[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- my name is jayden simisky. I'm 19 years old.
And I started bladesmithing at about age 15.
My entire life, I've gotten into trouble for two things:
Playing with knives and playing with fire.
And so, eventually,
it clicked in my mind
that I could make knives with fire,
and it really just went from there.
♪ ♪
- my name is matt schweinberg.
I'm 38 years old from knoxville, tennessee.
I'm a senior engineer and a part-time bladesmith.
I'm not normally a competitive guy,
but for this, I made an exception
'cause I'm here to win.
My adrenaline's already pumping through my veins,
and I'm ready for that challenge.
♪ ♪
- how you feeling, matt? - Terrified.
[both laugh] - honest.
- My name's connor logan.
I'm 26, and I'm from kansas city, missouri.
I got into knife making
because, as a 15-, 16-year-old-kid,
I had a fascination with knives,
but I didn't have any money to buy them.
So I decided to make them.
And as it turns out, making knives is much more expensive
than buying knives.
But it's a lot more fun too. So it's a win-win.
♪ ♪
- my name is jason redman.
I'm 51 years old.
I'm from augusta, georgia.
I'm a military veteran.
I'm an ex-police officer
and a part-time bladesmith.
I want to win $10,000
to donate it to a veterans' organization
so more people can be touched by what we do.
That's why I do it.
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, welcome to the forge.
The four of you are about to take part
in three very intense rounds of forging competition,
where we're gonna test all of your skills.
Now at the end of each one of those rounds,
you're gonna present your work to our panel of expert judges,
who will then critique your work
and make an elimination.
Judges for today's competition
are abs master smith j. Neilson,
historic weapons recreation specialist
dave baker,
and edged weapons specialist
and kali martial artist doug marcaida.
♪ ♪
they'll be deciding who's gonna be going home empty-handed
and who's gonna be leaving here
with the title of "forged in fire" champion
along with a check for $10,000.
Let's get into it.
On your anvils, you guys have a cloth.
Go ahead and remove that for me.
- Yes. - Yes!
- What you guys have in front of you
are bars of 1095 and 15n20 steel,
which we want you to use to make damascus billets
and forge them into blades.
But today, we don't want you to build signature blades
in your signature style.
No, gentlemen, we got something much more complex,
much more intricate:
A blade that was designed specifically
for this competition by dave baker himself.
Today, I want you to build this.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
gentlemen, this is no mistake.
The blade you guys are gonna be building
is laying behind this display.
Today's competition, we're gonna be testing
your visualization skills in a competition
we're calling the memory game.
Guys, I'm gonna call you up one at a time,
and you're each gonna have 20 seconds and only 20 seconds
to check out the blade behind this display
and commit it to memory,
'cause after that 20 seconds is completed,
you will not get to look at the blade again.
Now you don't have to be exact.
But keep in mind, if the smith next to you is closer,
you might just be going home.
You guys ready?
Jayden, you're up first. Come on up, bud.
- I got a terrible memory, man.
Go fish is hard.
Yeah!
♪ ♪
my mind starts coming up with ways to remember this.
And immediately, my mind goes to my arm.
I can use, you know, hand,
elbow to forefinger, that type of thing.
That way, I don't have to remember any numbers
and have kind of a reference that is attached to me.
- Matt, you're up. Come on.
- I do have a strong memory.
So I feel like that is gonna be an advantage.
- 20 seconds starts now. - [bleep].
It has a trailing tip on it
with a serrated back.
It's gonna be a lot to remember.
- Jason, your turn. Come check it out.
[tense music]
- [laughs] - time starts now.
- I just take two basic measurements.
And then I try to step back and visualize it in my mind.
Start focusing on one detail of the blade,
and it feels like I lose another detail.
- Three, two, one.
Time is up.
Last but not least, connor.
Your turn, bud.
- Generally, I think my memory is pretty good.
But 20 seconds is not a lot of time.
Okay.
It's, "a," huge,
b, unnecessarily complicated.
- Three, two, one. Time's up.
- And, c, it's pretty cool, all right?
I'll give you that one. It's a pretty cool knife.
♪ ♪
- now, gentlemen, after round one is complete,
we'll get into round two,
where you guys are gonna add handles to your blades,
turning them into fully functioning weapons.
We're gonna check for strength and durability
in a copper pipe chop,
and then we're gonna check your edge retention
in a water tube slice.
Now, gentlemen, you guys have three hours on the clock.
Good luck. Your time starts now.
[rock music]
- aside from the profile, you got a choil.
You got a finger weld. You got a bird's beak, right?
- Then you get into the real details,
which are the shape of the grind,
the guard will be under the handle,
how deep the serrations are.
