[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- my name's alex morris.
I'm 48 years old, from warwick, rhode island.
What I like most about bladesmithing
is it's challenging, and I believe
that if we don't challenge ourselves, we don't grow.
♪ ♪
- my name's charlie bridges.
I'm active duty army, stationed in fort still, oklahoma.
I spend every day at work with so many soldiers
that I can't keep track.
But when I get home, I get to turn all of it off,
throw a piece of steel into my forge,
and I get to make something out of nothing.
- My name is scott bragg. I'm from reed city, michigan.
Bladesmithing is a special place in my heart,
because I know it's in my blood.
My grandfather and my great-grandfather
were blacksmiths.
And it also keeps you young.
I'm in my 70th year, and I feel like I'm 30. [laughs]
- my name's adam coonradt,
and I'm a firefighter-paramedic in the city of troy, new york.
My wife and my kids are very supportive
and like that I do knifemaking.
My two children, they're both makers as well,
and I couldn't be any prouder of both of them.
- Bladesmiths, welcome to the forge.
You guys are here to test your smithing capabilities
not only against each other, but against the clock.
Now, keep in mind there's the title
of "forged in fire" champion on the line,
and that comes with a check for $10,000.
Now, there'll be three rounds in this competition,
and after each round I'm gonna ask you to present your work
to our panel of expert judges.
At that point, they'll critique your work
and make an elimination after every round.
The judges for this competition are gonna be
abs master smith j. Neilson,
historic weapons recreation specialist dave baker,
and edged weapons specialist doug marcaida.
Today, gentlemen, we're flipping the script.
You guys are telling us what your challenge is gonna be.
You guys will have ten minutes to come together
and decide what your round one parameters will be.
Now, that's everything from blade length, forging style,
what metals you wanna use--
all of it's up to you.
If you guys look over into the pantry here,
there's an abundance of metas to choose from.
We've got 1095, we've got 15n20,
there's mild steel, canister.
It's all on the table.
The only thing we ask is that you do not build blades
that are mono steel.
- Well, I really did not see that coming.
I'm comfortable setting my own parameters for myself.
But there's three other guys.
- Adam, you've been selected at random
as our foreman for this selection-making process.
As you guys comes up with your decisions,
I want you to write it down on your scratch pad here.
- Who's idea was it to put me in charge?
- Now, in round two of the competition,
you guys are gonna add handles to your blades,
turning them into fully- functioning and deadly weapon,
at which point the guys are gonna be testing them
for strength and durability in an antler chop,
and for edge retention in a fabric bag slice.
So keep that in mind when you guys decide
what kind of blade you guys are gonna build.
You guys have ten minutes to lock in your decision,
and that time starts now.
♪ ♪
- all right, guys. What do you wanna make?
- It's nice. We're giving them the option
to build whatever they want to build.
But we've got four strangers competing for $10,000.
Anything you guys expect to see?
- I expect to see them go a simple route, you know,
making as simple as knife as they can make
with the shortest parameters and things like that.
- What I'd like to see is the foreman find out,
what is the common denominator of what we can do?
Show up with your best work.
- Should do damascus.
- Okay. - San mai.
- Who said a thing? - San mai? San mai? San mai?
- I really like more than one outer shell.
Do it in, like, a go mai or mora.
- I'm still with san mai.
- I'd rather go with damascus blade. Yeah.
- Okay. As we're powwowing, everyone's getting a fair say
of what they want, but--
[whispering] this is very nerve-racking.
- The only reason I'm saying I would prefer not to do
just damascus is that I would rather have
a little bit more meat.
- Okay.
- 'cause we can make it as thick as we want.
- Go mai? - Go mai.
- Okay.
- If it would have been up to me to decide,
I think I would have went with something
that I was comfortable with,
and that would have been san mai.
- Blade length. - Ten.
- Ten? - Yeah.
- Blade type.
- For the challenges that we have,
we're not stabbing anything, we're chopping and slicin.
So take the tip off the table.
You can make a broad blade, with a nice edge geometry.
That should do the job for both tests.
- Any additional parameters we want to put on there?
- Oh, I mean, we could do something
with natural handles
or two different materials for the handles.
- Yeah. - I'm good.
- I'm okay with that. - Five, four, three, two, one.
Your guys' time is up. Adam, you locked in?
- Yes. We're gonna make a bowie in a go mai fashion.
