[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- my name is chris coe, I'm 40 years old,
and I've been bladesmithing for several years now.
I have a huge appreciation
for the military and the veterans.
My father is a vietnam vet.
He served in the united states army.
He was in the infantry and on huey helicopters.
This is a knife I made for my father
out of recycled huey helicopter parts.
I actually had to smuggle it out of his office
to bring it here.
- My name's brandon rader I'm 35 years old.
I'm a disabled veteran.
I was in the 173rd, 1st of 508.
When I started bladesmithing, I realized there was
more therapeutic things behind it,
and it just kept going from there.
I'm excited. No, it's gonna be
a fun ride to party town.
- My name's trish arno, and I'm 41 years old.
I joined the army after 9/11
because so many families lost their loved ones,
and I wanted to be able to do something
to give back to those families.
During basic training, I sustained
multiple stress fractures throughout both legs.
They sent me home on an honorable medical discharge.
I took up forging so I could kind of keep my body loose.
It gave me a new purpose and brought
a lot of life to me.
- My name is mike rizzo.
I'm 31 years old, and I'm a commercial building manager.
I served in the army for four years
and did a tour in iraq.
The name of my forge is muffin man metalworks.
The nickname came when I painted
the room in my house "warm muffin."
so now I'm known as the muffin man.
[laughs]
[suspenseful music]
- bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
You're about to take part in three rounds
of intense forging competition.
At the end of each round, I want you to present your work
to my panel of expert judges.
The judges today are gonna be
two-time "forged in fire" champion ben abbott.
Next, we've got historic weapons re-creation specialist
dave baker.
And finally, edged weapon specialist
and kali martial artist doug marcaida.
Remember, there's $10,000
and the title of "forged in fire" champion
on the line, so I wanna see your absolute best work.
Today in the forge, we're feeling a little patriotic.
So we're gonna salute our veterans
by giving you a competition unlike anything
we've seen before.
Today, we're not gonna ask you to build one blade.
We're gonna ask you to build four different knives.
Next to me, you see four crates.
In each crate, there's a knife
from the case american heroes knife series.
Each one is codesigned by a distinguished veteran
from the u.S. Military.
Your challenge today is to come up,
select a crate at random, and build the knife inside.
But inside each crate, you'll also find
a specific technique we want you to use
to build that knife.
Chris, come on up, select your blade.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
you've selected the lamb hunter,
codesigned by u.S. Army special missions unit
sergeant major kyle lamb.
This knife features deep finger grooves
in the ricasso
and a very effective spear-point tip.
The design of this knife is well-suited
for someone like kyle lamb,
who's a professional outdoorsman.
You see there you need to build your knife
using a san mai method.
- [bleep]. [laughs]
san mai to me has always been the dark art.
It's not my strong suit.
- All right, brandon, you're up next.
Come on up and select a crate. - Outstanding.
♪ ♪
- you selected the hambone. This knife was codesigned
by medal of honor recipient
u.S. Army staff sergeant clint romesha.
This knife features an exposed tang at the pommel,
wide bevels, and an upswept cutting edge.
This knife was born from clint's love for the hunt,
and it was made specifically for skinning game.
You'll also notice on the spine of this weapon,
there are eight stars.
Each one was placed there to memorialize
the team members clint lost
during operation enduring freedom.
And you'll see there you also have to build this knife
using a twisted damascus pattern.
All right, trish, come on up and select your crate.
♪ ♪
all right, you've chosen the skinner.
This knife was codesigned by u.S. Army
and u.S. Navy special operator kevin holland.
This lightweight knife design features a flat grind
and a distal taper.
This here is a versatile knife.
It was built for any camping situation
or even as a reliable hunting knife.
And just to make it a little harder,
you're gonna need to use a canister damascus technique
to build this knife. - Oh, yeah.
Oh, god, kill me now. [laughs]
skinner knife--no problem.
Can is the problem.
Gotta get past that before I can make a skinner.
- Last but not least, mike. Come on up, man,
select your crate.
- What a selection. - Yeah.
♪ ♪
you've selected the recurve utility no. 6,
codesigned by u.S. Navy
special operator harry bologna.
This knife features a thick spine for striking,
an exposed tang at the pommel, and an s curve cutting edge
made to maximize cutting ability.
