in your signature style.
All that we ask is that they measure
between 11 and 13 inches.
In order to do that, gentlemen, you're
going to need what's under that cloth on your anvils.
So do us a favor and take that cloth off.
[dramatic music]
All right, what you guys are looking at there
is 80CrV2 high carbon steel.
Now, as you look at that steel, guys,
you're probably noticing it's not enough to make
an 11- to 13-inch blade.
And that's because we want you to add it to this...
♪ ♪
Canister Damascus.
♪ ♪
Now what we want you to do is choose your materials
and make a canister.
You're then going to use that billet
as the cladding on your 80CrV2 to make
your San Mai signature blade.
- I've never made this type of Damascus before.
I've practiced canister and I've practiced San Mai,
but I've never combined the two.
I'm a little bit nervous going into this.
- Now, when the five hours is up,
the judges are going to step in and test your weapons,
first for strength and durability in an antler chop.
And then they're going to check your edge retention
and sharpness in a Tatami mat slice.
You've only got five hours on the clock
to complete this challenge, so good luck
because that time starts now.
♪ ♪
- You know, it's interesting that both
our contestants here--
Jay I remember from season three
and Trevor from season seven.
So what have they done since then to get to this point?
Now Jay here, if you didn't know, he's been in a cave
and he just came out, I'm ready.
I've been doing nothing but making blades.
♪ ♪
- It feels good coming back as a champion.
The first time I competed, it was fairly difficult.
I was up against some really good guys.
Nerves and all that kind of take its toll.
But now I think I could come back and do a little better.
- Now Jay made the Zweihander, which,
at the time in season three, was the largest weapon
I think we'd ever done.
- Yeah, he comes in here and hears 11 to 13, he's like,
pfft, got it.
- My biggest concern is having to make a canister.
When I found out I was coming on "Forged in Fire,"
my buddy was like, you've made canister, right?
And I'm like, no, I actually haven't because I
hate the way it looks.
And of course, "Forged in Fire," they know.
They read your mind somehow, and your greatest fear
comes true on The Forge floor.
But I should be able to pull it off.
- All right, first things first.
These guys have to get a canister going.
We've got fishhook, we've got bike chain,
and we've got chainsaw blade.
What would you be going for?
- I think fishhooks.
It makes a really cool pattern, and it's
a finer thing so the welds are easier to get going on.
- The material I choose to put in my can is fishhooks,
and the reason is there's no cleaning.
All the saw blades and the chain
both have oil and grease on it.
Fishhooks, brand new, clean, perfect--
just dump them in.
♪ ♪
- Now we've seen canister done and stripped
in 20 minutes, right?
This is a little bit more difficult than that.
They've got two forge welds to do.
They've got to forge weld that canister,
they've got to prep the canister,
draw it out, cut it, and then do another
forge weld on that 80CrV2.
So it really ups the ante and the difficulty
of this challenge.
♪ ♪
Well, right off the bat, it looks like one of our smiths--
Trevor's decided to grab the White Out.
So he's planning on removing the can.
Now it wasn't a requirement.
Unnecessary step.
- I mean, the option of taking the can off is one thing,
but you could draw that steel out
and just grind the can off one side and then do your restack.
- I think the White Out is going
to help me in the long run.
I'll be able to peel this can off, I'll have a clean billet,
and I'll be able to see any problems
that my billet has with it.
So I won't have any cracks if we get to testing,
and I've got a big old gap in between something.
I'm going to let this White Out dry with just
the air because the last time I competed,
we had to make a pretty big knife
out of a bunch of Damascus plates
that had been abandoned.
I put the White Out into my can, I set it on fire.
It was not supposed to do that.
I should have just let it dry, but it
ended up making my cans stick.
And I spent the majority of my time peeling that off.
- Trevor cooked his White Out before he put his can
together, so you notice that can's
not peeling off real easy.
- So I'm kind of happy that we have to do canister.
And that sounds stupid to say, but I want to redeem myself
and see if I can do it a little bit better this time.
- You know, my concern with Trevor
is he's dumping powder and everything in there,
but I don't think he's giving it
enough time to really dry out.