Blade length is gonna be ten inches, 15 inches overall,
two inches at its widest point.
And two additional parameters would be two handle types
in the handle and a lanyard holder.
- You guys have a lot going on there.
Y'all comfortable with it? - Yes.
- I am I very happy with the challenge
that we set for ourselves.
We still challenged ourselves enough
without going overboard.
- All right, gentlemen,
your round one parameters are locked in.
You guys have three hours on the clock.
Good luck. Work hard. Your time starts now.
♪ ♪
- here we go. - Well, the parameters are in.
They're set. They're stuck with it.
- Right off the bat, the biggest trap I see
that these guys created for themselves was
this go mai idea.
The go mai is a pattern weld, five layers.
You use two different steels and alternative them.
It's limiting. It now has to be five layers.
Something goes wrong with that initial weld
on your five layers,
you can't cut it and restack it.
You gotta start over.
- So they really should have just said,
"let's do layered damascus."
- layered damascus.
- Not only have I never done go mai,
I have not done a bowie knife either.
I'm not overly concerned. I like the challenge.
- All the guys are going pretty much straight to the grinder.
- Just cleaning up their steel before they stack and wel.
- The weld stick-in is the most important part.
♪ ♪
- it feels weird setting our own parameters.
But it's also refreshing for them to tell us,
"come up with your own parameters.
Digital your own hole." [laughs]
- I feel confident about it, and I'm excited for it.
But also, I'm shaking in my boots.
If I win the $10,000,
I'm probably gonna spend it on the family.
They stand behind me 100 percent,
and I'm definitely one of the luckiest men in the world
to have the family that I do.
- I understand go mai, and I like to make it.
The whole reason I pushed go mai with the group
is because I wanted to set us up for the test.
If I can get this go mai stack right,
it's gonna give me a hard enough core
with softer cladding
so that it can take that abuse of the antler chop.
- Gauging from what we see over here,
is that enough to make a 15-inch bowie knife?
- Yeah. Now, personally,
I'd put at least two pieces in the middle of that core,
and maybe double up a few of the others.
I love having sacrificial steel.
- If you double up some layers,
won't you end up with more than five?
- When you've got two pieces of the same material,
and they weld together, that's not two layers.
- That's one layer.
- I have three pieces of 1095.
Put 15n20 on the outside of 'em,
and then a single piece of 1095
on the outside of that.
- Charlie's going to the chop saw.
- What charlie did was he doubled up the core,
but they're shorter.
- So that's less material to work with. Yeah.
And that can cause problems down the road.
I don't understand why you would short yoursel.
- Welding.
I have a much better time
getting a forge weld on shorter pieces of stel
than I do of trying to forge weld a six-inch ba.
♪ ♪
- well, I got my five pieces cleaned.
I put my mild steel on the outside,
and I put my 1095,
then put my 5160 on the center.
- Well, scott's definitely got go mai going on,
but he doesn't have the doubled-up layers
you guys are talking about.
He's only got five pieces of steel on there.
- That's gonna cause a problem later on.
He might not have enough steel
to pull out a 15-inch overall length blade.
- I've never done go mai before.
But I'm the kind of guy that, if there's a challenge here,
I wanna to go for it.
I challenged to be a body builder,
and I was a body builder.
And then I challenged myself to have a band,
and then I had a real successful band.
So then I challenged myself
to be the best at bladesmithing.
And here I am on "forged in fire."
no matter whatever happens, happens.
I'm just glad to be here.
- Gentlemen, there's one hour off the clock,
which means you have two hours remaining.
- Looks like alex is doing exactly what
you're talking about, the doubled-up layers.
He took two layers of 1095, 15n20,
and then topped it off with another 1095.
- Perfect.
- I want to ensure that I have enough steel
to draw out completely.
But I also want to make sure that my center,
with the testing, is gonna be done--
the edge is all 1095 high-carbon.
Then I just gotta wait for it to get up to forge temperature.
Right on.
- While I'm waiting for my billet
to heat up to proper temperature,
I'm gonna preheat my dies,
so when you do go into the press,
it doesn't draw out that heat as quickly.
- I like that adam is doing something smart.
- It's about heat retention,
so he can stay on to the press a lot longer.
- Exactly. - I know that it gives me
a little bit more working time
so I can set those welds.