You've gotta build that knife
using a raindrop pattern damascus.
- [clicks tongue] - make sure you follow
these parameters.
Your knife needs to be between
7 and 9 inches
from tip to plunge grind, and in round two
of this competition, you're gonna be adding handles
to your knives, making them fully functioning weapons.
We're gonna be checking your strength and durability
doing an e-tool and canteen chop.
And to test your edge retention,
we'll be doing a gunpowder bag swipe.
You'll only have three hours to complete these tasks,
so good luck; do your best.
Your time starts now.
[exciting music]
- ha-ha! - And the adventure continues!
We've got veterans out there on the floor.
Doug's a veteran, and you're a veteran too
from the army, correct? - Yes, sir.
I spent some time in the special forces
during iraq.
But it's good to see we've got
some people in the forge today
that support our brave warriors
and come here to do their best.
- 90% of metalwork is preparatory,
so I'm cleaning every side on the grinder.
- That prep at the beginning will save you so much time
once those welds start to form.
- That's kind of funny; my father, back in vietnam,
he had a sergeant major who always talked about
the seven ps: Proper prior planning
prevents piss-poor performance.
- I'm gonna use every single piece of steel
given in front of me.
- Holy cow. - [laughs]
- you guys seeing the size of mike's stack over here?
- I'm starting off with more layers than I need,
but I'd rather have it and not need it
than need it and not have it. That's a saying, right?
[laughs]
[rock music]
- I'm excited about this knife.
It looks like a camp knife designed by rambo.
- That canister is large.
That's gonna be a lot of steel to work with.
You can cut a lot of that material off
and save it as backup.
- I know I'm gonna have to peel it off
instead of shaving it off so that I can make sure
I have a hardenable edge.
- So it looks like trish put white out
in her canister, but she's letting it sit.
- Yeah, very important.
We see a lot of the smiths rush the process,
and they wind up putting white out on everything
they put in the can.
- Do not stab me. Ouch.
- San mai's the process of having a hardened billet
with a soft outer jacket on the blade,
and I don't have a lot of experience with it.
So it's gonna be uphill battle from the get-go.
- Ben, there's two ways to make san mai, right?
- Yeah, the taco method, where you take
a piece of mild steel and you wrap it
around the high carbon steel.
Another way is, you just start
with three separate pieces of steel.
That way, you see on the spine
and on the blade that inner core.
- I'm drawing out the mild steel first
because I'm thinking it would be the quickest thing
to work with.
[groans]
[dramatic music]
the mild steel did not go as planned.
I know I'm gonna have to start over
while there's still time on the clock.
Yeah, I got a big problem with that.
We ain't coming back from it.
One of those days. [laughs]
- almost ready to start moving metal.
Before I start making this knife,
I gotta get my steel together.
I need to start alternating layers
so that way the pattern will show up
with the different kinds of metal.
- Brandon is worrying me. That billet is not hot enough.
- Oh! Did you see that?
- Yeah. - Come on with it.
No plan survives first contact.
I knew I had to break off, regroup,
adapt, improvise, overcome,
and move on to the next objective.
- Brandon lost some of his metal,
and it is a very skinny billet that he has right now.
- He probably should have started over.
- There's still one fully forged, welded
on the end of the stick.
I'm not gonna have as much steel as I wanted,
but I'll work with it.
- Two hours remaining!
- My welds appear to be solid,
and I'm going to make another two passes
just to make sure they're super solid.
- The guy in the lead right now is mike.
Now it's just a matter of putting
the raindrop pattern in there.
- To get a good pattern, you need a lot of layers.
- Even after 19 layers,
I now have 19 different points where something could fail.
So I'd rather not risk cutting and restacking it
and starting that whole process all over again.
It's all about making it look good, right?
[laughs] - now I know how david felt
against goliath. - [laughs]
[rock music]
- looks like trish is in the press right now,
using the squaring dies. - Yeah, and I don't think
that billet was hot enough either.
♪ ♪
- ah, [bleep]! - Oh, no.
- I'm seeing these sparks, and I know
that that means that the powdered steel
is still in powdered form.
It's not compressed, so now I'm letting
oxygen into the canister and just creating
all kinds of inclusions and delaminations
throughout that billet.
I don't know if that's salvageable.