- Now, he's making this paste on the walls
that won't weld well.
It's the main cause of a difficult can to peel.
♪ ♪
- I'm going to start working on some handle scales.
- So Jay went shopping in the pantry,
and it looks like he grabbed a bunch of very
colorful handle material.
- I remember the first time I competed,
the testing, it was fairly difficult.
So I grabbed three layers of the G10
because I think it offers a lot more strength in the toughness
and durability tests, and it'll add
a little bit of cool factor to the knob,
having the triple colors.
- The nice thing about Jay making his own scales
is that it pulled him away from his forge.
He was busy working on that, and he's
allowing that canister to really heat up.
- Ah.
♪ ♪
- My can took the heat.
I'm going to run to the squaring dice on the press
and just compress it on all sides.
- Trevor's going for his first press.
- Is he actually getting it up to a high enough
weld temperature?
Or did he get the core even to the weld temperature?
- He's glowing pretty good, but it's not at that,
you know, 1,800-plus welding temperature
that we want to see.
- I'm worried about being too aggressive
with this can right now.
If this powder isn't at welding temperature
and I start pushing and pressing,
it's almost like trying to make sand castles
without any water.
It's not going to stick to itself at all.
It's just going to crumble.
And if I push it up too far,
it'll squish out a little line of metal
going all the way down my can.
So that could cause inclusions,
cracks, fissures.
Anything like that, it could really mess up my knife.
- So I wonder how long he's going
to wait to peel that thing.
- I'd like to see him do at least one
more pass until the large dies are touching.
You're reducing the entire canister,
and it should be consolidated by then.
- I've gone over my can a few times now.
I think my billet's is solid.
I'm hoping that I'll be able to tap my billet out.
We're going to see how that goes.
- I've got my weld set.
And I can start drawing out the canister.
- I think that Jay's at a spot now he can run over
to Big Blu on the next pass.
- Yep, that's the plan.
- Because he's not trying to peel this can.
- I mean, that's a 20-minute advantage.
- My plan is to forge a canister,
then three-stack it, then build a tall, narrow billet
to compress and draw out to a blade.
It's quite important that everything's the same size.
If one side is fatter than the other,
what it actually will do is push
the 80CrV2 out of the center.
I may not have hardened steel on the edge
because the core has shifted over, which would be terrible.
♪ ♪
- My can is solid now.
I'm going to cut the top completely off,
and then I'm going to cut the bottom completely off.
And I have one more cut I'm going
to make along the billet.
I'm hoping that this will make it
so I can just tap in the middle,
and my can fall off either side.
- So cutting a slot is kind of like trying to peel
a banana from the middle.
- Yeah.
- And your banana's all chewed up at the end.
- Like eating a burrito sideways.
- Yeah.
- I can see that it's loose, but it's just not budging.
To boot with that, I've got little fissures
on one of these corners.
I think from working on this can so long,
I've introduced cracks.
That's worrying me right now.
I'm hoping one of these strikes, it'll just fall off,
but I'm just going to have to keep on going
and see how far we have to go.
This has taken me a lot longer than I thought it would,
and I'm really wishing for it to fall off at some point.
And I'm hoping there's just a little weld
somewhere I'll have to break.
- There we go. Good to see Trevor switching--
- Perfect.
- Realizing what he was doing wasn't working.
Now he's using the floor vise.
- All right.
- A nice smile going on in there.
- There you go.
- It's a boy. - It worked.
- We questioned the time he allotted for that White Out
to dry, but clearly, the recipe was right.
That can peeled just fine.
- I knew he would do it all along.
- That's got to be a good feeling.
- I'm happy with how the can just peels off,
but I'm seeing smaller cracks along some of these corners.
I don't think I'm going to be able to grind those out,
so I'm just going to cut my losses and cut them off.
- Trevor's billet had some cracking, but now what's left
is kind of like the dimension of a hot dog.
And he needs to get that to be 2 inches wide in order
not to lose any of the 80CrV2
- My initial idea for this knife
is going to be a big Bowie style chopper.