- Keeping your temperature is almost as important
as watching the clock,
'cause every time you have to go back in the forge to reheat,
you're losing seconds.
- I'm feeling very happy about my welds.
- Oh, yeah.
- Hot stuff coming through.
I'm having the best time of my life.
I never used a power hammer.
I'm gonna get it to pretty much the length.
As I'm using big blu, it seems to let you think
you can almost make the whole knife just right there.
Before you know it, it makes your steel long, real quick.
- Is scott within the length
at this point? - Oh, yeah.
So now, spread that steel out, get that two inches of widt.
- I don't have a power hammer.
I'm way more comfortable with hammering by hand.
I use this. You know? Yeah.
♪ ♪
- I think I've got the right length to start my blade.
So now it's time for me to go in and actually define a ti.
- That billet of charlie's is getting thin already.
- Though I find it's ironic. Charlie wanted to go go mai
'cause he wanted a thicker blade.
And it's already very lean.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, you are halfway through round one.
You have 90 minutes remaining on the clock.
- I rough hammer out my handle area.
Then I start working towards the tip,
start drawing out the clip point
on the end of the bowie knife.
I look down at my knife, and it's way too big.
- Yours is coming along. - Thanks, man.
- Looks like you're already to length.
You'll just have to cut some off, it looks like.
- Yeah, I'll have to cut some off.
- That's all right. - It's too long.
- Too much is better than not enough.
- Yeah, I know.
- Alex just went through all that forging that
handle profile out,
and now he's gonna have to do it all over again.
- Now I'm gonna reshape the handle.
My goal would be to have my blade quenched
at about a half hour left.
♪ ♪
- adam's been really meticulous about getting
the shape of his billet.
But I think he needs to start shaping.
- At home, I have all the time in the world.
You know, turn around, over my right shoulder,
this big old clock's staring at me.
Only way to make up that time is to hustle.
This is a lot of steel to try to move with my hamme.
I don't want to waste any more time,
so I head over to the press.
I'm running out of time.
♪ ♪
- wow, that's a skinny knife.
- I'm done with the blade.
I don't wanna mess with that anymore.
I don't want to add any more stress.
- And there's his quench, at a very hot temperature.
- Extremely hot.
♪ ♪
- file check it.
I didn't get a hardened blad.
This just hit me like a freight train.
- It was catching a couple of times.
Back in the forge.
- What he should do is let the blade cool all the way down.
Then file test it.
- You're not gonna get a correct skating
when it's that hot.
- I've just put a lot of stress on my blade.
I'm terrified to go back into the quench.
- Every single quench putting more and more stress
on that blade.
♪ ♪
- I've got a hardened blade. Total sigh of relief.
- All right, bladesmiths,
you only have one hour remaining on the clock.
- I have my tip at the right radius,
and so I measure my blade,
and I realize that I'm an 1/8" shy on the width.
Can't quite get my two inches yet.
- Oh, really? - Yeah.
- Having a hard time stretching it?
- Yeah.
- Scott's blade is looking kind of lean.
- I don't know how he's ever
gonna draw that out to two inches.
- I'm pushing forward on this widen out the blade.
I'm not even gonna look up at the clock,
'cause I don't want the clock to get in my head.
- Last big thing is the quench.
♪ ♪
file skated off, so I'm confident
that I have a hard blade.
Not bad for my first go mai. [laughs]
- all right, boys, you got 30 minutes left on the clock.
- So far, I got everything where I want it.
So I say a little prayer, and I go for the quench.
♪ ♪
- adam just quenched.
- I notice a warp start forming.
All: Whoa!
- Adam's is warping in the vice.
Like, really bad. - Wow.
- I don't want to go back in for another quench,
because I don't want to stress that blade any more.
But I need to correct it.
- Oh, my god.
- What I'm gonna do is a three-pin technique.
While I'm waiting for this to cool down,
there's a little bit of a temperature.
You can fuss around with it and straighten it.
♪ ♪
I've already quenched. This is so dangerous.
I'm at eye level, looking at my blade,
looking at the judges, looking at my blade.
I'm seeing them cringe.
- Geez, louise. - Ah. Got my heart palpitating.
- I'm not getting the warp out as good as I want.
But I'm gonna just move on, 'cause I'm running out of time.
- Too thin. It is what it is. I can't do nothing now.
Trying to make that two-inch parameter.