Think I'm gonna need a new can.
- Even though that billet was leaking,
it didn't leak that badly.
She could have gone over, welded that hole closed,
and continued to work on it.
She didn't need to build a new one.
- Hail mary time.
[heavy metal music]
- I have a good set of forge-welded damascus.
Now it's time to set the pattern.
I fired, so hopefully I got enough
to twist it and then draw it back out.
- When you do that twist, you lose a lot of material,
and if you're just close to what you need with the twist,
you're not gonna have enough by the time you grind it.
- I'm gonna try to twist this steel
as much as I can without getting any kind
of delaminations on it and still have enough twist
in there to pull a pretty pattern.
The whole machine just starts pushing and rocking on me.
I gotta bury my knee into it.
It doesn't have as many twists as I want,
but I think I have enough steel at this point
to get the dimensions and widths
and still pull the pattern out.
We're getting there, brother. We're getting there, now.
[exciting music]
- after the attempt with the mild steel failed,
I realized that I should have just started
with the high carbon billet and worked from there.
- Chris is still just drawing out
the three components of his san mai.
I don't think he's ever forged welded them together yet.
- The clock is not my friend. I have to get moving.
- Come on, little can.
After the first can was so big,
I'm thinking maybe two smaller ones
will fare better for me.
- Do you think there's any coming back from this?
- Well, there's the legend of neil kamimura.
He did a knife from a raw can
to something on the table in 32 minutes.
- She's got quite a bit more than that at this point.
- [groans]
I am screwed!
- That billet is not hot enough.
[dramatic music]
- the heat in here is no joke.
I did basic training in south carolina,
in the dead of summer, but this is like
standing in the desert next to a lava flow.
- One hour remaining!
♪ ♪
- you okay?
- I'm hot and dizzy.
- You're dizzy?
- I can't breathe. I can't catch my breath.
I know I have to get out of here.
- It looks like trish just got escorted
off the floor by the medic.
- Yeah, I think she's reached her limit.
♪ ♪
off the floor by the medic.
- The physical aspect of these competitions
can be brutal.
- In my head, I wanna go,
but body's just like, "you're done."
- so what do you wanna do?
'cause it's ultimately up to you.
- I wanna give it one last hoorah.
- Okay. - I didn't come here
to friggin' quit.
I'm not gonna stop. I'm gonna keep going.
- Hey, look who's back!
- Welcome back! - Welcome!
- Great. - I ain't dead yet!
- Let's go!
- It doesn't matter how much time's on that clock.
I am going to take what's left of the first billet,
and I'm gonna just try to put out there
whatever I can.
- If she's got 2/3 of that billet
welded together, she's got more than enough metal
to make that knife.
[rock music]
- now it's time to do my raindrop pattern.
- To do raindrops, you just drill
some shallow impressions in your billet
and then forge it out. You've got a raindrop pattern.
- [laughs] the drill bit's glowing.
- Right?
- It's a struggle to just get any sort of drill bit
to drill into the billet.
- Hey, mike, how many bits is that so far?
- [laughs] it's chewing right through 'em.
- Mike is drilling on very hot steel
and ruining the temper of his drill bit.
- I'm really not a fan of raindrop damascus
at this point.
I'm no weatherman, but I think that's some raindrops.
- Whoa!
- Okay, now, finally,
with less than an hour remaining,
chris is tack welding his three layers
for his san mai billet.
- I have to get this thing forge welded.
Not going very good.
I have a really bad offset on the tip,
where one side's thicker than the other.
I should have welded up further to the tip
and then blended that in that way,
but I'm just trying to work with what I got.
[dramatic music]
- brandon quenched.
♪ ♪
- [groans]
attention to details-- forgot the stars, brother.
The stars on the spine of this blade represent
the eight members of clint romesha's team
that did not make it back.
So I cannot forget to put these stars
on the back of this knife.
I have to put it back in the forge
so I can work with the metal and chisel it in.
- Instead of putting those stars in now,
he doesn't need to do that until the next round.
- Well, if he wants to do it on the soft steel,
he has to do it before he quenches.
- All right.
I'm gonna have to re-quench it,
and it's a risky choice because it's already been
heat-treated and hardened.
And I can get delamination, fractures--
all kinds of stuff can go wrong.