That is one that sticks out to me as just a good style
for this type of competition.
- You know, we've been talking about Trevor a whole bunch
because it's so much going on with him.
Meanwhile, Jay's over here just making a beautiful billet.
- I got my San Mai billet welded together.
I know I've got to start working
on drawing my blade out.
I intend to make a traditional Bowie knife
for this first round, but if things
don't go exactly right, it's going
to be close to a Bowie knife.
- Jay is in a really good spot with that second billet
all welded up.
He's already cleaned the edges up.
- The Bowie knife I'm making, it's a knife I make a lot,
and so I can almost make it in my sleep.
And I'm trying to shape that steel to the size
that I need it to make the knife that I want to make.
- All right, guys, two hours down, three hours left.
- I've got the length and the width on my billet sorted out.
I've got it cleaned up.
I've got it cut in the middle, and I'm
going to stick these two pieces onto that 80CrV2.
- I think the big problem now is that Trevor's platen
steel is looking so thin.
And if you try to bring up the forge weld,
some, like, foil on top of a big chunk in the middle,
it goes all over the place, and it's
just not enough meat there to get a good forge going.
- Where Trevor is right now, what might be a good idea
is to take what he's got,
cut it, clean it, double it over, and fuller that out.
- You know, I'm really hoping for Trevor's sake
that this forge weld goes well.
- Oh, this is where things can go really bad.
This weld doesn't take, or it falls apart
when he's shaping the tip or anything like that,
that'll be catastrophic.
- I can't restart now, so I really need to be
careful with this billet.
- Holy smokes.
♪ ♪
- We're about two hours into the competition right now.
It looks like Jay has a blade starting to take shape.
And on the other side of The Forge,
Trevor seems like he's a bit behind running
into some issues.
- I'm really nervous about that billet,
so I'm going to take my time on this.
- Oh, Lord.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
All righty.
It seems like these sides are stuck on good.
I don't see any cracks.
I don't see any inclusions, anything like that.
It's a big relief.
- Oh, it looks like Trevor's a little bit happier.
His smile is starting to come back, his lips are curling.
- I've really got to get going.
♪ ♪
It looks real nice. - Thanks, bro.
- Jay's getting really close to a quench here.
♪ ♪
- As I'm heating the blade, getting ready to quench,
I keep thinking it's too thick, it's too thick because
the one thing that can go wrong with a super thick blade
is it won't harden correctly.
But the clock is ticking.
I need to quench my blade.
- Oh!
- Jay's in the oil.
- Nice.
- There's still a lot of meat left on it,
and so my main priority is hitting the grinder,
shedding the weight, and getting
it down to a usable size.
- So these guys have five hours to work on the entire blade,
but Trevor has to get this thing quenched
if he has any hope of getting to testing.
- Looking at that clock, it's really bugging me.
I've got to get going if I want this quenched.
I'm trying my best to get this knife up to temperature.
And I'm seeing some places at the tip that are too hot,
and I don't have time to really cool it down.
I've got to quench now.
- What on Earth are you waiting for?
- If this quench doesn't go good, I'm pretty well done.
I'm going to cross my fingers and my toes
and hope everything goes well.
♪ ♪
- I guarantee you that blade is hot right now.
- That's hotter than his steel was when he was welding.
- Probably.
- Hoping there's no warp because he's got
no time to deal with it.
- It doesn't seem to have any extra cracks
or pieces hanging off of it, so I'm
feeling all right about it.
I just have a lot of grinding to do.
- All right, bladesmiths, you guys have an hour left.
- So my handle fit up is really important
because I know how David and those guys
hate a huge, overly big handle.
And if it doesn't feel good, if it's not comfortable,
it's not going to perform well.
- Jay's got a finger weld on his handle,
and he's got the giant swell at the base of the tang.
Is that not good enough?
- It's an aesthetic choice, but it is important
that it's not 1/4 inch off.
You can put it in the wrong spot.
- [bleep]
I'm looking at this blade,
and I see horrible delaminations.
I thought I've gotten rid of all the delaminations,
but they've really spread.