- Which, with 20-second look, is very hard to see.
- Oh, yeah. - Absolutely.
- Wide freeform.
I need to write everything that's in my mind, put it down,
so I don't have to think about it anymore.
♪ ♪
- one of the oldest forms of measurement
is using from your elbow to your fingers.
♪ ♪
- I'm gonna get it ready for forge welding.
Really kind of intimidating as a 19-year-old
seeing all these, you know, battle-hardened judges
ready to judge my work.
I think that dave baker's probably got shirts
that are older than I am.
[laughs]
[rock music]
- so we have to make a damascus blade.
But dave's blade, it's not damascus.
It's not cool, dave. I'm talking to you.
It's not cool.
That's good.
- Honestly, when I designed this,
I just piled on as much as I could.
- You're evil. - [laughs]
- this is evil.
- Oh, yeah.
I feel 70% confident.
That's a c, and I'll take it.
Cs get degrees.
Okay.
- Gotta grind.
The first thing I gotta do is get the steel clean.
Muscle memory kicks in,
and I'm feeling great at this point.
So I get it stacked properly,
straight into the forge.
I like to challenge myself.
All of the hobbies I've ever had are hard.
The challenge part's what gets me up in the morning.
♪ ♪
come on.
- Jason's steel is looking good.
- Oh, yeah.
- Cool, calm, and collected.
We have to do multilayer damascus.
Never done that before.
So I can't make any mistakes.
♪ ♪
I try and get all my loose pieces together
and even on all sides,
and I toss it in the forge.
So far, so good.
It's very important that I set these welds properly.
If I squish too much too soon,
it will cause the billet to blow apart.
And I don't have time to start over.
- Matt is being a little more aggressive
than I like to see on a first press.
You can definitely shear some welds
when you're too aggressive.
♪ ♪
- I don't hear any dead space.
So I'm feeling very confident
that my forge welding was a success.
And now it's time to start
drawing it out and shaping the blade.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, you got two hours and 30 minutes
left on the clock!
- It's not up to temp yet.
I've had a full beard since eighth grade.
That's a big fire risk. $10,000 can buy you a lot.
It cannot buy you this. Not for sale.
[bleep], it's hot.
My billet's finally up to heat. I'm ready to go.
Mm.
I gotta set my welds.
Otherwise, the billet's no good.
♪ ♪
- if you don't get a good damascus weld,
you don't have a good billet, you got nothing to turn in.
- Gotta get me one of these.
- It looks like it's welding pretty well.
- And back in the fire with you.
[rock music]
- at this point, my welds are set,
my billet's starting to draw out,
and I'm cruising, man.
♪ ♪
it'd be good to set myself apart from the competition.
So I'm gonna put in a ladder pattern.
Hell, yeah.
- He's putting a ladder pattern there.
- That's awesome. What? Why are you shaking your head?
- Too early. - Oh, all right.
- He's gonna forge almost all of that ladder pattern out.
- Perfect. - Progress.
My billet's looking great,
and out of the corner of my eye,
I see other smiths setting up to do some damascus pattern.
So I'm thinking I need to do the same.
- Now we've got two smiths doing it?
- [laughs] smithy see, smithy do.
- Finished putting in my notches.
Now I can just move on to the next part of making this blade.
♪ ♪
- I see jayden and matt, they're doing ladder pattern.
Mm.
I'm gonna try to outdo them.
So I'm gonna do a twist pattern.
- And here we go. Jason's doing it too.
- Oh, no. - Holy smokes.
This is fantastic. - All right.
- Get two twists on it.
- The twist is putting tons of risk in it
because all those twists
need to now be forge welded together
or you're going to have lines
and cold shuts running throughout the blade.
♪ ♪
- the difficulty with this twist is
to maintain the width on dave baker's blade,
'cause it's wide.
At this point, I'm thinking,
"keeping it simple maybe would have been better."
mm.
- Gentlemen, 90 minutes on the clock!
- That press is nice.
I see the guys going after a ladder pattern.
There's no pattern requirement. They just said damascus.
That's all I'm gonna give them.
I'm not making work for myself.
[rock music]
I spent a lot of time drawing the billet out.
So much metal. And it's still too thick.
So I'm just gonna ditch some of this.
[tense music]
I'm grinding on it.
I'm trying to get that stupid thing to come off.
- We have a thing called a chop saw.
♪ ♪
- there's no point in this competition
that you're not hearing that little clock go boop, boop.
I can feel it. It's counting right there.
That's gonna be fun.
Finally, it pops free.
So I gotta get it in the forge as soon as I can.
It's ugly.
♪ ♪
- nice.