Ooh! She hard, man.
- 20 minutes remaining on the clock!
- I'm running out of time.
I gotta get something going here.
- It seems like what trish is gonna do now
is attempt to peel that can away.
- There we go! Finally!
I don't care what it is. I'm turning in something.
I'd rather get a lump of coal for christmas
than nothing at all. [laughs]
- trish is working to the end. I like that.
- It kind of gets my heart going a little bit.
It brings you back to my time in training,
when the first thing that came to my mind is "quit."
it's the easiest thing to do.
The hardest thing to do is to stick it out.
♪ ♪
five minutes remaining!
- And three of our blades have not been quenched.
- I'm getting ready to quench to blade.
It could warp. I could delam.
It could twist. It could crack.
I don't have enough time on the clock
for any of that.
- And we got a quench. Chris quenched.
- The clock is ticking away,
and I gotta get this thing in the oil.
- Just quench it.
- There's a quench. - Thank you!
- I'm just hoping I got a straight blade.
- Trish could run with a hail mary quench right now.
- She's not giving up.
- No, she's not. She's tough.
- Five, four, three,
two, one!
Bladesmiths, put down your weapons!
Turn off your machines!
This round of competition is over!
[tense music]
- time's up and I'm looking at
the first incomplete knife I've ever made.
So I know I'm as cooked as that piece of steel
on that anvil, but I didn't go down without a fight.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, in round one, you had three hours
to work on your case american hero knives.
It was an absolute tough one, so thank you
for giving your best work.
Unfortunately, trish, in that time,
you weren't able to finish your knife,
but I wanna say thank you because although it was
extremely difficult, you ran up against the wall
countless times, you didn't give up.
So I'm gonna ask you to surrender your steel
and leave the forge floor. - Yes, sir.
Thank you, guys.
I'm proud of myself for sticking in there.
You know, obviously, I wish I could have
produced something more knife-looking.
I'm sorry I couldn't give you something better.
- [laughs] - you never quit, girl.
That's--that's what it's about.
- Good luck, guys.
I didn't give up because I don't quit.
I'm stubborn. [laughs]
that's why I joined the army.
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen, you're still here.
Congratulations. But we're not out
of the woods yet. At this point,
I'm gonna have the judges check your blades
and make sure you're within parameters.
Mike, you had the recurve utility no. 6,
codesigned by harry bologna.
Please present your weapon.
[dramatic music]
- hi, mike.
You did a great job on this so far.
Some of the little issues: The handle, in general,
is really massive.
It's got another inch and a half
to what it needs to have.
But all your welds are tight.
Well done. - Thank you.
- Brandon, you had the hambone, codesigned by clint romesha.
Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, brandon.
When you lost half your stack,
you got us worried over here 'cause it looked like
a very lean billet that you had,
but you made it through.
I can see the twist pattern right there.
Good job on that.
And I really appreciate that you got
the eight stars in there to really commemorate
and give homage to what romesha was really trying to do
with the hambone knife.
Good job.
- All right, chris, you're up next.
You had the lamb hunter in the san mai method.
Please present your work.
♪ ♪
- right off the bat, you do have a san mai happening here,
but that hard core has a crack in it
that goes right across the blade edge.
That has to be dealt with.
If we move into testing, we've almost got
a blade that's guaranteed to fail.
From now on, it's just refining
what you've got going here and fixing this issue.
- Guys, congratulations.
You made it past round one.
We're moving into round two.
At this point, we're gonna ask you
to put scales on your blades,
making them fully-functioning weapons,
using only the synthetic materials in the pantry.
Any of the unique features you have
in your case american heroes knives,
we wanna see those at the end of this round.
We'll be testing the durability and strength of your weapons
in the e-tool and canteen chop,
and checking your edge retention
in the gunpowder bag slice.
You only have two hours to complete your work.
So good luck.
Your time starts now.
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪
based on what you guys said in the critique,
it sounds like chris has absolutely the most to do
in this round.
- He's got a crack that runs
right across the edge of the blade.
He needs to fill that with weld
and then do an edge quench, or chris is going to lose
the temper on either side of that weld.
- My blade might not be in the best shape,
but I'm confident I can turn this around.
- I think it's safe to say chris is gonna be
re-quenching his blade.
What do you think could go wrong?