At my home forge, I'm kind of a perfectionist with my knives.
I want them to look really nice.
I want them to look how I envision them.
That's going to really mess with me
here because I'm not going to get the chance
to make it look how I want.
So I got to put that behind me and just focus on getting
something that works.
- This is what he's stuck with.
So delaminations or not, he's stuck with his blade.
- It's looking a little mangled, but--
- Yeah, it's got a little bit of thickness to it.
It's about 3/16, it can deal with a little bit of grinding
and still come out OK.
- I want to chase these delaminations more,
but I've really got to get a handle on.
The judges aren't going to accept it without something
to grab onto.
- We're under ten minutes left
in this "Beat the Unbeaten" competition.
Jay's moving along.
- My stacked handle scale is fitting nice.
So I've got pommel swell on the back,
but it's still overly big handle.
I need to speed up the process, or I'm not going
to be able to be done in time.
♪ ♪
5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines.
Put down your tools.
This first round is now over.
♪ ♪
- I feel really good about my blade,
and I think the judges are going to be really surprised
that I even got one to them.
So I'm proud of that.
♪ ♪
- All right, bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test,
the antler chop.
Jay, you're up first. Are you ready?
- Yeah. Let's do it.
- All right.
♪ ♪
- Testing is always nerve-racking.
You know, I'm confident in my build.
I think everything went OK, but you never
know until it's tested.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jay, well, start up here at the edge,
I don't see any issue.
It's still got a nice fine edge to it.
The handle is comfortable.
I would have liked just the tiniest bit of refinement
right here.
It's just a little fat on my ring finger,
but the retention on it is really good,
the indexing is great, and the edge held up really well.
Nice job. - Thank you.
- All right, Trevor, you're up next.
Are you ready? - Absolutely.
Give it hell. - All right.
♪ ♪
- My number one fear is chipping.
That heat treatment wasn't my best,
and I'm really stressed about what the antlers
are going to do to my blade.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- [whistles]
♪ ♪
- All right, Trevor, we were watching your heat treat
that you did on this, and it was really rushed,
and it was very hot.
And I was nervous that this was going
to be a very brittle blade.
- Me too. - But the edge held up great.
It's amazing.
But I can still see some delaminations.
My big problem is that on this side
there's a delamination that is large enough
that a piece of antler is actually
wedged up in the delamination.
Moving on to your handle, it's a little on the bigger side.
There's about a 1/4 inch, 3/8 of an inch too much handle.
But all in all, man, nice job.
- Thank you.
Appreciate it.
♪ ♪
- All right, champion bladesmiths,
congratulations for making through that strength test.
This is the sharpness test, the Tatami mat slice.
- Jay, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Yeah, let's do it.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jay, let's talk about your San Mai knife.
First up, I like the profile.
I like the way it just matches and glides
right all the way to the tip.
It's a handsome, nice design you have here.
Your handle construction, it just happens
to fit my hand perfectly.
Now, the way you have your grinds,
it allows to cut cleanly through the Tatami mats.
Overall, your weapon, it will cut.
- Thank you.
- All right, Trevor, your turn. So are you ready?
- Yes, sir. - All right.
Let's do this.
♪ ♪
All right, Trevor, I'm really impressed that you were
able to pull this off despite all the troubles
that you were having.
This blade right here performed very well because the edge
is still very razor sharp.
Now, you still have a delamination there that it
took during the strength test.
But it cut cleanly.
Overall, your blade, it'll cut.
- Thank you, sir.
♪ ♪
- Well, gentlemen, I got to say,
it's been a pleasure watching both of you guys
work over the past five hours.
But, unfortunately, we can only bring one of you
into the final round to face off against our titan.
The bladesmith leaving The Forge is...
[dramatic music]
Trevor.
Unfortunately, your blade did not make the cut,
and Doug's going to tell you why.
- Trevor, I have to commend you.
Because despite all the problems you had,
you turned in a blade that performed
very well in our test.
But your blade is the only one that took some damage
during our strength test, and that's the reason
why you're not moving forward.
- Yes, sir.