I thinned out my blade pretty good.
- It looks like scott's gonna be going into the quench.
♪ ♪
- file test is good, and it's hard.
- Bladesmiths, you have five minutes remaining.
- Right as the time's ticking down,
all that's left is clean-up work.
- Killing me. The last thing charlie needs to do
is remove more material.
- That thing is gonna be a fillet knife.
- Boy, for an antler chop, I don't think it's gonna cut it.
- Probably not. - I've got a few antlers,
from testing,
with chunks of blade steel still wedged in 'em.
- Oh, yeah.
- [grunts]
♪ ♪
- so, yeah, the antler chop's pretty aggressive.
♪ ♪
- five, four, three, two, one.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines.
This round is over. - Whoo!
- Looking down at all the knives,
it could anybody's game.
I don't know what's gonna happen,
and it's really gonna hurt
if they tell me to surrender my blade.
- All right, gentlemen,
in round one of the competition,
you guys came together and gave us your parameters.
You all met those parameters, but it is time for a critique.
Alex, you're up first. You ready?
- Yes. - Let's see what you got.
♪ ♪
- go mai god, alex.
That's a beautiful shape that you have here.
Your go mai- it's a solid weld.
I don't see any delaminations or any occlusions.
I say good job.
- Thank you.
- All right, charlie. You're up.
Come on, please present your work.
♪ ♪
- all right, well, charlie,
you presented us with a nice piece here.
I like the shape. Your steel looks good,
except you left yourself pretty lean.
You basically used about half the material
as some of your other competitors.
So structurally, that would worry me a bit.
But nice job.
- Thank you.
- Scott, you ready? - Yep.
- All right, let's see it.
♪ ♪
- scott, you know, I didn't think
you were gonna get this to size.
But you did it, which is impressive.
There's still a lot going on here, though.
All that hammering has made this blade very thin,
and you've got a small crack
that's running up into the blade.
That's something I'd really like you to deal with.
All in all, you did a dang good job drawing that thing out.
Well done, scott. - Thank you.
- All right, adam, you're up. You ready?
- Yes. - Let's see what you got.
- All right, adam. First of all,
your steel looks clean.
I don't see any delaminations,
but you've got some warping issues.
We got a flipper here.
Your tang is going one way, your tip is going the other.
But you've got enough meat on here, that's fixable.
It's within range. Other than that, good job.
- Gentlemen, you guys all performed very well
in our flip the script competition.
But as you know, only three of you
are going forward into round two.
The judges have made their decision.
And the bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
scott.
- Scott, I gotta commend you for putting up
one heck of a fight,
but only using those five pieces of metal,
you really had to work hard to stretch that,
and it's so thin, I'm not sure you can refine it.
And then that crack at the junction--
those are the reasons we're sending you home.
- I agree. - Scott, you fought hard,
and you used every second on that clock,
so we commend you for that.
But unfortunately, your time in the forge has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please surrender your work
and leave the forge.
♪ ♪
- this is the most exciting thing I've done in my life.
I had a wonderful time.
I came here to prove that I could compete
with these wonderful young knifemakers that are so goo.
So I did exactly what I wanted to,
and I think I did a pretty good job at it, too.
- All right, bladesmiths, congratulations.
The three of you guys are moving forward
into round two of the competition,
where you're gonna fix any issues that the judges
brought up as well as add handles to your blades,
turning them into fully-functioning weapons.
Now, in round one, you guys decided,
as one of your parameters,
you guys want to use two handle materials
for your handle construction.
We were only gonna give you one handle material to use,
but you chose two in round one, so we'll honor that.
But we have closed the pantry down
and selected five materials for you guys to use.
We've got ironwood, g-10, antler, paracord, and leather.
Just the same as in round one,
we want you guys to come to a consensus
and decide what two materials all of you
will use for your handle material.
After you've finished putting your handles on to your blade,
we're gonna test for strength and durability
in an antler chop
and for edge retention in a fabric bag slice.
Talk amongst yourselves. Come up with your decisio.
- What do you think? Leather and ironwood?
- We'll make our way down. - Leather and g-10?
- Okay. - Comfortable with that?
- I think that's horrendous, but I'll do it.
[laughter]
- how about--we'll put g-10
as a liner or something, and ironwoo?
- That's more sensible, we're going with two solid materials
for something that's gonna be chopping.