- It's gonna be too soft.
It's not gonna hold up to the test,
so we're gonna see some rolling.
- A three-hour round one was a time crunch.
Two hours is just a whole nother ball game,
and I'm really feeling the stress.
- Mike has a handle that's so wicked long,
so it's out of proportion.
[tense music]
- now that I've got my tang shortened,
I immediately start slotting some little channels
above my tang for a thumb grip.
Am I 100% happy with my blade shape?
Of course not.
Time is not on our side here,
so I gotta move on to create this handle.
- I'm feeling good.
I got the holes drilled in my handle.
Coming up behind you, brother.
I move back over to my work station...
[rock music]
what in the world did I do?
And that's when I realized I missed one of the holes,
and it does not match up.
You gotta be [bleep] with me, man.
If I don't fix this issue, scale's gonna break off.
It's gonna fail.
- Is brandon cutting out new handle scales?
- Sometimes the best thing to do
is not try to fix the problem, but just start over.
- It's time to choose my handle material,
and I see this honeycomb pattern.
That's the handle I want on it.
It's indexable. They're all symmetric shapes.
If I can align one side up
and drill through to the other side,
I have a mirror image of the other side.
It basically aligned itself.
- Looks like we got chris gluing up
his handle scales now.
- I'm shocked that I made up this much time
making the handles.
- Gentlemen, you got one hour remaining!
- I have all the holes drilled on one scale.
Now I'm trying to do a mock fit up
of the other scale.
[bleep]!
And we're off by just fractions of an inch.
Struggling to get this thing to line up together.
The longer I spend messing around with these pins,
the less time I have to finish my blade.
[bleep]!
To line up together to get a handle glued up.
[dramatic music]
[drill whirring]
I'm just oblong-ing the holes to make it work.
If one of those pins doesn't line up,
I'm just gonna fill it with goop and hope it works.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- the edge that I'm going for
on my blade is more curved in,
like a meat cleaver style.
I think it'll help me some during the chopping test.
The last thing I want is to remove way too much metal
and have a weak spot.
I've come way too far in this competition
to mess up on these final few steps.
- All right, gentlemen, you got 30 minutes remaining.
[exciting rock music]
- I got my crack fixed,
I got my handle on,
and now I'm moving on to the final touches.
I have to make those grooves
in the finger wells of the hunter.
I use a triangular file to actually cut the grooves.
- I'm quite impressed with the work that chris has done.
Round one, we thought he wouldn't even finish.
You stay in the fight all the way till the end.
[upbeat music]
- I don't normally forge a lot of recurves.
They tend to be very difficult to sharpen.
They can get a bit awkward on a grinder.
- It is possible for mike to go too far in sharpening,
make a really, really fine edge,
and get all sorts of problems in the strength test.
[rock music]
- I cannot have any hot spots in this handle
because if it's not comfortable,
it's gonna just cause more stress to your body
that you do not need.
- Brandon's knocking down those handle edges.
Now if you go to one of the finishing belts
and then run it at a slow speed,
it actually does that beautifully and evenly.
- So that's the perfect machine
for what he's doing right now. - Sure.
- And he's using a dremel and an angle grinder.
- Yep.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- razor sharp.
- Five, four, three,
two, one!
Turn off your machines!
Put down your tools!
This round is over!
- I'm extremely excited for testing
'cause it wasn't easy on me,
and I don't want the judges to be easy on that.
I want it to come full circle.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the strength test.
To test the strength and durability
of your edges as well as the overall construction
of your knives, I'll be chopping them
into this canteen and e-tool.
Mike, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Send it.
[dramatic music]
this is definitely the most brutal thing
we're gonna be doing, so I'm super anxious
about what's gonna happen to my blade.
♪ ♪
[exhales sharply]
[uneasy music]
- all right, mike. I like this knife.
It's a good reproduction of the recurve utility no. 6.
Your handle--that's a perfectly-sized handle.
Nicely done, but that being said,
it did take a chip, definitely from the canteen.
So didn't come out unscathed,
but it came through this test really well.
So nice job. - Thank you.
- All right, brandon, you're up next.
You ready? - Range is hot, brother.
- All right.
- Going into this test,
I'm really nervous about the chop.