- Well, Trevor, obviously nothing can
get that smile off your face.
It's very evident you love what you do,
and it's been a pleasure watching you
work at your craft.
But unfortunately, your time here in this competition
has ended.
But before you step off The Forge floor,
we'd all love to shake your hand, man.
- Yes, sir, it was a privilege. Thank, y'all.
- Thank you. - It was really awesome.
- Good job, brother. Good job.
- I may not have won, but this has
been an awesome experience.
And I'm really happy with how I did.
I'm not sad about going home.
I'm really kind of pumped up I get to take a nap.
Jay, you did awesome.
And I am just wishing you the best of luck
going into this next round.
Whoever you're up against is going to need it.
♪ ♪
- Well, Jay, you are the epitome of slow is smooth
and smooth is fast.
Through the whole first round, you kept your head down
and it paid off.
Welcome to round two.
Now, in order to take home the $10,000 check
and your second "Forged in Fire" champion title,
you're going to have to beat an unbeaten competitor.
It'll either be gladiator of The Forge Jesse Hu,
super champ Collin Sage,
or our very own judge Ben Abbott.
- I really don't want to see Ben Abbott.
Pretty sure he could be a Superman.
I don't think that I can actually beat him.
- You ready to find out who that is?
- Oh, yeah.
- All right, man, you are going to have to go
toe to toe with this guy.
♪ ♪
You know what, that's my mistake.
Your competitor's not coming out that door.
You're going to have to beat our judge
who has an unbeaten record, the most wins
in this forge, Ben Abbott.
- Oh, boy.
What's going on, man? - Hey.
Good to see you.
- I see you smiling over there.
Was he your first choice? - No!
[laughter]
- Ben, welcome back to the competition, bud.
- I think every time I do one of these competitions,
the stress level goes up.
I think Jay is a really good competitor,
so winning is not a guarantee.
- You two are going to be competing against
each other over the next eight-hour
weapons building competition.
Now, the choice of weapons is not up to us.
Jay, because you won the first round,
I'm going to open up our "Forged in Fire" vault
and give you access to all the weapons in there
that were built by previous champions.
And you get to select one of them to build against Ben.
Are you ready? - Oh, yeah.
- All right, let's do this.
♪ ♪
- Wow.
All right.
Going up against Ben is going to be super tough.
So I'm going to pick a weapon that
would be a challenge for him hoping that it'll give
me a better advantage.
- Great choice.
All right, Jay, you chose the Medieval Sword of Mystery.
[dramatic music]
- Hmm.
- The Medieval Sword of Mystery has
puzzled the world since its discovery
in England back in 1825.
Believed to date back to the 13th century,
it earned its name for the mysterious inscription
on the blade that to this day, no one
has been able to decipher.
Smiths in the "Forged in Fire" arena
have also attempted to crack this mystery back
in season eight, but a parameter failure
cost one competitor the title.
Now this blade comes with its own very specific parameters.
Your swords will have to have a blade
that measures between 28 and 30 inches from tip to guard.
Now, down to the hilt, you need to have a cruciform guard
and you need to have a disc-shaped pommel.
Now this is called the Medieval Sword of Mystery
because it's got this inscription on it
that nobody can decipher.
In the spirit of this competition,
we don't want that inscription.
We want your blades to say "Forged in Fire."
All right, Jay, you have one more decision to make.
You not only got to choose the weapon,
but you also get to choose the technique
that you and Ben will have to use
in order to make this weapon.
You got anything in mind?
- Yeah, I think we should do a raindrop Damascus.
- Mm, all right.
Now, gentlemen, we have put eight hours on the clock.
Good luck.
Your eight hours starts now.
♪ ♪
All right, we've got Ben going against Jay.
They've got to make the Medieval Sword of Mystery.
It's a very large blade.
They've got to do it in raindrop pattern Damascus.
- Welding!
- So Jay picks the Medieval Sword of Mystery.
He also picks raindrop Damascus.
So I decide I'm going to get 23 layers of 1095 and 15N20,
forge all those together.