I've got the billet prepped.
I'm gonna forge my entire profile.
And then I'm gonna clean it up on the grinder.
♪ ♪
on the blade that we're supposed to be modeling,
it's got this real gnarly sawback.
And I'm not gonna add that
because I'm confident it's something
I can do post heat treat
if I do make it to the second round.
- Everybody's kind of on the right track.
- Yep.
- It's gonna come down to details.
- As I'm making my blade,
I know that I'm missing something
around the ricasso area.
I think I'm just gonna roll with it
and hope that it will not send me home.
That looks cool.
[rock music]
- good.
I'm happy with the rough shape that I have.
I'm ready to move over to the grinder.
♪ ♪
as I'm on the grinder,
I notice that there's a delam on the side of the blade.
[bleep].
- Oh, no.
- We might have seen a sign of matt
being aggressive with the billet.
- I don't have time for this to be happening.
If I don't get that delam out of there for the quench,
that's going to be a place for a crack to occur.
I'm terrified.
[bleep].
- Matt's in panic mode right now.
[dramatic music]
the only way to fix it
is to weld it up.
- If that weld doesn't solve that problem,
that could snap the blade.
- Oh, yeah.
Welded it up, and it's good to go.
Time is of the essence right now.
I can feel the adrenaline pumping through my veins.
And I'm like, "we're gonna get this done."
[rock music]
- I like it.
I've got the width worked out.
Now I've gotta just start getting the shape of the blade
'cause somebody sped up the time
'cause I don't know where it went.
♪ ♪
I'm dropping the point of the blade,
trying to hit it up towards the tip.
The steel's just not moving like I want it to
at this point.
- I don't know.
Jason's still looks a bit lean.
There doesn't look like there's enough meat
to grind in the aspects we're asking for.
- All right, guys. You are down to 30 minutes.
- That'll do.
I feel good about the profile. It's still a little heavy.
But if I make it to the second round,
there's gonna be room to take care of that.
I'm ready to quench.
♪ ♪
it's [bleep] hot.
- Jayden went into the oil. But he was pretty hot.
- Yeah.
- Get a quick glimpse of the blade,
and it's dead straight.
I am stoked.
Perfect.
♪ ♪
- oh, yeah.
So I've got this thing mostly to shape.
I think it looks like the dave baker special.
Maybe. Kind of.
- Connor has still got a bit of a drop point.
It doesn't really have a curvature to the spine.
It's more like a peak.
- I heat it up to quench temp, and I throw it in.
♪ ♪
- all right, connor's quenched.
- That's nice.
Seems pretty straight.
I'm good to go.
And then I realize,
"oh, man, it's got these weird scallop-y serrations."
I gotta put those in.
- I hate serrations on the back of a blade.
- Then why did you put them on here?
Because you're evil.
- [laughs]
- [bleep], that's ugly.
If I forget any of these features
and the guys around me remember it,
that's a plane ticket home.
Generally, I think my memory
is pretty good.
But I'm just gonna have to roll with it.
There we go.
- Bladesmiths, we're down to 15 minutes!
- Awesome.
[rock music]
- matt's quenched.
- It's looking straight.
I'm starting to get happier now.
And that's when I realize
I forgot the serration.
Oh!
I don't want to get sent home over not having
the feature in the knife.
So now we're in mad dash mode.
I'm putting these serrations in the best I can.
♪ ♪
- man.
There's minutes left on the clock.
I've gotta get this blade quenched.
♪ ♪
- all right. Jason is quenched.
Whoa! So that was hot.
- That was way hot.
- We're good.
At this point, I'm feeling great.
Whoo.
- Jason's blade, it's a long, thin banana.
- Now I'm realizing
this doesn't look as wide as it should be.
The point doesn't look like it's dropped enough.
But I've got no time. This is what we got.
Come on, come on.
- Five, four, three,
two, one.
Gentlemen, turn off your machines,
put down your tools.
This round is over.
- Looking at the competitor's blades,
I've completely forgotten to do the choil.
All of them have some sort of serration on the back
except for me.
I'm hoping that is not counted against me.
- Color me impressed, gentlemen.
There have been times where we've had a blade out
that the smiths had to recreate
that they could see the entire round
and they didn't come out with anything near
as good as you guys did.
So you should all be proud of yourselves.
It is time for the critique.
So, jayden, you're up first. Ready?
- Yes. - All right.
Please present your weapon.
[dramatic music]
- all right, jayden, steel looks clean, tight.
I don't see any seams. Everything's straight.
And looking down at dave's example,
you notice you got a few things that are missing on this piece.
The serrations.
You're missing a couple things in the choil area.