I do not want my spine to break on this knife.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- all right, brandon. Well, your finger well spacing
is spread out.
You know, I can't hold this with a fist.
I have to hold it at an angle
in order to get my fingers in all the wells.
So that's an issue, but the knife is in one piece.
Well done. - Thank you, sir.
- All right, chris, you're up. You ready?
- Have at it. - All right.
[tense music]
- the canteen, I don't have too much concern over.
It's the e-tool that I'm worried about
'cause of all the repairs that had to go on to the blade.
I'm concerned about having two knives
at the end of the strength test:
A handle and a blade.
♪ ♪
that had to go on to the blade,
I'm concerned about having two knives
at the end of the strength test.
[suspenseful music]
[rock music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- well, chris, I have a feeling
that the mig welding you did close to the edge
without re-quenching has led to a softening of the blade,
'cause there is a deflection right here at edge,
where I struck the metal.
But the rest of the blade held up,
came out the other side in one piece.
So nice job. - Thank you.
[suspenseful music]
- all right, bladesmiths, this is the sharpness test:
The gunpowder bag slice.
To find out how sharp your weapons are,
I will take your weapon and try to cut cleanly
on this canvas bag filled with powder.
Mike, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Let's do it. - Let's do this.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
all right, mike, let's talk about
your recurve utility knife no.6.
Your edge took some damage in the beginning,
but it was not a factor at all in slicing the bags.
Overall, sir, it'll cut.
- Thank you.
- All right, brandon, it's your turn, so you ready?
- Sweep and clear, sir.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- all right, brandon, let's talk about
your hambone knife here.
On this particular test, it cut deep
and it cut cleanly.
Overall, sir, it'll cut.
- Thank you, sir.
- Chris, you're up. You ready?
- Swing it.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- all right, chris, let's talk about
your lamb hunter knife here.
I love the handle because all that stippling
you did there really gives a very nice grip to your blade.
Now the edge itself:
The grind that you have in here
is very wide and obtuse, almost like an ax-head.
It cuts but not deeply because, as you can see,
I can run my finger this way.
It's not as sharp as you would have
with a different grind.
But overall, sir, it did cut.
- Thank you.
[uneasy music]
- bladesmiths, we have finished our american hero knives,
and we've gone through two rounds of grueling testing.
The judges have made a decision, and only two of you
will be moving forward into round three.
And the bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
chris.
You're not gonna be going forward.
Doug will tell you why.
- Chris, at the end of the day,
the bags speak for themselves.
The sharpness test, your blade was just outperformed
by the other two knives.
- I understand.
- Chris, you fought very hard,
but unfortunately, I'm gonna have to ask you
to leave the forge floor.
- Gentlemen, it's been an honor.
- You too, brother.
- I completely agree
with the judges' decision on my blade.
It did a lot better than I thought it was gonna do,
but it just didn't cut it in the end.
One thing I'm gonna take away from this experience is,
no matter how hard you think it's gonna be,
you just have to keep going.
♪ ♪
[dramatic music]
- mike, brandon, congratulations, guys.
You made it this far.
In round three, we're sending you home
for four days to re-create a weapon
from american military history,
and that weapon is...
The american eagle head saber.
- [laughs] - [exhales, laughs]
- the american eagle head saber
was carried by some of the earliest soldiers
in american military.
Wildly used during the war of 1812,
featuring a long, slightly curved blade,
the weapon was known to inflict deep, lethal cuts.
The iconic sword stands out because of the bald eagle
prominently carved in the pommel.
The eagle became the national bird in 1782
and is sacred among native american tribes.
Before there were any mass-produced
military-issue weapons, these sabers were made
by civilians and prized by u.S. Officers.
There were many variations and styles built,
which makes them highly collectible today.
Gentlemen, pay close attention because you must stay
within the following parameters:
Your blade needs to be between 28 and 30 inches,
and you need to include an eagle head pommel.
- I'm immediately terrified.
I've made one sword before,
and it took much longer than four days to make.
- Bladesmiths, good luck. We'll see you in four days.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- day one--I'm glad to finally be back home
at my home forge, back in my element.
I felt a little caged up down there,
but they set the dog loose, man.
It's time to get some fun stuff going.
Got some heavier truck spring.
It's good steel, so I wanna get it
to where I'm not gonna put any stress fractures
or anything like that in.