- Adam, you got a decision? - Yes.
- What are you guys gonna do? - G-10 and ironwood.
- Well, you will have two hours
in round two of the competition.
Good luck. That time starts now.
♪ ♪
- g-10 is phenomenal material.
It's tough. It's beautiful when it's finished.
- That is the g-10?
- The only g-10 over there are those
big, green blocks, right? - Yep.
- That's a freaking monster block.
- I know, they're freaking huge.
- Personally, I'd do a half-and-half handle.
Make the g-10 in maybe a small section of the front,
then ironwood in the back.
- Charlie went straight for the bandsaw.
So he's cutting pretty small pieces of g-10,
so he might be doing something like you're talking about.
- I've worked with both g-10 and ironwood.
I'm gonna put g-10 at the top of the handle,
and then the heel is all going to be ironwood.
As soon as grady said that we'd pick materials,
but we could have gone with just one, I thought back,
"who the hell's idea was this?"
- I mean, we could do something with natural handles
or two different materials for the handles.
- Yeah. [grunts]
♪ ♪
- the first thing I'm gonna o
is straight out this warp in my blade,
by heating up the blade
and then correcting it with a c-clamp.
- Here's the thing, though.
Adam's blade had a lot of spine on it.
I'll bet that thing's well within grinder range.
- Being able to correct that warp without losing the temper
is extremely crucial.
If I heat it up too much,
I could take the temper out of the cutting edge,
and then it would just fail miserably during the testing.
♪ ♪
it still has a little bit of a warp,
but I don't want to waste any more time.
It's gonna have to be in there.
♪ ♪
- I'm feeling pretty good about my blade.
I'm gonna head over and start getting my scales ready.
My plan is to cut a thin slice of g-10, to use as a liner,
and then the ironwood fully on the outside of that,
sandwiched together.
- Bladesmiths, you guys are halfway through round two.
There's only one hour remaining.
- Charlie's going for the bolts.
- For a full tang, handle bolts--I mean,
that would be the way I would go.
Just gotta make sure that they actually connect.
- I'm gonna start getting my handle stock fastened.
- As lean as his blade is,
an antler chop is gonna deliver a lot of shock
up into that handle.
So any handle construction he has
had better be solidly put together.
- I'm trying to get fasteners together,
but it's dancing around on me.
[bleep].
It's not wanting to play along.
- Charlie's using his face. - Yes.
It's a third-hand principle.
You have one hand, two hands, and the face as a third hand.
- Finally.
- Everything looks solid.
So now it's time for me
to start getting this handle into a shape.
- So, I'm getting ready to epoxy this all together.
Everything seems to be fitting up nice.
I'm gonna put it in the vice,
so it's clamped together while it sets.
I'm kind of just sitting here, like, dead in the water,
so I'm just watching the clock,
and I'm waiting for that five minutes to go by.
- He could have spent all that time
sharpening that blade.
- I forgot to shape my edge before I glued it.
I'll hit it with the belt.
So, my five minutes is finally up.
Hopefully the epoxy is set up enough.
I don't want a scale falling off in j. Neilson's hands.
I don't want to be known as that guy.
♪ ♪
- I'm going to use the g-10
as the inner layer and sandwich that with the ironwood.
- Gentlemen, you have 30 minutes remaining.
- I start putting my handle materials together,
I run into a problem trying to make the pin holes line up.
Crap.
- I think when adam did his drilling,
he didn't pay attention to which side he started on.
- We've seen smiths, who weren't careful
in this setup portion, wind up losing a bunch of time.
Attach your handle scales to your tang and drill
through the hole that's already there.
- I can feel the epoxy start to set up.
At this point, I am so stressed out,
I'm making little mistakes.
I not thinking things through.
- He's worked himself into a puzzle.
- They're still not matching up, are they?
So he's making basically a hot mess.
- I don't have enough time to make another set of handles.
[bleep].
I need to correct it quickly.
- Oh, no.
♪ ♪
- what adam's going through with the handle scales
is extremely frustrating.
I mean, that could throw your whole game off in this round.
- I think I have enough material left in the handle,
so if I flip it around, it will still line up.
- Adam has decided just to put those on all cattywampus.
- It looks like [bleep].
I got one handle hanging off the edge.
I got one hanging over the blade.
But you know what, there's still enough material.
I can grind that and flush it up,
and it's not gonna be a big issue.