So thinning these out some, adding those on the grinder.
I think you're well on your way.
- Thank you. - Matt, you're up.
You ready? - Absolutely.
- Please present your work.
- All right, matt.
So right off, you actually added
a lot of the elements that we were looking for.
But, dude, that's a whole lot of handle.
You've got a good general shape to work from.
There's a lot of work to go forward on this blade.
Good job. - Thank you.
- All right, connor, you're up next.
Please present your work.
[dramatic music]
- all right, connor, compared to the sample we have,
it's got the curve going, but it drops to a point
as opposed to trail off to a trailing point.
I see a lot of the pieces we're looking for in here,
but they're not refined.
A little refinement, you should be on your way.
- All right, jason. You ready?
- Yes, sir. - All right.
Let's see what you came up with.
[dramatic music]
- all right, jason. You got a good start here.
There's definitely a few issues.
There's a pretty good warp on here.
And it doesn't just warp here.
It actually warps down at the back end too.
The biggest problem is there's not a ton of steel here
to modify it easily to match this.
But overall, good job.
- Thanks, sir. - All right, gentlemen.
Only three of you are moving forward into round two.
The judges have made their decision.
And the bladesmith leaving the forge is...
♪ ♪
jason.
Unfortunately, your blade just didn't make the cut.
And dave's gonna tell you why.
- Jason, trying to replicate that blade
is a monumental task.
And basically, it came down to the fact
that your blade of all four blades
is the furthest from the example.
That, combined with the warp,
that's why we're letting you go.
- Totally understand. - Well, jason,
I'm gonna have to ask you to please
surrender your work and leave the forge.
- Thank you.
In my mind, it was close.
But now that I see the two together,
it's not as close as I thought.
- You did good work, jason.
- It was definitely a humbling experience.
It's a lot harder than I thought.
But that's part of the fun of it.
That's why I do it-- because it's hard.
♪ ♪
- gentlemen, you've got three blades here that got you
into the second round of competition.
So congratulations.
Now, we want you to fix any issues
you have with your blades, as well as add
any of the features that you missed from dave's blade.
Now, we're gonna keep that mounted up here
for this entire round, so you're welcome for that.
Now keeping up with the memory theme,
on the other side of this display,
there are four pictures.
Two of them are mosaic pins,
and two of them are colors.
I want you to match those mosaic pins
and incorporate both of those colors
into your handle material.
I'm gonna spin it around for 30 seconds.
In that time, you've gotta memorize those pictures
and use them in your handle construction.
Your time starts now.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- my one weakness--memory.
It feels like some little evil genius engineered this
perfectly for me to not work out well.
- Three, two, one.
All right, gentlemen, time is up.
Y'all got it? - That's a lot.
- Now, after these two hours are complete,
you'll turn your blades over to the judges.
And we're gonna test for strength and durability
in a copper pipe chop.
And then we're gonna check for edge retention
in a water tube slice.
You've got two hours on the clock.
Your time starts now.
[rock music]
- I gotta tell you,
this entire challenge is just cruel.
- [laughing] - it's rough.
- I never made mosaic pins before.
This is the main thing I'm worried about.
- So what is so difficult about doing the mosaic pin?
- The biggest thing is making sure you get all the air
either out or through the pin.
You don't want to drill through it and then have a bubble.
- I got the mosaic materials cut to size.
Now I'm just gonna fill these big brass tubes with epoxy,
jam everything in there, and hope it goes well.
♪ ♪
- I've made mosaic pins a time or two before.
That's real fiddly work under a time crunch.
This one's gonna have to do.
Normally, it takes me probably 45 minutes.
I don't have that kind of time. So to get it done,
I just decide, if I make a mess,
I don't have to clean it up.
Come on now.
- Connor is spending a lot of time on those mosaic pins.
- It seems like the trap of the mosaic pins
is going down the rabbit hole of making them perfect.
- Stay. Good puppy.
Now it's time to address the blade.
Okay.
- Once I have my mosaic pin constructed, I can go ahead
and cut the handle to be a more manageable size.
♪ ♪
followed by running a bead of weld
on both sides of the handle.
- What does he need to weld on?
- So he needs to weld something on
to create that bird's beak.
♪ ♪
- the bird's beak's coming out.
Now that I've over this hump,
stress is starting to come down a little bit,
but so is the time on the clock.
So far, so good.
- Gentlemen, 30 minutes have elapsed out of round two!
- [sighs]
I missed a couple of features in round one.
So I need to put that in.
The sawback on the spine of the blade
and also this big choil.
The heart rate's a little bit higher.
Just a lot to do and not very much time to do it.
I'm starting to feel the stress a little bit again.