Kind of lay it on here, arched up,
start trying to draw it down that way.
♪ ♪
by george, I think it works, man.
[upbeat rock music]
- it's day one.
I'm back at my home shop, aka the bakery.
It's called a bakery because I'm the muffin man.
I'm the master baker here.
I'm choosing to use a piece of 5160 spring steel
that's out of an american-made pickup truck.
I'm really focusing on keeping american hardware
in this piece and making it just star-spangled awesome.
First thing I gotta do with this piece of leaf spring is,
I'm gonna start drawing this material down and out.
This particular saber seems to have
a very gentle curve throughout the entire length.
So I start in the middle, and then I slowly work
the front and the backside of the blade.
It's quite the dance.
I like it.
I like it a lot.
[exciting music]
- starting off day two,
trying to get the blade pretty much finished today
so I can start working on my handle.
I got pretty much all my grind on the blade done,
think it's about time for me to get ready for quench.
♪ ♪
you'll sing "twinkle, twinkle," man.
For the design of this sword, I wanna integrate
some stuff on to the blade, so I'm gonna go ahead
and do some etching on it, and anything
where you scratch, that's where
the ferric chloride's gonna etch.
I think I'm gonna put some stars on it,
put some lightning bolts to symbolize the storm
that every soldier goes through in his life.
The dates I picked was 1941--
the day that pearl harbor got hit.
The other day I picked was 1775--
kind of kicked off the revolutionary war.
I'm stoked at how my sword came out.
[rock music]
- it's the start of day two today.
I'm hoping to have a heat-treated blade
by the end of the day today.
Got the forge heating up, got my oil set up.
And now I'm getting super nervous
'cause it's almost time to quench.
[exhales deeply]
my heart is racing. The pressure's building.
All right. Here we go.
♪ ♪
I'm just hoping that this blade has stayed straight.
A kick here or there,
but nothing a grinder can't handle.
It's such a relief to have this quench out of the way,
and now I wanna focus on the details of this handle.
♪ ♪
- day four, last day of the build.
I'm making an eagle head saber,
which was used all the way up to the civil war-era times.
Figured I'd go with a civil war-era outfit,
feel it'll give me the spirit I need
to go ahead and finish this sword up.
First order of business I'm gonna go for--
go ahead, put this pommel on.
♪ ♪
[bleep]!
Now that it's broke,
I gotta come up with another plan.
I'm gonna thread up the base of this tang
and try to put another one on.
I should note that I've never really done this before.
That ain't gonna work.
Ended up stripping it out.
There is no way this thing's gonna
lock down tight on its own.
I've gotta come up with something else now.
This is killing me, man.
I'm not sure if I got enough time
to get this unit done.
I'm just gonna go ahead and weld it.
[upbeat rock music]
she's solid.
Look, the weld's not pretty,
but it does its job.
While my wife's inside, I'm gonna go ahead
and cut up one of her tiki torches.
But don't tell nobody 'cause you'll get in trouble too.
♪ ♪
[upbeat music]
- it's the start of day four.
I'm definitely feeling the pressure of the final day.
I chose to do the eagle's head pommel
out of scrap steel.
The bald eagle is a very important piece
of this blade to me.
I'm a very patriotic person,
so I'm really just dialed into getting this looking right.
[sighs] okay.
I'm going for a black op-themed sword,
so I'm darkening the blade and all my hardware.
I'm pretty happy with the look of the flat black.
The eagle kind of looks like a crow now,
but I'm super happy that I was able
to make a sword in four days.
Whew!
[tense music]
- veterans, welcome back to the forge.
You guys have had four days back at your home forges
to work on your renditions of the eagle head saber.
Now before we get into it, I wanna say as a veteran,
thank you guys both for your service.
But we're here for your saber, so, mike,
tell us about your blade.
[dramatic music]
- it's acid-washed, 5160,
out of an american pickup truck.
The stirrup guard is all mild steel,
and it's african blackwood for the handle.
Sort of went for a black ops theme.
- Well, thank you very much.
You put a ton of work into that.
Brandon, tell me about your work.
♪ ♪
- I went ahead and made my saber
out of 5160 steel.
For the handle, I integrated purpleheart wood
to symbolize the purple heart award.