♪ ♪
- while I'm finishing up, everything feels good,
but I feel a little slick spot at the back of my handle,
so I add some jimping.
- He's doing a little jimping,
so your thumb doesn't move around.
- Because last thing I want is for dave, j., or doug
to swing it and say that
it wants to come out of their hands.
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna go with a short, convex edge,
because that should hold up well against the antler cho.
I'm trying to find a happy medium here with this blade.
I want it to cut, but to get to that point,
I have to make it survive the antler chop.
♪ ♪
- I think adam might be happy with his handle.
Looks like he's working on his edge.
- Well, that's a good comeback for adam, because earlier
he was really having a tough time with that handle.
- All right, guys, you're down to two minutes.
- Grady is yelling that there's only two minutes.
I'm thinking, you know what, I have a lanyard hole,
and I don't have a lanyard.
I grab some paracord. It cuts.
It's definitely not an antler,
but it made it through that paracord.
- Five, four, three, two, one.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines.
Put down your tools.
This round is over.
- I had a couple of setbacks and a couple panic moment,
but I worked through them,
and I believe I made a very presentable blade.
- All right, smiths. This is one of the tests I enjoy.
The antler chop. I'm gonna take your blades,
beat them repeatedly and mercilessly into these antlers.
Not only will it test the edge retention for your heat treat,
but the overall construction of your knives themselves.
Alex, how you feeling, bud?
- I'm all right. - All right. Let's get to it.
- I'm a little nervous. I'm not sure how my blade's
gonna hold up against that kind of beating.
Let's see how it goes.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
- good job, alex. You survived.
Your edge is perfect. Nothing rolled. No glinting.
Everything's straight. Good job.
- Thank you.
- Hey, charlie, how you feeling, bud?
- Pretty good. - I feel good, too.
If you're ready, I'm ready.
♪ ♪
- j. Neilson beats the hell out of blades.
Every nutrient that goes through a deer
goes into their antlers.
That's a lot of stress to put on the edge of a blade.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
one more.
♪ ♪
- all right, charlie. It survived.
You actually made a very comfortable handle.
So good job on that.
But we are missing a few pieces of your edge.
♪ ♪
I could see that grain is pretty coarse.
It was pretty high temperature during quenching.
But everything else is still tight. Good job.
- Thank you.
- All right, adam, how you thinking?
- Let her rip.
Extremely nervous. I'm nervous about the heat treat.
Knowing j., he's gonna go all out.
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
♪ ♪
- you survived, adam. Good job. Your edge is good.
You didn't lose anything. Nothing came lose. Good job.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths.
Now this challenge has been all about you making choice.
Well now, we only have one choice--
watch me slice up these bags.
Welcome to the sharpness test.
Now, to find out how sharp your weapons are,
I will try to slice through these fabric bags.
Alex, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Yes, sir. - Let's do this.
♪ ♪
all right, alex. Let's talk about your weapon here.
The balance feels good. Now, your edge--razor sharp.
Every movement cut cleanly. Nothing is frayed.
And overall, sir, your blade, it'll cut.
- Thanks.
- All right, charlie, your turn, sir. You ready?
- Let's do it. - Let's do this.
- My biggest fear is my edge geometry.
I keep peeking over at all three knives,
and all I can see is the glint of chips on my edg.
My heart is into my throat.
♪ ♪
so I'm really nervous.
♪ ♪
- all right, charlie. Let's talk about your blade her.
It cuts nicely.
The chips that you have on your edge here
were not a factor at all.
Overall, sir, it'll cut.
- Thank you. - All right, adam.
You ready? - Yes, sir.
Let's do this.
♪ ♪
- nice.
- All right, adam. Your edge is sharp.
It took no damage during the strength test.
It's razor sharp. Cuts cleanly through the fabric bag.
Overall, sir, your blade, it will cut.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen. Well, the judges
have made their decision,
and the bladesmith going home is...
♪ ♪
charlie. Unfortunately, you just didn't make the cut,
and j.'s gonna tell you why.
- Charlie, during the strength test,
you're the only one that took damage.
So that's why we're sending you home.
- I understand. - Charlie, you fought
really hard, and you did a phenomenal job,
but it really just came down to that heat treat.
Unfortunately, you're not moving forward
into round three of the competition.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please leave the forge.
- All right. Thank you. - Well done, man.