But I'm making sure to take my deep breaths
because smooth--wait, [bleep]-- what is the saying?
Smooth is--slow is smooth and smooth is fast.
That's what it was.
All right.
- A little bit of oil there.
I gotta get some holes for these pins.
[bleep] me.
I tried to leave the handle soft.
Apparently, that didn't work out
'cause that is just harder than a cold coffin nail.
Spending a lot of time doing that.
- Connor's having a little bit of trouble there.
- Oh, [bleep].
I'm getting frustrated with these holes,
but I can't move on until I get the holes drilled.
Nope.
- Uh-oh. - Oh, boy.
Panic's starting to set in.
- Clock is looming over your shoulder.
I don't have time to be messing around with this.
[bleep] me.
I'm just gonna use another means to make that hole.
At least I know it's hard, I guess.
I see a dremel tool and some carbide bits.
Awesome.
- You can take the carbide burr
and use that to drill your hole
even if it's hardened material.
- You can do it, little buddy.
It just melts away that steel.
I wish I had done it way sooner.
That's what I want.
- Matt, to get the colors right,
he grabbed a red and a blue liner.
So he's checking the boxes.
- I'm at the drill press, and I realize
that my mosaic pin is too short.
[bleep].
I don't have enough time to make another one
and do all the other things that I gotta do.
I'm gonna abandon the mosaic pin
and just work on profiling the handle shape
so that it's more comfortable in the judge's hand.
- It's not a parameter failure, but if it comes down to it,
where everybody tests equally,
those mosaic pins and the colors
are really gonna matter.
Bladesmiths, you guys are down to one hour!
[rock music]
- it's mean-looking. My blade's cooling.
I'm gonna start finding handle material.
[bleep] yeah.
I know these scales need to be orange and blue
'cause those are the two colors I saw.
The color is not a fire engine red,
more like a flame red,
which has a lot of orange in it.
- It'll suffice. - I think so.
- I realize that one of these things is not gonna be enough
to cover my entire tang.
So I'm gonna have to cut the other one on an angle
and kind of make an l shape.
Okay.
Now that I got the scales all cleaned up and ready to go,
I'm gonna glue this thing together and clamp it up.
All right.
I got a couple of minutes left to profile this handle
and put on a cutting edge.
♪ ♪
- yeah.
Now that I have my handle squished together
with c clamps,
I can start profiling my edge.
I'm trying to make my edge geometry
as good as I can
so that it'll pass the water tube test
but not so fine
that it's going to break during the copper pipe chop.
♪ ♪
- 15 minutes on the clock!
- Mm.
I got my handles cut to size.
Now I just need to epoxy it all up, get it fit together.
Oh, come on.
And it just won't go.
[tense music]
[bleep]. Oh!
- The wood just popped off the liner.
- "god bless america and all she stands for."
that's what my mom used to say when she was trying to curse.
I gotta keep going though.
Splash some superglue on there.
It bonds instantly.
- Connor's getting the edge on now.
He's cutting it extremely close today.
- All that time that connor spent
on trying to set up those pins
really is coming back to bite him right now.
- Yep. - Five minutes on the clock!
- I don't have a handle shaped.
I also don't have an edge on the blade.
I don't have enough time to do both well.
So I'm gonna do both half well.
It pains me, but it's what I gotta do.
♪ ♪
- five, four, three, two, one.
Turn off your machines. This round is over.
[tense music]
- I am not feeling great.
The blade isn't finished. The handle isn't done.
But I don't know where the other guys are at.
I could be not the worst on the block.
- All right, bladesmiths. Welcome to the strength test.
Copper pipe chop.
Looks simple, but this copper pipe loves tearing up edges.
So I'm gonna give them a few whacks and test the edges,
overall construction of your knives.
You know, what they do to the pipes is cool to see,
but the big thing is what the pipes do to your blades.
Jayden, you're up first. You ready to go?
- Take it easy, but take it.
- [laughs] okay.
- Copper is really soft
and kind of likes to stick on to steel.
It could really easily roll it
or do all sorts of things to it.
My heart is racing at this point
'cause I don't know what's gonna happen.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- [grunts] - cool.
- [grunting]
[speed metal music]
[grunts]
that was gnarly.
- All right, jayden. You got all we asked for.
So your memory must be pretty good.
Couple little chips and rolls.
[tense music]
but otherwise, handle's comfortable.
Great job.
- Thank you. I'm glad I went first.
That was horrifying.
- Matt, you ready for this? - I'm terrified.
- That's all right. We'll do it anyway.
- I've seen past competitions
where the copper pipe chop
does a lot of damage to blades,
and I'm worried that my blade might be next.