Then I can cut my billet into six pieces,
and stack three on top, 80CrV2 in the middle,
and then three on the bottom.
I feel like that's going to give a really
nice raindrop pattern, something that
stands out and is visible.
- This is why he has the most wins.
Look at his face. We're eight minutes into it.
He's running.
♪ ♪
- Facing off against Ben, with that kind of record,
it's a tall order.
Welding!
My biggest concern right now is, of course, the clock,
but I'm just trying to get this thing
together as fast as I can.
♪ ♪
- I think every time I do one of these competitions,
the stress level goes up.
And this sword makes this even worse.
It's just so much to do, and I'm just nervous that I'm
not going to have enough time.
- Ooh, that's a biggun'.
- For me to get a good raindrop pattern,
I'm going to cut and restack my billet to end
up with 139 layers total.
OK, welding!
- One thing I've noticed is, when you guys are competing,
you do a lot of what you say at the table
while you're out working on the floor.
Ben's no different.
He talks about pace. He talks about speed.
He talks about multitasking.
And he's sprinting.
- I'm right on track for where I want to be.
Here we go.
Looking good.
- Jay, Ben, gentlemen, you guys have six hours left.
All right, here we go. Jay on the press.
He's going nice and slow. Easy task.
- Jay's stacked so tall, and that's where
you've got to be careful.
But, man, it's taking forever.
- Yeah, it really is.
- In a competition, usually I have
a plan that I'm sticking to.
That's why I go really slow, really easy.
Draw it out.
Make sure everything's really even and nice.
Beautiful.
- So Ben's got his final billet drawn out.
This is going to be a really long process.
It seems like a pretty straightforward blade,
just double-edged straight blade cross guard.
But raindrop is going to add a ton of time.
- Oh, my gosh.
This is the fun stuff right here.
- It's important to not draw your billet
to its final length before putting the raindrop pattern.
Because in order to expose the pattern,
I need to drill in some divots all along the blade
and then hammer those divots flat.
- Holy cow, Ben put so many raindrops in that.
- Raindrops?
More like a torrential downpour.
- I'm hoping it's going to turn out well.
There's a lot of other steps in this,
but I think I'm on track.
- Now, we're almost halfway into the competition already,
and both Ben and Jay have a ton of process left
to do if they're going to have any hope
of getting this blade done.
- Instead of cutting my billet into little bitty short pieces
and then restacking my billet, I decided I'm going
to do the hot fold method.
Whoa, Nelly.
It saves a lot of time.
You can produce a high layer helm super fast.
Whoo!
- That Z fold requires so much cleaning of the material.
- Oh, he didn't clean it?
- This could be a problem.
- Yeah, it looks like Jay's going to be relying on flux.
- The problem is fluxing metal that already has forged scale
on it, the flux is going to keep
forged scale from building up.
- But it was already there to begin with.
- Right. - So this is critical.
- [bleep]. Oh, man.
- Oh, guys, it's not working.
Jay's billet is opening up on the press.
- Well, I'm panicking.
If I can't get this billet to stick,
I could be going home.
- This next heat is the do or die.
If it doesn't stick, he's in trouble.
- Now we're almost halfway into the competition already,
and both Ben and Jay have a ton of process left
to do if they're going to have any hope
of getting this blade done.
- [bleep]. Oh, man.
- Oh, guys, it's not working.
Jay's billet is opening up on the press.
- Well, I'm panicking.
If I can't get this billet to stick,
I'll probably be trying to flag down a taxi...
[laughs] And go home.
Try this damn thing again.
Hopefully, I can just put a lot of flux
on it to get it to stick.
- This next heat is the do or die.
If it doesn't stick, he's in trouble.
- Got it!
Whoo!
I got it to weld.
Thankfully, it worked out.
♪ ♪
- So Ben's getting ready to do his quench.
♪ ♪
- All right, here we go.
♪ ♪
- All right, 3 hours and 15 minutes left.
Ben's now quenched.
- Looking good.
It looks straight to me.
Time to go get to work on the pommel and the crossguard.
♪ ♪
- I feel like I'm struggling to keep up with the pace
that I need to keep up.