- Good job, man. - Although I'm not happy
with the outcome, I understand why.
But I enjoyed the whole thing.
Working around other guys who can forge a blade--
that was a ton of fun for me.
- Well, gentlemen, it is now down to the two of you guys
to battle it out for the title of "forged in fire" champion.
And so congratulations.
In this final round, we're gonna be sending you gus
back home to build an iconic weapon from history.
And that weapon is...
♪ ♪
the dahomey machete.
- This lethal machete was once yielded by the legendary
all-female army in western africa
known as the dahomey amazons.
The long, slightly curved blade
flared out to a wide tip,
giving the female warriors the ability to deliver fatal blows
that cut cleanly through bone and flesh in a single blow.
These skilled women warriors were an elite fighting force
and extremely intimidating,
often carrying trophies of their fallen enemies.
The machetes were a powerful weapon,
designed to cleave through anything
that got in their way.
Today, the dahomey machete can be seen wielded
in the 2020 hbo series "lovecraft country."
- your blade needs to be between 23 and 25 inches.
It needs to have an upswept tip.
You need to have a hole bored in at the tip.
You also need to include a dish-shaped pommel
and a dish-shaped guard.
- Holy cow. I've never seen it before.
The shape of it is getting me very nervous,
so I definitely have some hills to climb
and some research to do.
- You guys will have four days to work on your blades.
I want you to both bring us back a blade
worth at least $10,000.
We'll see you guys in four days.
- All right. Good luck, man.
♪ ♪
- today's day one here at the forge.
I'm super excited to get after this thing.
And in goes the steel.
The biggest challenge will be
drawing out the end of the blade.
This is new for me. Probably gonna take me a while
to figure out how I'm gonna move the steel
to get it to where I want it to go.
So, I'm really excited to be in this third round.
Adam's a great guy, and I'm looking forward
to bringing up a good sword to match up against his.
I'm liking it. It's getting there.
♪ ♪
- day one at my home forge. Time to get started.
I have never made anything this big before.
If I win, I'm going to disneyland.
I think right now my biggest obstacle
is the size of the piece.
This piece of metal is so thick and so large,
it's taking forever to heat up.
Just not moving.
I'm growing impatient.
I think there's enough steel here.
I actually cut off a piece.
It's starting to move, but very nervous about
how thin this blade actually is starting to become.
I don't want it to break or shatter.
Really hope it's not too thin.
♪ ♪
- day two. My goal for today is I want to make
damascus billet for the two disk-shaped guards,
and hopefully heat treating my blade.
Gonna stick some weld on there,
and I'm gonna get in the forge after I quench.
Yeah. It's looking good. Think we're good. Whoo!
♪ ♪
- here we go, day two. So, pitter patter.
Let's get at her.
I got a little bit more forging to do today.
I'm starting to realize how thin this blade actually
is starting to become.
I'm getting very nervous about it.
I go to grind it a little bit, and...
The blade snaps.
♪ ♪
[bleep].
I just threw out a whole day.
Can I just have a couple minutes?
♪ ♪
- I put some pressure on it with the angle grinder.
Ended up doing too much pressure, and it broke.
My heart sinks.
I think I can fix it,
'cause I don't wanna to start over.
I have to fill that in with weld.
I can't really tell anymore where that crack is.
I start grinding about it a little bit.
[groans]
whole bunch of cracks.
Now, I have to restart.
♪ ♪
there's no way I can send this in to be tested.
[sighs]
♪ ♪
- day three. I think my blade's
coming out pretty well.
My plans for day three
is to start working on my guards and pommel.
Right now, I'm cleaning up my mess.
If none of the knives break out there,
they're gonna start looking at those things.
The damascus will help my blade
stand out against adam's.
Oh, it broke it half.
The last forge welds I did last night must not have taken,
so I'm gonna scrap it and just use regular mono steel.
Now I'm, like, starting over completely
on my guards and pommel,
so I wasted a lot of time doing that damascus
and turned out for nothing.
This is a hard challenge, man. This is taxing.
[exhales]
- day four. Final day. Make it or break it.
So, yesterday, I definitely make a comeback.
It's time to assemble.
I start working on my actual physical handle.
I just don't want to use a piece of wood.
I wanna dress it up a little bit.
So I twist three different strands of wire,
so it's got to have an alternating pattern.