I can't count how fast my heart's beating.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- [grunting]
[grunts]
[speed metal music]
[grunts]
- all right, matt, you survived.
Good job.
Blade's still straight. You still have an edge there.
But what happened to the mosaic pins there?
They're not there.
That's one of the things we asked for.
- The mosaic pin that I made, I made it too short.
I had to abandon it to make a functional weapon.
- Okay. It's not a parameter failure.
But that's a bit of an issue.
The handle's fine.
It's actually comfortable back here.
Up here, it's a bit on the thick side.
But your blade's still straight, still sharp,
handle's still on. Good job.
- Thank you. - Connor, how you feeling?
- Less good than I was before I saw you waling away, but--
- [laughs]
it's all right. You're okay.
- Going into testing, my biggest concern
is that it's gonna tear his hand up
'cause it's not a finished handle.
So I'm a little nervous
about him swinging that at the copper pipes.
[tense music]
♪ ♪
- let me talk to these guys for a second.
Feel that.
Right there, you got a little shiv right there.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
- connor, I got a big issue with this.
I know you were rushed at the end.
But this handle is extremely sharp
right where my finger is.
And then the end of the blade right here
is almost like a little shiv digging into my finger.
♪ ♪
leather, tougher than my skin.
♪ ♪
that marks. It's digging into the leather.
I would not feel comfortable
unless I was wearing a glove swinging this.
And that's totally unfair to your competitors.
- I understand completely.
- Connor, man, we hate to see somebody go this way.
J. Unfortunately can't fairly test your weapon.
We want to say thanks for coming out.
You fought really hard. You did great in round one.
But unfortunately, your time here in the forge has ended.
- I understand. Thank you.
♪ ♪
- damn good fight, man.
- In a way, I'm relieved that they gave it
a vote of no confidence.
I did not want j. To swing that and hurt himself.
I wouldn't put it in my hands.
And my hands are pretty calloused.
So it's unfair for me to expect anybody else to do that.
All in all, it's not too bad.
I accomplished my two goals.
Don't get out on round one.
Don't light my face on fire.
Check and check. I feel pretty good about it.
- Gentlemen, congratulations. It's down to the two of you
to decide who's gonna leave here
with the title of "forged in fire" champion
and that check for $10,000.
Now, in this final round, we're sending you back
to your home forges for four days
to build an iconic weapon from history.
We want you to build this.
[dramatic music]
- oh!
- This is the elephant tusk sword.
♪ ♪
- dating as far back as the 6th century b.C.,
the mighty elephant was used during warfare
often armed with the fierce elephant tusk sword.
This lethal weapon featured a socket
that connected directly to the elephant's tusk.
The double-edge blade was designed
to inflict massive destruction
as the elephant charged through barricades
and ranks of enemy soldiers.
Throughout history, there is evidence
of thousands of elephant tusk swords being used in battle.
However, only four pairs of these intimidating weapons
still exist today.
- There's a lot of parameters here.
So I hope you've got a mind like an elephant.
Your swords must have a flamberge blade
and feature at least two peaks.
You need to have two fullers on both sides.
And that blade needs to measure between 16 and 17 inches
from tip to center of the base.
And the whole system needs to mount securely
with a mechanical fixture to the metal tusk we supply.
- I've never seen anything like it.
I'm trying to figure out how I'm even gonna construct this.
The terrifying feeling is starting to set in again.
- Good luck. We'll see you in four days.
- Hell, yeah.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
- back here in knoxville at my home forge,
we're gonna build the elephant tusk sword.
All right. Here we go.
For today, my goals are to get most of the forging done
if not all of it.
The first thing I'm doing is using this chunk of 5160,
I'm going to try and draw that out to the required width.
Got a little ways to go.
I've got my width that I'm looking for.
But my workpiece might be a little too thin.
I'm going to try and forge weld in a mild steel medial ridge.
So I'm going to get some mild steel
and try and forge weld that onto both sides.
♪ ♪
a little ways to go.
[bleep].
So I see a little bit of surface cracking here.
Just want to make sure I don't have to start over.
It's gotta go.
I know for sure that I have a bad forge weld.
♪ ♪
well, that sucks.
At this point, I'm really frustrated.
I really don't have time for this.
I've decided to just run beads of weld
that I can grind away later.
I hope this doesn't affect the integrity of my blade.
[rock music]
- all right, we're back in boulder, colorado,
here at my home forge.
And we're gonna start working
on the elephant tusk sword.
So I've decided to do damascus for this blade,
hopefully to set myself apart from the competition
just that extra little bit.
Oh, yeah.
So the first heat of any forge welding process
is always the most important.