I peeked over at Ben, and the way he was running around,
I thought he might be building a spaceship.
When you're going up against the best,
you got to get crafty.
- No way.
He's making a raindrop die.
Smart move.
- That's going to speed up this process tenfold.
Yeah, we were talking about the raindrop
being the most time consuming part of this build,
and he's just knocked a ton of that process out.
♪ ♪
- Hey, OK.
I got my pommel and the guard all done.
Now it's time to put in the lettering
so that I can go to the edge.
- What's going to be interesting is how
they're going to be putting "Forged in Fire"
down that blade.
- There's two basic ways to do it.
One, they could engrave it.
It's what I did. Worked out great.
The other way is to use, like, a nail polish
and paint on what you want.
Then when you acid etch, it'll cut away everything
that's not on that resist.
♪ ♪
- I'm really worried for Jay.
As he grinds, he's going to find things
trapped inside that blade because he
didn't do that cleaning step.
- [groans]
[bleep]
As I'm grinding my blade, I see
it's got bubbles all over it.
- See, this is what I was worried about.
- I have to make sure these delams,
they're only on the surface and they don't go deeper.
♪ ♪
Whoo-hoo!
It's just surface issue, so it's solid,
but it's not like I would like for it to be.
Now I got to get this thing quenched.
- You know, we were worried about Jay continuing
with that initial billet, but it seems like he's
moving along with it.
So hopefully, it's working out.
- There's a couple surface delams that I wasn't able
to completely get out, but I just have
to go with what I've got.
♪ ♪
- There we go.
All right, Jay is now quenched.
- Hard.
The quench went pretty well, but I hope these little issues
don't cost me in the end.
- Jay, Ben, guys, you got one hour till testing.
♪ ♪
- I pulled the sword out of the edge,
and bright as day there is all the letters.
They look amazing.
But right now, I don't have time to sit and stare at it.
I need to finish getting my sword together,
and I don't have much time left.
Jay's a really good competitor, and I saw him
doing some things that were really intelligent.
So now it's just going to come down to how they perform.
- Jay is well on his way.
He's got a fully formed blade.
Now it's just a matter of getting his handle fit up.
- It's really important to have the right weight on a blade,
but the clock is ticking.
I need to start working on putting my handle together
or I may not be able to finish on time.
- He needs to put a handle on it pretty quick
and get to the grinder.
He has, by far, the largest blade out there by volume.
- My plan from the get was to build a simple blade.
Ben's got a few more fancy-dancy pieces on his,
and so I think if it comes down to fit and finish,
he's definitely going to have an advantage.
But nothing is 100%.
♪ ♪
Shew!
Damn.
It's a little bit heavy.
The only thing left to do is just getting the blade thinned
down, getting the edge thinned down,
and just bringing that blade into the final form.
♪ ♪
- 5, 4, 3, 2, 1.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines.
Put down your tools. This round is over.
♪ ♪
- I'm feeling good.
I made a sword that I'm proud of.
It looks beautiful.
I could have used some more time on the grinder,
but it feels good in my hand.
We'll see.
♪ ♪
- Champions, welcome to the dynamic KEAL test.
♪ ♪
Jay, you're up first. Are you ready for this?
- Let's do this.
I'm worried about a couple surface delams that I wasn't
able to completely get out.
So that makes me kind of nervous.
But anything can happen.
♪ ♪
- All right, Jay, let's talk about your sword here.
First up, when I picked it up,
I was wondering about the kind of wrap
that you're putting on this, but it actually works
very well, and it's comfortable.
Nice job on that.
The pommel does pull back a little bit on the balance,
but it's still a little bit forward heavy.
Now, your edge-- those first shots
were very deep into this pig carcass.
But after the clay pot shot,
you could see that there was some type of dulling because
it didn't cut as sharp.
But more importantly, your weapon, sir, it will KEAL.
- Thank you.
- OK, Ben, your turn, sir. Are you ready?
- Sure. - All right, let's do this.
♪ ♪
- Going into testing, I felt nervous.
I've seen them chip out blades.