The handle is looking great. It's better than I imagined.
My kids came downstairs to check on me.
- How's the machete coming along?
- Oh, that's really cool.
- You like that? - Yeah.
- I could tell they're proud of me sticking it through
and being able to produce a tangible item.
It's a proud dad moment.
- It will keal. - It will keal.
[intense music]
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, welcome back to the forge.
You guys had four days to work on your dahomey machetes.
Only one of you guys is gonna leave here with the title
of "forged in fire" champion and a check for $10,000.
But first, I want to hear about your blades.
Alex, how'd it go for you?
- It went pretty well.
♪ ♪
it's made out of 1095 carbon steel.
Had a little difficulty with some damascus
I was making for the guards.
But all in all, pretty happy with it.
- It looks great. Adam, how'd the build go for you?
- Couple hang-ups.
That first piece of steel I used broke,
and it had a couple cracks in it,
so I had to start over day two.
And so made that out of a leaf spring
and did a wire wrap handle.
- All right, guys. Well, as you know,
only one of you is gonna go home the champion.
And the only way we know how to find out
which one of your blades is the best
is to put them through a couple tests.
We've got a sharpness test. We've got a strength test.
And up first, the keal test.
♪ ♪
- bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
I will take your machete and deliver some lethal blows
on this ballistics dummy.
Alex, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
I'm most concerned about everything with this test.
I'm not sure it's sharp enough.
I'm not sure it's strong enough.
I don't know what it's gonna do to my blade. I have no idea.
♪ ♪
- all right, alex. The balance you have on your blade is nic.
For every cut, I can really control
and feel like I'm chopping in there.
The edge--no issues at all. It is still very sharp.
More importantly, sir, your machete--it will keal.
- Thanks. - All right, adam, it's time
to fun with your blade.
Are you ready, sir? - Yes, sir.
♪ ♪
I hope my blade doesn't break.
I had a lot of setbacks making this blade.
You know, I had to start over.
I hope it doesn't come back to bite me in the butt.
I'm saying a little prayer: Please don't break.
Please don't break.
♪ ♪
yes!
♪ ♪
- all right, adam, let's talk about your weapon here.
This is a very forward-heavy blade.
But that forward weight really cuts
deep into this ballistics dummy.
Overall, sir, it will keal.
- That's worth it right there. I can go home now.
- [laughs]
♪ ♪
- all right, gentlemen, you know what time it is.
It's time for the strength test,
the shield chop.
What I wanna see, on top of how durable your blades are,
is their effectiveness against that shield.
All right? So alex, you're up first. You read?
- Yes, sir.
- I'm not typically a nervous guy,
but this strength test is gonna be hard.
Anything could happen.
♪ ♪
- all right, so, alex,
obviously, there's a bit of an issue.
What happened here is you can see the grain size.
It looks like 40-grit sandpaper,
which is really, really large grain.
And right here, see that black?
- Yeah. - That was a crack.
- Okay. - So that crack existed
probably during the heat treat.
Once I hit just face on to the shield,
it just cut loose.
♪ ♪
- alex, we hate to see that.
Your blade had a catastrophic failure.
But you are not out of the fight just yet.
Your blade broke on the fourth strike.
So that means, adam, in order to become
"forged in fire" champion,
your dahomey machete must survive four strikes.
You ready? - Yes.
♪ ♪
everything is riding on these four strikes.
I need my machete to hold together.
I've got to make it through this.
[exhales]
♪ ♪
- well, adam, you survived your four strikes.
That means you are the "forged in fire" champion,
so congratulations.
Alex, unfortunately, you didn't win this round.
You crushed it in round one and round two.
But your time in the forge has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step off
the forge floor.
- Thanks. I'm a little disappointed,
but I'm definitely proud of the machete that I made.
Making something this big was quite a challenge.
It's a learning process.
So I'm definitely glad I had this opportunity.
I'm glad I got to know all these other smiths.
This was fun. It was a blast.
- Well adam, your blade survived the four strikes.
It's a beautiful beast. And it just won you $10,000
and the title of "forged in fire" champion.
So congratulations, man.
Well done. Is it everything you thought it would be?
- And more. It's been an honor. Been a pleasure.
Wow. What an experience.
It's kinda surreal.
But it's a great feeling.
It's awesome.
My family supported me,
so kids, we're going to disney.
♪ ♪