This is when I need to make sure
I get all of my welds set up,
and I make sure that I avoid
any sort of delam or inclusion.
Everything's looking good.
I think that it's all welded up well.
I think I'm gonna finish forging the blade
right as the day ends,
which is exactly where I want to be.
♪ ♪
- day two, I'm a little bit behind schedule
of where I wanted to be.
But I gotta quench by the end of the day today.
All right. Now we're cooking.
The sword is meant for an elephant.
So the amount of force that's gonna go into the blade
is gonna be off the charts.
We want as even of a heat as we can get.
Check it with a magnet.
Make sure that we're at a critical temp
and then pull it out, drop it in my quench oil.
♪ ♪
good so far.
[tense music]
I don't see any cracks. All the welds held up.
Nothing blew apart.
So far, so good.
Now just to make it look pretty.
[rock music]
- today, I got a lot to do.
I'm going to start preparing to weld
the socket cap onto the blade.
I'm gonna start prepping the blade
to weld these on just like that.
And then run a bead of weld all the way through here.
So welding high-carbon steel to mild steel
is a pretty risky and tricky operation.
If I do these welds incorrectly,
I will end up with cracks;
I could end up with the whole blade
basically just breaking off.
If these welds don't go well, the blade's done,
and I'm just gonna have to restart.
And I really don't want that to happen.
[dramatic music]
♪ ♪
the welds ended up great.
So I'm feeling good about where I am.
♪ ♪
- it's day four.
Gonna be a lot of coffee today. [laughs]
yesterday, I finished shaping the blade.
So today, I'm gonna start off
by securing the blade to the socket.
I'm worried about possibly overheating the blade.
So I'm gonna have to take some extra care
to make sure that heat doesn't travel
and ruin the temper on the blade.
Let that cool off.
Doing a kind of test fit of the sword.
Perfect.
Everything goes together smooth as silk.
This blade is crazy.
I never would have imagined myself
making something like this.
So I'm kind of excited to see
what kind of destruction it does.
Or maybe the sword falls apart. I don't know.
Looks pretty sweet.
[rock music]
- yesterday, I got the blade heat-treated
and quenched; it's hard.
And today's mostly just gonna be making this thing beautiful
and put an edge on it. That's really it.
Making a sword that's not designed
to be swung by a person
but is meant to be behind an elephant,
it's a bit of a challenge.
So I'm gonna grind it like I would an ax.
I'm gonna do big convex edges.
Because all that extra meat in there
will help support the cutting edge itself.
That's exactly how I wanted it.
It's way cooler than I ever thought it would have been.
And I'm happy with it.
At this point, I could show up,
and on the first hit, it could snap in half
and I'd walk away happy.
I hope it doesn't though. I do want to win.
[laughs]
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
- well, gentlemen, welcome back to the forge.
Guys, you had four days to work on your elephant tusk swords,
and they look great.
We're about to have a lot of fun with them.
But before we get into that,
I wanna hear about these builds.
So, jayden, how did your build go for you?
- Went great.
Made it out of 1084 and 15n20 damascus.
Did a fluted socket and a couple of ferrules on there.
- Fantastic. Matt, how about you?
- Blade went well.
The blade itself is made out of 5160,
and it's got a mild steel socket
that attaches it to an elephant tusk.
- All right, gentlemen.
One of you is gonna be leaving here
with a check for $10,000
and the title of "forged in fire" champion.
But the only way for us to find out
which one you is coming out on top
is put them through a few tests.
And up first, the keal. Doug.
[dramatic music]
- bladesmiths, welcome to the keal test.
In battle, these swords were attached to elephants
who just rammed across its opponents.
To find out what kind of lethal damage your weapon will do,
we're gonna go hog wild on this ballistics dummy.
Jayden, you're up first. You ready for this?
- Hell, yeah. - Let's do this.
- That thing is gonna be putting a lot of force
behind the blade.
The biggest thing I'm worried about right now
is the blade snapping.
[tense music]
[rock music]
ooh.
♪ ♪
ah!
♪ ♪
I wasn't expecting his head to come off.
[both laugh]
- all right, jayden, let's talk about your weapon here.
Every thrust was deadly.
It went all the way through.
What I do like is, I can see the damascus pattern
on your blade there.
Jayden, your elephant tusk sword, it will keal.
♪ ♪
- that's all I wanted.
- All right, matt. Your turn, sir. You ready?
- Hopefully my sword is not "irr-elephant" after this test.
[laughter] - we're gonna have fun.
- I don't think there's been a test yet
that's gonna have this much force behind it.
When it comes to a dead stop, it can snap just like that.
[tense music]
[rock music]
- cool.