On the blade, I etched 13 stars down the blade
to symbolize the 13 stars on the medal of honor award.
- There is a lot of detail in there, man.
So the only way to figure out which one of these sabers
is gonna end up on top is to put 'em through three tests.
We're gonna put you through a strength test,
a sharpness test, and up first, the infamous
doug marcaida keal test.
[ominous music]
- all right, bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
♪ ♪
let's find out what kind of lethal damage
your sabers will do.
I will take your weapon and deliver some
lethal blows and slashes on this ballistics dummy.
All right, mike, your turn, so you ready?
- Let's do it.
[dramatic music]
the ballistics dummy is just a brutal test.
A simple shock could break it apart.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
phew.
♪ ♪
- all right, mike, let's talk about your saber here.
Your edge is razor sharp,
and because it's a lighter sword,
I can really maneuver the blade to deeper cuts.
Overall, sir, your saber will keal.
- Thank you.
- All right, brandon, it's your turn, so you ready?
- Oh, let's see what he's made of.
[tense music]
I was so excited to see jelly bob sitting up there.
I wanna see stuff break.
I wanna see stuff get slashed up.
I wanna see heads roll. I wanna see
all kinds of fun stuff and things, man.
♪ ♪
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪
- [grunts]
♪ ♪
[both laugh]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
all right, brandon, let's talk about your weapon here.
It's a heavy beast.
The added weight delivers a very deep cut
into the ballistics dummy, but even wielding it,
I have to actually take pause to be able to swing again.
[grunts]
♪ ♪
but overall, sir, your weapon will keal.
- Thank you, sir.
[tense music]
- all right, gentlemen, it's time
for the strength test.
To test the strength and overall construction
of your blade, I'll be swinging into our muskets here.
Now, you might think this is an insane test,
and it is an insane test, but if you notice,
that bottom barrel there has four nicks in it.
That's from my saber, the saber that was displayed.
I'm not gonna ask your weapons to go through anything
I don't put my own weapons through,
and I expect you guys to pass.
All right, mike, you're up. You ready?
- [exhales] ooh, let's--
- oh, come on! It's just gun barrels.
[laughter]
[dramatic music]
- the strength test looks brutal.
This is just stuff you don't normally test blades on.
It could ultimately shatter in one swing.
[exhales sharply] let's see.
♪ ♪
it could ultimately shatter in one swing.
[exhales sharply] let's see.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
[exhales sharply]
- all right, mike, your weapon is light enough
that it is very easy to control.
Your blade came through it well.
It took some chips, but all in all,
your weapon is still in one piece.
It's still solid, held up beautifully.
Nicely done. - Thank you.
- Brandon, you ready?
- Oh, let's do stuff and things, man.
- [chuckles]
[upbeat rock music]
♪ ♪
[clinking]
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
all right, brandon, your blade has not lost
any of its edge, and it certainly held up.
So that's great, but the biggest issue
is that that's just snapped clean off.
- Yeah.
- How was your handle constructed?
- Once I fit the blade guard on,
I stacked leather coins up inside the copper sheath,
put them on epoxy, and then kind of hammered
on the disk on the back.
- So basically, this eagle head pommel
is your only mechanical connection.
- Yes. - Okay.
[tense music]
brandon, you brought us an absolutely beautiful blade.
It's very clear you put a lot of heart
and a lot of thought into it, but being that your pommel
is the only thing holding the blade together,
we consider that a catastrophic failure
and cannot move forward in the testing.
With that reason, I'm gonna have to ask you
to leave the forge. Thanks for what you did
for our country. - Thank you, brother.
Been a pleasure, gentlemen.
Overall, it was an amazing experience
building this weapon.
I'm happy about how my blade turned out.
I mean, the pommel broke off,
but it didn't take no blade damage.
It's still got a couple more battles left in her.
♪ ♪
- all right, mike, congratulations.
You are the "forged in fire" champion,
and you'll be heading out of here a little bit richer
with a $10,000 check in your pocket.
So well done. - Good job, man.
- I am to the moon.
I didn't think I would make it to the final round,
let alone come out on top.
I'm the newest "forged in fire" champion,
and at home, I'm the muffin man.
So, I guess, everybody out there,
you're--you're looking at a tough muff.
[rock music]
♪ ♪