I've seen them do serious damage.
So now I'm just hoping that my edge geometry
is good enough to hold up.
♪ ♪
- All right, Ben, first up, your handle dimensions
are perfect for my hands.
I also like the work that you did with your pommel
and your guard.
Now, your edge--same thing.
Your first initial cuts are very deep,
but after the clay pot strikes, you can see
where it took some dulling in the sweet spot
right here.
But it will KEAL.
♪ ♪
- All right, gentlemen, it's time
for our dynamic strength test,
the bamboo and watermelon chop.
Jay, you're up first.
- Let's do it.
After the first test, I'm worried about my edge.
Because if my knife doesn't perform
and doesn't cut like it needs to,
I could be going home.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- All right, Jay, right off, there's an edge there.
I wouldn't want to be hit with this thing.
[laughs]
And you can see, it cut into the bamboo,
and it cut through the bags.
But it's an impact tool as opposed
to a really slicing tool.
All in all, I think it's a really good-looking piece.
But as far as the edge goes, it's just not as sharp
as I'd really like it to be.
♪ ♪
All right, Ben, are you ready to go?
- Do it, Dave. - All right.
♪ ♪
- Good job, man.
- Thanks, man.
♪ ♪
- All right, Ben, first off, beautiful pattern.
- Thank you. - That really came out well.
You know, I can see the raindrops
on all the high spots.
That's really nicely done.
It's got a good weight to it.
It's not very heavy.
As far as the cutting goes, blade held up fine.
It's easy to use, and it's got a good feel
to it, so nicely done.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- All right, gentlemen, very difficult eight-hour round.
We got two blades that survived the strength, sharpness,
and KEAL test, and now comes a time when the judges need
to take a closer look and decide which one of you
is coming out on top.
So if you could please give us a moment
and step off The Forge floor.
♪ ♪
From where I was standing, it looked pretty close.
Curious what you guys think. Doug, I'll start with you.
- Boy, these are very evenly matched.
When it comes to Ben's blade,
I love the overall look.
The weight is so much better with his blade.
- OK. Dave, what about you?
- When I pick up swords in this type,
the main thing I want to be able to do
is move it and fight with it.
Jay's weapon is at least 3/4 of a pound
heavier than Ben's weapon.
And when fighting, for me, that's a huge game changer.
The blade, it more smashed the watermelons
than cut them at all.
Literally, I could run my finger on it.
Ben's blade, it functions a lot better.
- OK. Doug, you made your choice?
- A very difficult one.
- Dave, you made yours? - Yeah.
- All right, I'll call them in.
♪ ♪
Gentlemen, this has been a very exciting competition.
You both performed extremely well,
so much so that it made for a very difficult
decision for our judges.
The winner of this "Beat the Unbeaten" competition is...
♪ ♪
Ben Abbott.
Now, Jay, you fought extremely hard.
You gave us a great blade, but, unfortunately,
it just didn't make the cut today.
And Dave's going to tell you why.
- Jay, this was really close.
Both of your blades took almost identical damage.
Both of your blades performed very closely.
So this came down to the finest of details.
Your competitor just beat you out by that much with the fit
and finish of his blade.
- Well, Jay, you're clearly a fierce competitor,
a talented smith.
And before you step off the floor,
I would love to shake your hand.
You have fun? - Oh, yeah.
To not get the win, you know, that stinks.
But this whole experience has been great.
We made awesome swords, and it feels good to say Ben Abbott
just beat me by this much.
♪ ♪
- Well, Ben, by that reaction, I think you're a little bit
surprised, but congratulations, buddy,
you are currently undefeated with a record of 10 and 0.
- Thank you, guys.
- How you feeling? - Oh, I'm amazed.
I'm relieved.
- Well, Benny boy, your time on that side is done.
Come back over here, bud.
- Any victory is a victory, but one
against a really talented smith like Jay
just means that much more.
He was a tough competitor, for sure.
Keeping the streak going is amazing,
but I know there's somebody somewhere that's going
to be a faster draw than me.
And I'm just happy I came out on top on this one.
♪ ♪