♪ ♪
- all right, matt, it penetrates very deep.
And on the way out, it cuts.
It's a weighted weapon right here that,
when it thrusts-- you see the hole
right in the middle of the ballistics dummy?
It destroyed everything in there.
Your weapon right here, it will keal.
- Thank you, doug.
[suspenseful music]
- all right, gentlemen.
For the strength test,
we've mounted your elephant tusk swords
on our battering ram here.
And I will be attacking that armored soldier.
All right, jayden. You ready for this?
- Yeah, let's do it. - Okay.
- The tip is the weakest point in my blade.
And it's also where all of the force is gonna be delivered.
So my heart is pounding.
My ears are rushing.
I'm just hoping that it holds up.
[dramatic music]
oof.
[rock music]
ooh.
♪ ♪
that's terrifying.
[suspenseful music]
- jayden, I really have to commend you
on the artistry of this blade.
The low-layer pattern really pops.
The connections here are all really beautifully done.
And for this test, that tip still has an edge.
Everything is right and tight and true and nothing's changed.
Well done. - Thank you.
- Matt, you ready to roll?
- Absolutely. - Okay.
[suspenseful music]
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- [laughs]
♪ ♪
[tense music]
- so matt, your blade held up fine.
The tip,
it's a little bit duller than what it started out with,
but I wouldn't run my finger down this edge.
So, nicely done. It held up beautifully.
- Thank you.
♪ ♪
- all right, bladesmiths.
We know your weapons can keal and we know they are strong.
Now it's time to find out how sharp your weapons are.
This is the sharpness test, the guillotine fruit slice.
I'm gonna take your elephant tusk sword, release it,
and try to cut through the fruit.
I want to see clean cuts all the way through.
Jayden, you're up first. You ready?
- Hell, yeah. - All right. Let's do this.
♪ ♪
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- nice.
♪ ♪
- all right, jayden, your edge here
cut all the way through cleanly.
Bottom line, sir, your elephant tusk sword, it will cut.
All right, matt. Your turn, sir. You ready?
- I'm ready. - Okay.
[rock music]
♪ ♪
- [exhales] - all right, matt.
Let's talk about your weapon here.
The weight on this, it drives the cut all the way through.
Your edge is sharp.
More importantly, sir, it will cut.
- Thank you, doug.
[dramatic music]
- well, jayden, matt, you guys both performed
exceptionally well during your tests.
But as you know, only one of you guys will be leaving here
with the title of "forged in fire" champion.
While the judges deliberate,
I'm gonna ask you to please step off the forge floor.
♪ ♪
- I'm a little unsure of what's gonna happen.
Both matt and I brought great work.
They both performed really well.
They held up really well.
So at this point, it's anyone's guess.
♪ ♪
- it seems like about neck and neck.
What do you think about the blades?
- Well, I mean, these are one of the most
out-of-the-box weapons we've asked a smith to make.
And I think they both knocked it out of the park.
- They pretty much performed equally.
So it's all about the craftsmanship.
- One of them, craft wise,
is just on a different level. - Okay.
So it sounds like you guys are all in agreement
on who's going home with the win.
All right, we'll call them back in.
♪ ♪
well, gentlemen, this is the kind of test
that we like to see.
We've got two smiths who performed almost equally.
But as you guys know, only one of you is gonna be
leaving here with a check for $10,000
and the title of "forged in fire" champion.
The judges have made the decision.
And today's "forged in fire" champion is...
♪ ♪
jayden. Congratulations.
You won, man. Matt, unfortunately,
that means you did not come out on top today.
And dave's gonna tell you why.
- Well, matt, first off, you made us
a target-destroying piece of work there.
But when two weapons test identically,
it comes down to those finer details, fit and finish.
That's why we're letting you go.
- I understand. - Well, matt, I want to say,
you absolutely earned your spot here in the finals.
But unfortunately, your time here in the forge has ended.
I'm gonna have to ask you to please step out.
- I'm proud of the sword that I've turned in.
They were virtually the same performance.
Good job, man. - Yeah, you too.
- And jayden's weapon,
he turned in a work of art,
and I think he deserves the title.
First thing I'm gonna do when I get home:
Kiss my wife and crack open a beer.
[laughs]
- well, jayden, that means you
are today's "forged in fire" champion.
You're gonna be leaving here with a check for $10,000, man.
Congratulations. - Thank you.
[applause]
I'm the new "forged in fire" champion,
and I'm really stoked about it.
- How old are you again? - 19.
- 19 years old.
That is extremely impressive, man.
- Thank you. Whoo!
I'm so bad at emotion.
[laughs]
[rock music]
♪ ♪